HT4889 Using USB time machine drive to move to new rMBP and Migration assistant can't find my drive
I have a time machine backup on my USB drive. I can see it clearly in finder, then when I run migration assistant, it can't be found.
I've tried repairing the disk, it's fine, it just can't find it. Any ideas?
Both machines are on the same rev of Mt. Lion, 2010 MBP and 2013 rMBP. . . .
Please advise.
--Andrew
No, both the backup and the new system are OSX10.6.
I'm afraid your solution doesn't work. If I go through finder and open up the folders on the backup, and try, for example, to open my "Movies" folder (which is one I dearly hope to recover), I get a message that:
"The folder "Movies" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
I have tried Repair Permissions, but this doesn't help. All of the important folders have a little red stop sign on them.
Thanks though.
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I have tried Repair Permissions, but this doesn't help. All of the important folders have a little red stop sign on them.
Thanks though. -
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Hi,
I have an iMac that I replaced an harddrive through Apple´s Seagate program. Now I am trying to get use the Migration Assistant to get my backup onto the new harddrive and I am having the most frustrating problem. I am running OS X 10.6.8 and have an external (Synology NAS) mounted by ethernet to the iMac and I can´t get Migration Assistant to select the correct disk.
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https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193144?start=15&tstart=0 -
Hi,
Wonder if someone has a suggestion for getting Migration assistant to recognize my external drive so that I can transfer some PC files from it to my MacBook Pro? I have been opening files in the drive with the Mac without a problem and I ran the diagnostics utility and the drive verified. Still, migration assistant spins and spins without finding anything. There's a lot of files and doing it manually with take days.
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Go to the Apple drop down menu and select Force Quit.. and if Migration Assistant has failed, force quit it and try re-launching it again from your Applications Utility folder. -
Hi,
I'm trying to back up my macbook with time machine on the Lacie external driver I usualy use for this, but today my computer doesn't find the driver. I haven't done back up in 6 month.
Today, the Lacie driver is pluged and running, but the computer just does'nt find it.
what shall I do ?Some things to consider:
Is the drive mounted, i.e., visible via Finder and/or on the Desktop?
Is the drive still selected in System Preferences, Time Machine? If not, use the "Select Disk" button.
Is Time Machine still turned on (System Preferences, Time Machine)?
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charlie -
Can time machine work if i don't have and don't connect an external hard drive to it?
will time machine work if i dont have an external hard drive?
thebunnys wrote:
will time machine work if i dont have an external hard drive?
Yes, if you partition your internal hard disk into at least two volumes, and use one of them to run Mac OS X from, and the other for TM backup.
This method protects against directory damage and mistakes. However, it offers no protection in case of hard drive failure. Since all hard drives fail sooner or later, it's much better to use an external hard disk for Time Machine.
Optimally, you should have at least two working, up-to-date backups, made with different methods (eg, a Time Machine backup and a Carbon Copy Cloner backup). -
My Retina Macbook Pro died due to a hardware error. During the diagnosis I was asked by Apple support personnel to format and reinstall OSX, which I did but did not fix the issue. The mainboard has since been replaced and I am trying to restore the TimeMachine backup I have.
The USB disk containing the TimeMachine backup contains TimeMachine backups for two different computers, my last Mac and the one I owned before that, which died earlier this year.
When I plug the drive in, I am able to browse the backups from both machines, as shown in the screenshot below.
The problem comes in when I attempt to run the migration assistant. I select the first option (restore from USB drive, etc). The migration assistant finds the USB volume and in the list underneath shows backups from a single computer - which it calls Unknown. The date of the last back is shown as 10 December 2012, the same date as the last backup from my old Mac (doolittle). There is no trace of the backups from my new mac.
Any ideas of how to get around this?
Thanks
Andrewhttp://pondini.org/OSX/MigrationProblems.html
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Migration assistant can't find my time machine backups?
Here's the situation: I just bought a new 13" Macbook Pro 2.53 GHz last night to replace my current 13" white Macbook. I've kept Time Machine backups on the white MB for well over a year on an external 500GB USB drive, so I figured I'd use migration assistant to move all my data over. Well, I plugged in my external HD to my new computer, it recognized the disk, and asked if I wanted to use it as my time machine backup disk for the computer: I said no, for the time being. Then I went to migration assistant, opted to restore from my backups.... but when I got to selecting from where, it gave me no options, just a totally blank selection screen. I figured I must have screwed up, so I tried rebooting, then making the external HD my backup location, all to no avail. The only thing I can think of that's messing it up is the fact that I have probably 50GB of virtual machines and other things on the HD in a separate folder from my backups.
What am I doing wrong?mily_pl wrote:
I've found the solution!
You have to simply delete from TM disk all backup folders made by Snow Leopard. Then migration assistant will see your backups made from 10.5 Leopard.
Do that only as a last resort, and only via TM, not the Finder, as that can hopelessly corrupt your backups. See item #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
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