Making a Time Machine Backup from a networked computer

I have two identical macbook pro laptops with identical os Mac OS X 10.6.7 (10J869)
Macbook one has a frozen screen from a bad logic card. This macbook never had time machine implimented.
Macbook two is now tied to Macbook one via firewire and I can access all of macbook one's files.
My question is, can I make a time machine backup of macbook one using the current firewire connection and then reinstall that to macbook two?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Download and install SuperDuper on MBP1's hard drive.
With MBP1 in FireWire Target Disk Mode, connect your external USB drive to MBP2 and open SuperDuper. Select MBP1's drive as the source and the external drive as the target for the clone, and select "Backup — all files". Click the Copy Now button and enter your admin password. This will make the external drive an exact, bootable replica (clone) of MBP1's hard drive, erasing anything that was on the external drive previously. It may take anywhere from half an hour to several hours, depending on how much is stored on the drive, and it will show you a progress bar to indicate how far along it is. It's a very good idea not to use the computer for anything else while this process is going on. Plan to leave it alone until the cloning is finished.
Once that's done, restart MBP2 while holding down the Option key to invoke the Startup Manager, and select the external drive to start up from. If the startup goes normally (it may be slower than normal, but otherwise should be about the same) and the computer seems to run the way you would have expected MBP1 to run if it were working, you're ready to clone the external drive onto MBP2's internal drive. This will erase everything that's now on MBP2, so make sure anything that you need to back up is taken care of before proceeding. You'll need to back that stuff up to a different external drive from the one that contains the clone of MBP1, or to burned CDs or DVDs.( In a pinch, you can back it up to the drive in MBP1 if there's room for it there, but if you do so, keep it separate from the stuff that was on MBP1 before you cloned it, so you won't have trouble finding and identifying the MBP2 backed-up data again. And don't overwrite or erase any of the stuff that was already on MBP1 until it has been safely installed on MBP2.)
When you're satisfied that everything from MBP2 that needs backing up has been attended to, open the copy of SuperDuper that now resides on the external drive. Designate that drive as the source and MBP2's drive as the target, and repeat the cloning process. When that's finished, MBP2's drive too will be an exact, bootable replica of MBP1's drive (and of the external drive, of course), and you will need only to copy back onto it whatever data you backed up from it before the second cloning operation.
The success of this procedure in producing a bootable copy of MBP1's drive on MBP2's drive relies very heavily on your statement that the two MBPs are exactly the same model. If that isn't true, all bets are off.

Similar Messages

How can I use the Time Machine Backups from my Old Computer?

I have two months of Time Machine backups made using my old Macintosh computer which died and I no longer have. I have now purchased a new computer and am trying to use the Time Machine back ups from the original computer, but it will not recognise them. How can I get my new MacBook Pro to use the Time Machine Backups from my old Computer? I phoned the Apple help line and they said I cannot use them and would have to delete them. This sounds crazy if you can only use the Time Machine back up file with one computer and have to delete it when you buy a new Mac. Surely there must be some way to transfer ownership (not files) from an old to the new Mac?
Thanks
Richard

Thanks Kevin for the suggestion posted on MacOSXHints how to "Repair Time Machine after logic board changes".
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101
It seems as though I am not alone with my frustration with the way Time Machine uses the MAC address of a computer to tell one system from another. This means that if you have your Mac repaired with a new logic board, or replace your system with a new one, you can't resume backups where you left off. Reading through the readers who used the fix using Terminal, it appears that the fix does not always work. I contacted Apple again, but they were no help. Surely Apple should come out with a solution as more and more people use Time Machine/Time Capsule.
It is CRAZY that after a change computers or a switch in the computer logic board that you cannot resume your Time Machine back ups.

Restore Time machine backup from a stolen computer to a different Mac Pro

*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
D. Copy and paste the entire file structure to a directory someplace and pull off the data as I need it?
*End result: I want my external hard disk wiped ASAP, and in the meantime I want my data files preserved.*
The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

lhbilly wrote:
*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
start Migration Assistant located in /Application/Utilies. it has an option to migrate your data and applications from a TM backup. migrate what you want. note that users will be migrated to new users so to access your old home directory you'll have to log out and log in as the migrated user.
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
D. Copy and paste the entire file structure to a directory someplace and pull off the data as I need it?
*End result: I want my external hard disk wiped ASAP, and in the meantime I want my data files preserved.*
The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

Access Time Machine Backup from a different computer

Hi everyone,
I have recently had to put my Macbook in for repair and have been told it will be about a month before I get it back. My wife has a Macbook of her own, so I using that for the time being to continue working on my MA essays due in the next two weeks. My problem is that I dutifully did a complete backup of my files through Time Machine before sending my own Macbook away, only to find I cannot access the files on my wife's computer!
I realise this is completely my fault, but the files in the Time Machine backup represent months of work and I desperately need access to them! I have tried accessing the backups via Time Machine, and when this failed I went through Finder to the Backup folder on my external hard drive, only to find a little no entry sign next to the relevant folders. When I try to open them I get told I 'do not have sufficient access privileges'. Is there ANY way around this? I am desperate!

The Northern Contingent wrote:
Hi everyone,
I realise this is completely my fault, but the files in the Time Machine backup represent months of work and I desperately need access to them! I have tried accessing the backups via Time Machine, and when this failed I went through Finder to the Backup folder on my external hard drive, only to find a little no entry sign next to the relevant folders. When I try to open them I get told I 'do not have sufficient access privileges'. Is there ANY way around this? I am desperate!
You should post this with something to do with "Access privileges" in the title so the right people read it - those who don't use Time Machine probably won't bother with this thread. You were right to try a direct-access route through the Finder, because you can drag Time Machine files directly when you need to. I don't know enough about permissions to help you with the permission thing; it might be as simple as setting up an account on your wife's machine that has the same username and password as your own machine.
But note (in regard to the Jeremy's post) that if you do get a new logic board - yes, he's right, you'll have a different MAC address, which means you can't continue on with your TM backups. But you can't change the MAC address on the logic board; instead, there's a nice, geeky way to change the Time Machine backups record of what MAC address they were married to. You'll find the info here:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101

Open time machine backup from a different computer

I just got a new MBA and want to restore some apps from my MB pro that has a larger disk drive than my new one.
So I don't want to restore everything as it will not fit on the new computer.
Can I restore some of my apps and folders from a previous MBP backup ?

You can do that through Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities) > http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html It lets you choose which apps and folders you want to restore.
Another way would be to restore your files from the MacBook Pro backup manually. To do it, you need these steps > http://pondini.org/TM/E3.html

Move Time Machine backup from hard drive to Time Capsule

I have a new Time Capsule. Can I move my existing Time Machine backup from a hard drive to the TC? The tips given back in 2010 in this forum are no longer available.

It is extremely difficult if the disk you are talking about is plugged into your computer.. TM does different kind of file for network drives.. so you need to trick it.
See Q18 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Transferring Time Machine backup from old to new Time Capsule

After transferring my old Time Machine backup from a 5 year old Time Capsule to a new Airport Time Capsule, my MacBook Air wants to start a new full Time Machine backup to the new TC. I was under the impression that the Time Machine backups would pick up where they left off. Was I mistaken? Is the backup supposed to begin anew even if you've transferred an old backup?
Also, if it must begin from scratch, how would I access the old TM backups if I needed to restore a file from the old backup?
Thanks for any help you can provide.

pmpknetr21 wrote:
After transferring my old Time Machine backup from a 5 year old Time Capsule to a new Airport Time Capsule, my MacBook Air wants to start a new full Time Machine backup to the new TC.
How far did you go? By that I mean did you allow the MBA to actually start the backup.
It can be very simple thing.. I have done it lots of times in my repairs to Time Capsules.. if I move a sparsebundle to another location, TM will not even check for the old sparsebundle until it start running.
So the operation is as follows..
Move the sparsebundle.
There is an Apple document as well as what Pondini produced.
Transfer TM backups..
Apple doco. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5097
Pondini doco http://pondini.org/TM/18.html
As long as you are talking network backups it doesn't much matter. The same rules apply to moving the sparsebundle.
When you reset TM to the new location of the backup.. it will always tell you it will begin a new backup..
As long as you did not change the computer name.. or install a new OS or upgrade.. only when the backup actually starts will it look for existing sparsebundles.. find it.. and begin from where it left off.
So you simply have to start. Wait for TM to figure out there is an existing sparsebundle with the correct name.. and start what will often be a deep scan of the existing sparsebundle. So it can take a long time.. and we do still recommend doing this first one by ethernet.. albeit on an Air that does mean buying the thunderbolt to ethernet dongle.
As a general principle I generally recommend people do start a new backup. Archive the old one.. it is easy to access old backups.. Again see pondini FAQ.. 14-17 on all the neato things you can do.

Moving Time Machine backups from Time Capsule to External USB Drive

Hi all,
hoping someone out there can help I'm trying to move my time machine backups from my old Time Capsule to my external USB drive. I've already used the Airport Utility to "archive" my Time Capsule to a USB connected WD MyBook Elite.
Right now my WD MyBook Elite has both the archive, and recent (roughly 5 backups) of both my MacBook & MacMini. I've tried to follow the seemingly simple steps located in the FAQ's here [URL="http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html#id22"]Copy NETWORK backups to be used LOCALLY[/URL] , but I cannot past step 1.
[Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
Any advice?
I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
Mac Mini & MacBook.
Thank you in advance.

Dark Heart wrote:
[Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
That's not referring to the sparse bundle you're copying FROM, but the new volume you just formatted on the USB drive you're copying TO.
If you didn't just format the partition, that box may not be shown -- it not, there's no problem and you don't need to do anything in that step.
I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
Mac Mini & MacBook.
I'm not sure what you mean by that: you cannot combine the backups of two different Macs. You can put them both on the same hard drive, either in two different partitions, or, if any are going to be backed-up over a network, in a sparse bundle.
If I've misunderstood, please clarify exactly what you're trying to do.

Migration Assistant in Lion won't recognize Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard

I just got an iMac with Lion. I am trying to use the Migration Assistant to move my files/apps etc from a Time Machine backup to the new computer. The MA will not recognize the backup drive - (external firewire 800). I can see the backup drive on my desktop but it does not show up as an option to choose in the Migration Assistant. Any idea what might be wrong. The backup is from an iMac running Snow Leopard and all the system software was last updated on Dec 9th. It think it is as current as I could get with Snow Leopard. Any ideas what is wrong?
Thanks,
Chad

This happened to me after hard drive replacement under the Seagate Drive Recall at the local Apple Store. Here's what I learned from the process:
I Wagged the Mac home, fired it up (with naked OS installed at the Apple Store), and it wouldn't see my Time Machine drive with Setup Assistant - not on firewire 800 nor USB. Just a grey spinner that lasts forever. When I try just continuing anyway, it offers me something that looks plausible, but then puts up a dialog about duplicate user name, and no matter what I enter, it always says "that user already exists". So I think - maybe Migration Assistant. Complete the setup, create an account, watch the nice welcome movie. BAM - there's my Time Machine drive on the desktop. OK - it has to work . . . but no. Same behavior in Migration Assistant, plus the new OS offers to start making backups on my Time Machine disk - it's not recognizing it at all.
So - back to the Apple Store - let the genius figure it out. It turns out there are multiple problems. First, the "genius" who imaged my new machine picked 10.7.2 but my machine had 10.7.5 - turns out, it's not enough just to have right cat. Even a point release older OS may not recognize a newer Time Machine drive. The guy at the desk said "We have images of everything but the 10.7.2 has free iLife in it, so they like to use that one". What the heck? They don't image what you had originally as a matter of sane process?
Having figured that out, we re-image 10.7.5 at the store thinking we've fixed it. But no - Setup Assistant still won't see the Time Machine drive. Not on USB, not on Firewire. Not in a box, not with a fox.
So here's the second trick - newer machines have a recovery partion. see: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ Boot with the option key held down, pick that partition, then you'll get a "system restore" option, to restore your whole system from a Time Machine backup. My drive was recognized by the recovery partition restore process when neither Setup nor Migration Assistant would. Obviously, there's something broken in Setup/Migration Assistant.
Takeaway:
- if you're getting a drive replaced by Apple, make sure they image *exactly* the same OS
- if Setup Assistant fails, use the recovery partition for system restore
- Use Recovery Disk Assistant http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 NOW to make yourself a recovery thumb drive just in case. With Apple's new "no media" approach to the OS, you're hosed without it.

Help with restoring from Time Machine Backup from another computer

I was required to dump my Mac OSX on my MacBook Pro and convert to a windows machine to use a testing software that did not allow boot camp. Before doing so, I backed up my hard drive to a partition of my iMac via a wireless connection. I am now using a boot disk to try to restore my system from the Time Machine backup on the iMac. I have logged onto my wireless network, but the Mac OSX Installer just keeps saying "Searching for Time Machine Backups..." My iMac is on (typing this now) and is active on the network. What do I need to do to be able to see my Time Machine backup from my MacBook Pro?

Hi m,
I don't know if this would make a difference or not, but you could try booting the iMac in FireWire Target Disk Mode.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

Remove all time machine backups from a certain date and backward

Right, so here's what I want to do: I want to navigate back to a specific date -- for arguments sake let's say June -- and remove all time machine backups from that date and earlier. Is there an easy way to do so without going through every entry in time machine and "removing backup"?
I want to migrate my time machine backups to a new drive, but realize I don't really need EVERYTHING here since its for an older machine. So what I'd like to do is get my rather large 1.5 TB time machine backup down to a more manageable size and then migrate it to a new drive.

I don't recommend deleting Time Machine snapshots. If you have multiple backup volumes, which you should have, and you need to repurpose one of them, you should just erase it. But if you want to try it anyway, and if you're running OS X 10.8 or later (not any older version), see below.
Don't attempt this procedure unless you have at least one other complete backup of all the data. You should have another backup anyway — one is never enough to be safe.
Navigate in the Finder to your backup disk, and then to the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume. If you back up over a network, you'll first have to mount the "sparsebundle" file containing your backups by double-clicking it. Descend into the folder until you see the snapshots, which are represented by folders with a name that begins with the date of the snapshot. Drag the ones you don't want to the Trash and empty. Sometimes, for unknown and unpredictable reasons, the Trash will fail to empty with a cryptic error message. I don't know of any way to recover from that condition except to erase the backup volume and start over.

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work. Help?

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work.
^^ that's the main problem. Here's the full history.
I bought a new 13" i5 MBP, early 2011 edition. I had an old white Macbook 2.14 ghz core2duo on Snow Leopard. I attempted to port over my time machine backup, but encountered problems in that my User was inaccessible from the new computer after the import finished, and I had to go in and change the root password, etc, and for some reason or another, I couldn't install any programs at all from that administrator's account. By "couldn't" I mean I could install them, but upon installation they would never boot. So, I took it to the apple store and did a clean install from the most up to date Lion OSX. Then, I created a brand new admin account, instead of trying to import the old one, and things seemed great. Then, I just imported my old files from the TM backup, but not any system settings, permissions, or user data. Just my Docs, pics, vids, apps, and itunes stuff.
Here's where things get weird again. I imported this stuff under the name "old", but all of these folders have a red negative sign on them, marking them as restricted. So, from my main admin account, I cannot even peruse these folders. Since I didn't import user data, I can't sign in to the "old" account to change permissions. I already tried to change the permissions from system preferences, but that didn't change anything. And now, for whatever reason, of all the apps that were imported then, MS Office is the only set of apps that does not work. When I click on it, it just says there was a problem and asks if I'd like to send a report to apple. I tried reinstalling it to no avail. I'm an English student, so i really need access to Word. Can anyone help? The Apple store is a major detour for me and would like to fix this issue myself.

Most likely you have Office 2004 which are PPC-only applications and will not work in Lion. Upgrade to Office 2011. Other alternatives are:
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.)
Open Office (Office 2007-like suite compatible with OS X.)
NeoOffice (similar to Open Office.)
LibreOffice (a new direction for the Open Office suite.)

How can I copy a time machine backup from one Time Capsule to another ?

How can I copy a time machine backup from one Time Capsule to another ? I bought a 1 Tb Time Capsule to replace my 512Mb Time Capsule. Now, I like to copy my time machine backup from the old Time Capsule to the new one so I can keep using my backup.

from this support article:
(click on image to enlarge)

How can I "Put Back" a time machine backup from the trash to my external hard drive?

Basically what happened was I accidentally put an older time machine backup from my external hard drive into the trash on my macbook. Since then, time machine has made new backups onto my external hard drive. How can I either "Put Back" or replace the deleted backup back into my hard drive?
Whenever I try to move it it says "A newer item named “Backups.backupdb” already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the older one you’re moving?" I click replace and after a few minutes of loading, it says "Cannot replace. An item named "" already exists."

As long as you don't delete the trash, the files should be recoverable.
I suspect using the Put Back command could take a long time, so be patient.
If your Time Machine backups are mixed with your daughter's backups you might want to buy a larger drive and move the Time Machine files to the new drive.
Regarding missing photos in iPhoto...There might be options to rebuild/recover that data from iPhoto rather than trying to revert to a Time Machine backup.
Check out this third party app, iPhoto Library Manager. It has a demo.
http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/
Options for a larger drive.
I like the Seagate USB 3.0 Backup plus drives. Works on USB 2.0 ports. They come formatted for PC but easy to format in Disk Utility.
I don't recommend Western Digital because of the boot problem with some of their drives.
LaCie makes good drives.
All Mac formatted drives will cost more and it’s easy to reformat with Disk Utility. Do not use the software that comes with the drives. It’s recommended that you use Apple’s Disk Utility.
Prices vary but this gives you an idea of what you’ll find. As you notice the second and third TB is usually only $15 more per TB. Normally, you’ll find these prices but right now the 1T is more than the 2T
Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 $85
Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB USB 3.0 $99
Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB USB 3.0 $115
I have seen the 3T on sale for $99.
Locally, Best Buy seems to have the best prices.

I've mistakenly deleted Time Machine backups from my external HDD. How do I fix this?!

I manually deleted several Time Machine backups from my external HDD. Whenever I attempt to empty trash, it states (error code -22) has occurred. How do I fix my predicament?
I understand (now) that I should never do this and ONLY delete from the Time Machine app itself but I did not assume this would be so complex by taking a blind stab at it. How do I either a) place the Time Machine backups where the originated (Put Back is not an option when right-clicked) or b) successfully delete these so I can clear my bin.
I am running Mac OS 10.10 on a 13" MacBook Air (mid-2013) w/ 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. My external drive is a 5400 RPM WD USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.

Try Trash won't empty deleted time machine backups

Making a Time Machine Backup from a networked computer

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