Miggration assistant does not see time machine backup disk

I recently had a power surge that fried my hard disk. Erased the disk, reinstalled Mountain Line and when I get tot he dialogue box for Migrating all my setting and files etc from my Time Machine Backup it cannot see the disk. It sees the Bootabel backup I made on a partition on that disk but not all my Time Machine Back-ups. The bootable disk is in Lion not Mountain line and does not contain all the latest settings, applications etc. How can I get to the latest Time Machine Back-ups? Help Please!

See Pondini's Excellent information here...
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
Also See the Second Chance to Use Setup Assistant here...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

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Mavericks Migration assistant does not see time machine backup of older Lion Mac

Used to have a Macbook Pro. It was stolen (circa July 2014). Luckily I had up to date Time Machine Backups. The Macbook Pro was completely up to date running the latest OSX Lion (circa July 2014) when stolen.
Bought a new Macbook Air just now (Mar 2015).
Plugged in the old Mac's Time Machine Backup Disk, Migration Assistant doesn't see the old Mac's Backups.
So I setup the new Macbook Air without restoring.
Plugged in old backup drive, am able to navigate to old Mac's Time Machine Backups.
Tried running Migration Assistant many time , but still it does not see the the old Mac's Time Machine Backups. (although they continue to show in the drive if I navigate to it)
Pls help so I can migrate the old Mac to the new Mac!!!!

Thanks Turbostar.
Well, I think there should be solution to use TIME CAPSULE restore as it should I mean I bought Time Capsule because it is easy to use and I really do not want to solve any issues or make any workarounds.
I think APPLE should resolve this ASAP. Meantime maybe anybody knows any trick about this issue?

Migration assistant does not recognize time machine backup

Hi Guru,
I made a time machine backup today, 10.8.2, then made full reinstall of system in Apple store, in Berkeley, because my iMac experinced some unstability.
we installed new Mac OS, and now I face a problem: migration assistant does not recognize hard disk with buckup.
Finder sees this disk, it has Backups folder.
OS: 10.8.2
BackUp made: Time Machine 10.8.2
Hard Disk: Lacie 500MB
any ideas?
Thank you

I am conserned about restoring using setup assistant because I need to transfer personal files and applications only.
You can do that in Setup Assistant.
Migration Assistant doesn't accept Time Machine backups of the computer it's running on; it only accepts compatible backups of other computers. You can't migrate a system to itself. To restore files from the same computer, enter Time Machine in the usual way, or else boot into Recovery and either restore the whole startup volume or erase, reinstall OS X, and restore in Setup Assistant.

Why is Migration Assistant not seeing Time Machine backup?

Had year old iMac with Snow Leopard and recently was lucky enough to have it replaced with a brand new model with Lion. Had the previous iMac backed up on external drive with Time Machine.
I know I can't restore from that Time Machine backup since I am now on Lion but shouldn't I be able to migrate my old user account from the Snow Leopard Time Machine backup to the new Lion system? The Lion Migration Assistant will not recogize or show the drive or backup from Time Machine though even though it is mounted in the Finder in Lion.
Any ideas?

I just had a similar problem to this. I have a MacBook Pro (Lion) that has been backed up to an attached USB Time Machine disk that was formatted on this same machine. I had a major crash, and had to reinstall Lion, and my Time Machine backup drive did not show up in the list. I do see several drives on my network, but not the locally attached USB drive. I rebooted and tried several time, no joy.
The backup drive passes all disk tests, and shows up when plugged in to other machines, and even shows up in the boot menu (but will not boot) when the MacBook Pro starts. And it has the secret flag file (if you do not know, the drive MUST have a zero length file titled ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" (note the leading .) at the root of the drive or the drive will not be recognized) and it should just work. It did backup to it just fine, but I cannot restore.
I finally made this work (I think) by actually getting another external USB drive, formatting it, and then using another machine to copy the Time Machine backup from the old drive to the new drive. I added the myster flag file to the new drive (see above) and connected it to the MacBook Pro. This time, it did recognize it.
I am trying to do a restore now, and looks like it should work just fine. What a pain in the butt.
I would love to hear from Apple what causes this. There must be an easier solution than to spend 6 hours copying a full back from one 2 TB drive to another! SIgh!
UPDATE: OK, it showed up as a restore disk in the "restore utility" in the energency partition, but I need to install a new OS (there was some curruption) and after installing a New OS, and getting to the migration screen, once again, this new drive does not show up. ARGHHHHhhhhhhh
Message was edited by: orubin after thinking it was working.

Migration Assistant does not see my WD backup drives!

Apple recalled my Seagate HD and I just had it replaced with a new HD at the Genius Bar. I picked up my iMac today and am now attempting to RESTORE with my backup to my new (internal) HD. However, when I used the Setup Assistant, it did not see either of my external backup drives. I continued through the setup process and thought I'd try the Migration Assistant. Even THAT did not see either of my back up drives. When I use Time Machine to RESTORE, I navigate to the latest folder but the Restore button is greyed out.
The drives are both on my desktop and they work in the Finder with no issue, I've repaired and verified both and they check out just fine. I've seen this problem in other posts in the Apple forums and elsewhere on the web, and I've tried the suggestions with no success. Some I haven't tried because they refer to Lion—I have 10.6.8.
BTW: I had a HD fail on my MacBook a year ago and after the new HD was installed, I ran the Setup Assistant on it and everything went smoothly (same BU drive manufacturer) when restoring with the backup.
Do I need to go back to Genius now (no no no!) or call Apple Support (yikes!)?
I am going MAD without my Mac!
Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks—katorama

Thanks sanjampet.
I called Apple support and the tech had me make a bogus account with a different user account name. I then logged into the bogus account and ran Migration Assistant. MA cannot override while logged into your main account, thus the bogus one is needed.
Turns out that while in MA, you will *not* see your backup drive in the list when it comes to the "select a drive" screen. It wants you to select a drive to migrate to, not from. Once you select the "Macintosh HD" and Continue, Migration Assistant will locate your latest backup and restore it to your new HD.
Once the migration is complete (this takes a while of course), log out of the bogus account, then log back into your main account. You can delete the bogus account.
That's it!

Migration Assistant Does not see my Time Machine Backup disk

I have a TM backup disk connected via Firewire that I have several months of backup on. I did a clean install of SL. When I went to restore using Migration Assistant, the MI does not show the TM backup disk. The disk is mounted and visible through the finder. Time Machine itself sees the disk just fine. But when I run MI, the only drive it shows me is the one where the new SL is installed.
I found another post describing the same situation and the solution there said to make sure that the TM disk is formatted the same way, ie GUID. I check with Disk Utility and both the SL volume and the TM volume are formatted GUID.
HELP!

sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

Migration Assistant won't see my Time machine backup disk

Hi,
I've seen some other discussions but they apply to slightly different situations and turn out to be too complex for me to follow. My situation is this. My Dec 2008 Macbook running Lion just died. Not sure what the problem is but it seems to be the hardrive. It will take me a while to get it fixed and in the meantime I have a farly new mac mini running Lion.
I also have been making Time Machine backups to an external drive. I read that I could migrate content from a time machine backup and I connected the backup to my mac mini and launched Migration Assistan (MA), seleted the option to migrate from a Time Machine backup. MA is stuck trying to find my disk even though it shows up in Finder. This is the screen I'm talking about http://screencast.com/t/AC0OiVzxx
I'm hoping there is the equivalent of a little on/off switch that I'm not seeing and you can direct me too.
How can I get MA to see my Time Machine backup disk? Thanks for your help.

sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

Migration Assistant Does Not See Attached External Disk

I just purchased a MacBook Air to replace an aging MacBook Pro. Both are running the latest Mountain Lion (10.8.3). I want to move my files from the MBP to the MBA using Migration Assistant. I first tried doing this over wi-fi, but when I learned it would take more than 99 hours, I chose to cancel the operation.
So I connected a new Seagate HD to the MBP and configured Time Machine to back up to it. I let Time Machine run all day, creating hourly updates after the initial backup. I then disconnected the drive, attached it to the MBA and rebooted. I ran Migration Assistant and chose to migrate from a Time Machine backup. However, Migration Assistant does not see the disk. Yet the disk is mounted on the desktop, I can read and write to it, and I can see the Time Machine backups. Only Migration Assistant seems unable to recognize the disk.
This isn't the first time I've had problems with MA (see my posting history). When it works, it's terrific - my new computer has all the settings and preferences as the old. My applications are all registered and operational. So I'm very frustrated that I can't get it to work with my new MBA. It really does diminish the experience of getting a new computer. That, plus I don't want to spend days and weeks moving things over manually, re-installing, etc.
C'mon, Apple. Why is Migration Assistant so difficult? I'd chalk it up to user error, but this many times?

So, finally after fourten hours of unattended "migration," I let it continue overnight and in the morning found that the time remaining had not moved a minute. I canceled MA and found that not one iota of data had transferred.
As far as I'm concerned, Migration Assistant ranks lower on the Apple success list than Open Doc, Newton, Pink and Taligent.
Now I have to manually install software I want to use on the MBA, apply licenses, and all the other stuff I would expect from Windows.
NOT happy.

ISO x 10.8.3 migration assistant will not recognize time machine disk

I recently had my computer wiped clean by Apple genius bar. After updating the ISO X 10.8 software to 10.8.3, I attempted to restore files from my Time Machine backup to the computer. Unfortunately, the migration assistant would not lock onto the Time Machine disk, as if it were not there. What can I do to restore my original files back into the repaired computer?
My imac was purchased new in December of 2008 and the back up disc was connected to it in Aug 2009. I think the original operating system was pre Snow Leopard - the only CD I have and dated 2010.

I am conserned about restoring using setup assistant because I need to transfer personal files and applications only.
You can do that in Setup Assistant.
Migration Assistant doesn't accept Time Machine backups of the computer it's running on; it only accepts compatible backups of other computers. You can't migrate a system to itself. To restore files from the same computer, enter Time Machine in the usual way, or else boot into Recovery and either restore the whole startup volume or erase, reinstall OS X, and restore in Setup Assistant.

Time Machine "Backup Disk Not Available" over WAN

I have port forwarded port 46 (TCP and UDP) to port 548 a Mac mini server running Mac OS X 10.6.8, and I have Time Machine backup disk on it set as a share point with Time Machine support enabled. On my Mac Pro running OS X 10.8.5, I am able to connect via AFP to my server with the address "afp://my-ip-address:46" and can read and write on the backup disk share point. I tested that, and it works. When I am on the same LAN as the server, I can use that disk for Time Machine and have been doing so for years. However, I cannot do a Time Machine backup to that share point over the WAN. When I open Time Machine preferences, I can select the share point as my backup disk, but once I start the backup, it says "Backup disk not available" and fails to start. How could I fix this problem?
In case you're wondering, I forward port 46 to port 548 instead of port 548 to port 548 to minimize hacking attempts. Last time I used a default port, a computer in Taiwan started spamming SSH authentication failures.

I did find this article via Google
<http://www.macgurulounge.com/make-time-machine-remotely-back-up-to-your-time-cap sule/>
Personally, I use CrashPlan (free option using my own disks) to backup over the internet. It works very well when I'm away from home. Everything is encrypted.

Time Machine Backups disk not automatically unmounting after backup completes in Lion

I am using Time Machine over WiFi on a 3rd party USB drive shared as an AirDisk through an Airport Extreme router. Ever since switching to Lion (clean install), I have noticed that the Time Machine backup disk will not automatically unmount after a backup is completed. This creates a problem when my MacBook Pro comes back from sleep. Specifically, the WiFi notification icon in the Finder toolbar indicates that WiFi is connected, even though it's not connected to a network, and I am unable to connect to any networks for what seems like several minutes until the Time Machine backups disk disappears from the desktop and WiFi actually connects.
Since the disk was not cleanly unmounted, Time Machine then keeps complaining that the sparse bundle file is locked and cannot be mounted every time it tries to do a backup. I have to either disconnect/reconnect the USB drive physically from the router, or restart the router every time this happens to resolve the issue. That is getting really annoying to have to do every time. I suppose I could manually unmount the Time Machine disk after every backup but it's ridiculous to have to do that every time I want to put the computer to sleep.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue and is there a fix?

For others who might be having this problem - I was able to resolve it by connecting my backup disk to my mac via USB, completely erasing it, and starting over from a new backup. Disk Utility was not reporting any errors when I verified the disk, but I went ahead and repartitioned it and started fresh. The disk now automatically unmounts after backups complete.

Restored system from Time Machine backup disk but the system could not start-up

On MacBook Pro early 2008, restored the entire system from Time Machine backup disk to the entire disk.
The previous system on the backup disk had FileVault turned on.
The restore completed successfully and I was prompted to restart the system via the new restored system disk.
I heard the normal start-up sound, then the Apple logo, but it stuck at the logo screen. And the cooling fan run at almost full speed?
I have been waiting for a few hours, guessing it might FileVault the disk.
Finally I have to shutdown the machine as it stuck at the logo screen forever.
Anyone has the same issue? Any ideas?

BTW, I also tried Repair the system disk, Fix permissions via Disk Utility.
I guess I must lose some files either during the backup or the restore.

Can't connect to a Time Machine backup disk

I have erased my TM via Airport Utility
AirPort Utility 6.x: Erase an AirPort Time Capsule disk
So far so good...But now, I am unable to open TM, when I do it opens momentarily, then closes with message "Can't conect to a Time Machine backup disk".
I have turned off TM as I do not want to use the TM as backup..I want to use it as an EHD and transfer data to the disk manually (not by automatic TM backups).
How can I do this?

No. It is not in Finder at all..only I can see the Airport Capusle (on the left side) under "Shared"...but this does not allow for any data transfer.
It should show under "Devices", and allow for data transfer....don't know how to fix this one..

How do I get back iphone app information from a DELETED Time Machine Backup disk

Hi People,
here is what happened:
I have been using an iPhone App (Audio Memos Free - The Voice Recorder) to record song ideas (I am a songwriter). I have been using it for years.
I backed up my iphone to itunes, and backed up my mac on Time Machine. After a month or so I did a fresh OSX install on my mac, copied all of my files back from Time Machine into my mac, and tried to set up Time Machine. I was not able to do so, so I had to format the Time Machine Backup disk and doing a "fresh" mac Time Machine Backup.
After a week or so, my iphone asks me something like "you do not possess the rights for one or more applications". do not know what i did, but after 1 minute my iPhone was wiped out of all my apps and app contents. I had also the icloud app sync, so i did not worry, recovered from icloud notes, contacts, and all other things. so i did another backup to itunes.
Now i discover icloud did not recover or save the "Audio Memos Free" app content. I know the data are hidden into the Time machine Backup HD, but i do not know where to search for the itunes backup in it.
I know it is in library, but library won't show up.
Any help would be much appreciated.
PS there is a chance that, even without a data recovery, my latest itunes backup was containing these songs, but i do not know how to fish that out of the Time machine drive.
Thank you in advance.

I would email iTunes Customer Service:
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/browser/
CG

I need to backup my mails from a time machine backup disk from a powerbook leopard to an IMac snow Leopard...can I do this?

Hi everybody...
I need to backup my complete history of emails. I have a time machine backup disk I used in a powerbook intel, second generation with Leopard OS. Now I have an Imac of 24 inches, with Snow Leopard OS. Can I use that backup disk (TM) to put the mails that used to be in the powerbook into my IMac?
My original powerbook is broken, so I cant do anything there...

You should be able to find and restore emails that were on the old Mac via Time Machine. Emails that were on the server, not the Mac, won't be there, of course.
See the blue box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Miggration assistant does not see time machine backup disk

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