Migration Assistant can't see external Time Machine

I appreciate Macs and all they can do but I am not great with the technical side. I apologise if this is an stupid question. Probably all my technical questions seem stupid to people who can find their way around the mac.
Shiny new iMac. Yah!
Hmm there's a problem.
External drive with Time Machine backups on it shows on the desktop, however when I use Migration Assistant to transfer info it can't find it.
The external drive is plugged directly into the iMac.
I can open the external drive and see there are Time Machine backups.
The Time Machine App is currently set to off on my new iMac. Is it as simply as switching it to "on"? I was concerned about overwriting the old backups and losing them.
Thanks for assistance.

Most likely, some folders were excluded from your backups as the result of a failed or aborted software installation.
Starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
You'll have another problem if this is a new computer, or if you erased the startup volume: The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of your backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set your backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Similar Messages

Migration assistant doesn't see my time machine backup

Since upgading to mavericks migration assistant no longer sees my backup on my external drive that I use for my time machine backups. The drive mounts fine and I can access my backups through my finder using "enter time machine", but I can not restore because migration assistant can't see the drive. I don't knoe if it's a time machine issue or a mighration assistant issue. I have tried on several macs and with several different hard drives but migration assistant cannot restore from my time machine backups. I suggest everyone make sure they can restore from their time machine backups because this may be a major problem and result in complete loss of data. I have found no solution yet.

Here are the articles I have on Migration Assistant. None of them had the answer to your problem (or at least I couldn't find it). Check what you did versus the recommendations in the articles is about the best I can offer.
Migration Assistant
Migration Assistant (2)
Migration Assistant – Tips and Tricks

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 doesn't see USB Time Machine drive

My dad recently got a new MacBook Pro and wants to restore from his Time Machine backup, stored on a USB drive. He didn't use the Setup Assistant at the start - I'm really not sure why, but anyway...
Now we're looking at Migration Assistant, and it can't find the Time Machine drive. On the 'Select your disk' screen, the wheel just spins and spins. The backup drive is plugged in and mounted. We've checked the drive for errors using Disk Util, and it's fine. Moreover, I tested this with my own MBP and it's backup drive and the same problem occurs.
He also tried booting from the install DVD and using the 'restore' option from the Utilities menu, without success.
Is this because he has started to set up the machine using a user (as admin) with the same account name as the Time Machine backups? This website suggested that maybe that's what happening: http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html. Before I take him through a reinstall, etc, I'm hoping to confirm that this is really the problem!

Just create a new user account with a different name. Logout of the current account and log into the new one. Be sure the new account has admin status. You can then try migrating and see if it now works. Also see OS X 10.5- Migration Assistant keeps "looking for other computers".
See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.

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 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.

The Migration Assistant can not find my Time Machine Backup

Hello,
I had to reinstall Mountain Lion on my iMac. So I made a fresh backup with TM on friday, everything was fine with it.
Then I formated my HD and installed 10.8.2 from the AppStore. After setting up the Admin-Account I opended the Migration Assistant
to migrate my User Account from the TM-Backup, but it is not showing up. There are 4 backups on the Time Capsule, but only 3 are
showing up. And for sure it is mine, which is missing. :-(
When I start in Revorery-Mode and choose to set up the iMac from a Time Machine Backup, the latest Backup is from the 1. of November,
which I really don't want to use right now.
Would be very nice to get some help in here.
Thank you

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.

Migration assistant does not see my time machine disk

I had an issue with my hard disk on my imac in which I had to re-format and reinstall the OS. Since 10.7 is not available as a "rescue reinstall disk", I had to reinstall 10.6. When that finished, the install asked if I would like to transfer my stuff from Time Machine. I said "yes". Unfortunately, my time machine disk does not show up! Migration Assistant thinks my "macintosh HD" system disk is the only disk available as the time machine backup. So I skipped migration. I went ahead and did all of the OS upgrades to get back to 10.7.3. I re-connected all external disks (I have 4-the time machine disk included) and tried migration assistant again. The only disk migration assistant still thinks is available as the time machine backup is the macintosh HD system disk, not the one called "Time Machine Backup". Time machine backup is a western digital 2TB usb 2.0 disk.
So....
I decided this morning to re-do everything again (since I still could not get my data back). Guess what?!?! the same thing is happening! Migration Assistant thinks that the macintosh HD is the time machine disk and does not see any others - even though the disk is there and mounted!
Please help! I would like my data back, but I am not able to pay Apple at the Apple store or a phone call to them for help!
Thanks!
Diana

Diana Stephens wrote:
Migration Assistant thinks my "macintosh HD" system disk is the only disk available as the time machine backup.
Those are your backups. Migration Assistant shows the name of the disk and system that were backed-up, not the disk they're on. It will not show the disk you're running from.
See the tan box in Using Migration Assistant on Lion.

Migration assistant can not find a time machine back-up

I'm attempting to restore data from my old mbp to my new mbp 15". I hook up my time machine back-up from the old mbp and open migration asst. Get throught the windows till it attempts to find my time machine - just hangs up here.
Any ideas to try would be appreciated.
John

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.

HT4889 Migration assistant refuses to see my Time machine backup in mountain lion

I made a full Time machine backup on a 1 TB hard disk.
I connect this to my other mac.
I follow EXACTLY the apple support instructions TO THE LETTER.
Time machine says - "looking for other computers" - there are no other computers - only the time machine backup disk which is correctly powere and can be seen in OSX prior to loading backup assistant.
I wait
and wait
and wait
three hours later it becomes apparent this isnt working
I try again - same result
I try again with a different disk
same result
I do a new FULL time machine backup on yet annothe disk
Same result
I try with two different macs - same result
What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?
I am following the EXACT instructions as posted on the apple website... what does it not tell you? For example does this not work if your mac is a core2-duo - or does it have to be a particulr brand of external hard disk? There must be something becuase I simply cannot get this to work AT ALL period.

This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy the file to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot and recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't worry; that's expected. Run a backup to test. The backup may take much longer than usual. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.

Set up and migration assistant can't see time machine back ups

Hi. Trying to cut this short.
I Tried installing osx 10.8. Halfway through the installation it told me I didn't have enough free space. Helpful.
i tried to restore from time machine, the back ups were viewable, but it said i couldn't as the disk was in use or couldn't be un mounted.
Ive now deleted the hard drive and reinstalled 10.7.5.
Set up couldn't restore from time machine back ups as it couldn't find them.
Ive started osx and tried to use migration assistant. It can't see the time machine back ups.
However, if I open the time machine app it can see the back ups.
I've rebooted in recovery and

Seems my text has vanished. This site is terrible on my iphone. Would expect better.
I've rebooted in recovery and tried to restore from time machine but again it won't find the back ups.

Migration Assistant can't see my external hard drive.

Migration Assistant can't see my external hard drive with my back-up info on it. I need to migrate my user data from an older back-up ( OS X 10.4.11) to a recently installed OS X 10.5.8 system on a Mac Pro. The external drive is not bootable. Any ideas?

Great news, thanks!
On iTunes see this...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Expand the External drive section & it's 6 steps.
More info, especially the Wrong Way part...
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/

Can people see my Time Machine back ups?

If people are connected to my wireless network, are they able to access the contents of what is in my Time Machine drive? I know there is no way to actually encrypt or password protect it, so I am worried about people being able to see my personal information. Thanks!

Can people see my Time Machine backups?
No, not unless they are logged on as you from your Mac.....or they go through a really convoluted process that would still require that they know the main admin password of your Mac.

Migration Assistant can't see my USB ext HD for Time Machine!

Here is a question for Pondini!
I've read through many of the threads here, including Pondini's tutorials on how to set-up Time Machine, use Migration Assistant, etc. Alas, I'm not a technical person and have hit a wall.
Here's the scenario:
Last week my iMac running Mountain Lion crashed. The hard drive was initially "repaired" using Recovery, erasing all data then restoring the drive from Time Machine backups stored on a Hitachi 2TB Touro USB3 external HD. But soon after the system froze again and a 2nd restore did not work. I concluded that my almost 5 year old HD was gone.
Where I stand now is that the iMac's HD has been replaced with a new one which came preinstalled with Snow Leopard. I absolutely want (need!) to restored my Mac from Time Machine to get back all my settings and info.
During the iMac first boot Setup Assistant did NOT see the external hard drive even though they are connected properly. (Note: My older iMac is undoubtedly USB2 but the external HD is backwards-compatible USB3. THAT is the connection, from the external HD directly into the back of the Mac. It is mounted on my desktop and files can be accessed through Finder.) So I then proceeded to set-up my "new" computer with basic settings, which is how I came to see my external HD was properly mounted and connected. I also upgraded the OS on this new HD to Mountain Lion so it would be the same as my most recent Time Machine back-ups.
Since then I have tried using Migration Assistant to migrate from Time Machine on my external drive but it still does not recognize any drives - Migration Assistant just searches endlessly for other computers. Argh! I've tried all the tips I've read in these forums and none have helped. I scanned my external drive for errors using disk utility but none were found.
On my external drive there is a folder in the root called Backups.backupdb. Double-clicking it simply opens the folder in Finder, to reveal folders with names familiar to me - the previous HDs computer name, then a bunch of dated folders within that, including a lone file called 2012-08-17-062839.inProgress. I suppose my HD may have died while backing up to Time Machine.
WHAT do I do?
Let's say the worst case scenario is that I cannot use these Time Machine backups. Is there any way to root through them for data I can hand-copy to my iMac's new internal drive? It would be grueling but at least it's something. How can I retrieve years of email? Luckily photos, music, videos, etc were backed up manually into a separate folder (also in the root of my external drive).
THANK YOU!!
Danielle

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 you had
- if Setup Assistant fails, use the recovery partition for system restore
- Use Recovery Disk Assistant http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 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.

Migration assistant can't see time machine disk

New hard drive to replace broken one - Migration Assistant doesn't see the external hard drive with my time machine backup, even though it mounts to the desktop... Anyone else had this problem? Using a MacBook pro with OSX 10.8.4

Here are the articles I have on Migration Assistant. None of them had the answer to your problem (or at least I couldn't find it). Check what you did versus the recommendations in the articles is about the best I can offer.
Migration Assistant
Migration Assistant (2)
Migration Assistant – Tips and Tricks

Migration Assistant can't see external Time Machine

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