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!

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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.
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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.
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HELP!

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http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

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Diana

Diana Stephens wrote:
Migration Assistant thinks my "macintosh HD" system disk is the only disk available as the time machine backup.
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See the tan box in Using Migration Assistant on Lion.

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See Pondini's Excellent information here...
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Diana Stephens wrote:
Migration Assistant thinks my "macintosh HD" system disk is the only disk available as the time machine backup.
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Migration Assistant does not see my WD backup drives!

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