Migration Assistant Mav.: not showing ML Time Machine backup

Hi Mac community,
my own MBP mid 2010:
clean install of Mavericks
connected FireWire 800 external hard disk with recent Time Machine backup done in Mountain Lion
started Migration Assistant, selected the Time Machine disk, and transferred all user data
everything worked absolutely PERFECTLY and now Mavericks runs smoothly with all my old user data
So I wanted to do the same thing with a relative's late 2009 iMac:
still in Mountain Lion, doing Time Machine backups to TWO different USB 2.0 hard disks
browsing the Time Machine disks manually to check whether all the files are there -- they are, including the (hidden) ~/Library folder
clean install worked fine, Mavericks runs OK
starting Migration Assistant in Mavericks ⇒ and - OH HORROR - the connected external Time Machine hard disk does not show up as a source - in fact, NOTHING shows up
So I copied over the data manually, for which I had to enable the root account (how else would one delete/replace a whole ~/Library folder??)
Then I tried to fix permissions manually (because other users could now read the files in the home folder).
All the old data (mails, contacts, calendars) is still there, but the whole thing doesn't really run smoothly; each time one logs into the account, keychain asks weird questions and dock icons pointing to programs show questions marks again. Later today, I'll try to fix permissions for the home folder as a whole (Recovery Boot ⇒ Terminal ⇒ resetpassword ⇒ Reset Home Folder Permissions and ACLs), but I'd rather do another clean install and somehow get Migration Assistant to offer me the Time Machine backup as a source for user data transfer - AS IT SHOULD in an OS that 'just works' ...
Anything I could do to convince Mavericks to use my old Time Machine backup??
This is a real nightmare for me ⇒ I f*cked up a relative's system -- really hope I can fix it again.
Cheers, folks!

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

Similar Messages

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 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 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 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 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 cant see files on time machine backup

Hi all,
I just bought a new 27" iMac, and wanted to transfer files from a time machine backup i have on an external drive, from my old machine.
I dident try this on the first setup, but waitet till i had configured it first, so i use migration assistant.
I startet migration assistant just fine, and it could se my time machine backup(1)
Heres the problem
when i select the backup i want to use and click continue, all i get is a little white box under the imac icon(2).
It whont show me a list of things to transfer. Please help.
Bonus info
I tride to use disk utility to repair my disk, but no luck there.
when i select the drive, it whont let me repair disk permissions, no matter what disk i choose.(3)
I am able to access and mount the time machine image, browes the backup and copy files manually.

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 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.

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.

Does Migration Assistant use the most recent time machine backup?

About to transfer my old macbook pro harddrive to my new imac..and when im in migration assistant it allows me to select ALL applications (not individual ones unfortuantely) to transfer from my time machine backup...curious, does it transfer all apps I have ever had on all my backups? - there is probably 20 different backups. I have cleared a ton of useless apps off my MBP and did a fresh backup hoping those would be the only ones to get transfered?
Thanks

Only one version is transferred, the last saved one.

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.

I used migration assn't to load a Time Machine backup onto a new mac. The first TM backup after that took some time, perhaps not surprising. But the backups thereafter have all taken hours, with huge amounts of "indexing" time. Time to reload TM?

I used migration assn't to load a Time Machine backup onto a new mac. The first TM backup after that took some time, perhaps not surprising. But the backups thereafter have all taken hours, with huge amounts of "indexing" time. Time to reload TM?

Does every backup require lots of indexing? If so, the index may be damaged.
Try Repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that doesn't help, see the pink box in #D2 of the same link.

Is it possible to restore a single deleted note from a time machine backup? If so how?

is it possible to restore a single deleted note from a time machine backup? If so how?

Hi James,
I was able to use VI server to invoke LV 6.1 VI's using LV 7.0 without issue.
After discovering this and mentioning it in a post somewhere, Rolf Kalbermatter indicated that was expected. and I should not be suprised.
So....
Vi Server may help you.
James Mamakos wrote:
Is there a separate place for me to post VIs to be converted? What's a ballpark figure for the maximum file size i could put on to be converted?
Do you know if the LabVIEW developers can/will create a way to overcome this problem rather than having to convert a VI through all the intermediate versions?
To the best of knowledge NO.
For each versino of LV there isw code included that runs behind the scenes when you open a VI from an earleir version which replaces old functions with the new versions. This is called Mutation code. To accomplish its task it has to know everything that changed between version X and Y. Since it is possible to baby step the versions up and the number of user that jump multiple major versions is small, I don't think any effort will go into that work.
THe largest attachment I have managed to upload was 3 or 4 Meg.
Just trying to help,
Ben
Message Edited by Ben on 04-28-2009 08:58 AM
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

Do not trust your Time Machine backups

I had a very unpleasant surprise yesterday : I found out the hard way that I could not trust my Time Machine backup...
Once booted in recvoery mode to select "Restore TimeMachine backup", the process starts and seem to happily finish a few hours later (surprisingly, it finished when actuall 3 hours of restoration are indicated). No error message, just a confident statement that backup is restored and the computer will reboot in 10 seconds.
Thing is, well, the computer wouldn't boot... I just got a black screen right after the Apple logo, no mouse pointer, just a plain black (backlighted) screen on my MacBook Pro.
I know my way in the system, I'm pretty technical, so I decided to not give up, after a few hours playing around with recovery boot, terminal sessions and log file reading, it appeared that a lot of files were missing, especially system files.
As an example : most content in /usr/share/shadbox, but also ll /System/Library/CoreServices/logind and other files.
After copying these files either from a very old Time Machine backup from end January or from another computer, I finally manage to boot the system.
Lots of applications ar not usable because of missing contents (AppStore, Disk Utility, etc, etc)...
This is totally unacceptable, I work in the computer storage industry, our customers would burn us down to the ground if they could not rely on their storage.
What's worse ? Looks like there is no way to check a backup. Apple provides a "Verify Backup" option in the Time Machine menu, but it is only valid for network backup, not local disks.
Thing is, I was happily looking at my backups every hours, running without errors, througout many many days, only to realize when I need it that it is corrupted.
What do people do when they need reliable backup, except for paying big buck to company who actually care ?

I don't know if both disks are working properly, and I would almost say that's not the point.
Let me explain : Time Machine backups were running without warning, to me, it means everything is fine. There should be some kind of regular verification, and a way to manually check that a given backup is valid.
I ran a disk utility Verify on the TM drive, it finished without issue.
Yes, the files were missing from the TimeMachine disk, for example, /usr/share/shadbox was complete if I looked at a backup from end january, but most files were missing looking at any after that. Same thing for /System/Library/CoreServices/logind
I did a complete restore because I installed a beta release of the OS, I'm a developer, but realizing that one key product I need was not working (VMware Fusion), I decided to roll back. Following that bad experience, I searched for a way to verify backup and was astonished to find out that there is no such thing, Apple provides a flawed software with no mean to very integrity of the backups, that's just very, very bad.
To be completely honest, I should mention that while installing beta software, a few file system inconsistencies were detected and fixed by the installer, maybe that is the cause, but in no condition should you have a system that works perfectly in one hand, and a corrupted backup on the other hand, especially if the used backup disk is healthy.

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

Migration Assistant Mav.: not showing ML Time Machine backup

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