Moving Time Machine backups to a new larger drive?

Just wondering whether using Disk Utility to 'restore' the drive (ie. making a duplicate to a new larger drive) would be 100% functional and compatible with Time Machine?
ie. I want to switch my time machine backups to a larger drive, but I want to take all my existing backup history to the new drive, rather than just doing a fresh backup to the new drive.

bilbo_baggins wrote:
Just wondering whether using Disk Utility to 'restore' the drive (ie. making a duplicate to a new larger drive) would be 100% functional and compatible with Time Machine?
yes, it will work. just turn off TM while you are doing this.
ie. I want to switch my time machine backups to a larger drive, but I want to take all my existing backup history to the new drive, rather than just doing a fresh backup to the new drive.

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How does one SUCCESSFULLY transfer Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk drive using OSX 10.5.8

I have read a number of articles about how to transfer a complete Time-Machine backup to a new (larger) hard disk-drive. Some of these articles are specifically for OSX10.6 users, which are not applicable to me since I am operating with OSX 10.5.8.
However, I have tried several times to use the Disk Utility 'Restore' function, dragging my old time-machine volume into the 'Source:' box and my new volume into the 'Destination:' box. This works, of sorts, BUT the newly created volume on the new larger hard disk-drive remains the same size as the original volume on the old Time-Machine HDD, with no apparent way of increasing the new volume's size. So I am not really any better off:
E.g. the total capacity of my new HDD is stated by 'Disk Utility' to be 465.8 GB, of which I'm told 228.2 GB is used for the Backups.backdb folder, but only 4.6 GB of free space is actually available. Yet under the 'Partition' tab of 'Disk Utility' it tells me that there is still 236.4 GB of available space.
Does anyone know how to resolve this issue without upgrading to OSX 10.6?

First, how did you prepare your new drive? See:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
If you plan to partition this new drive then be sure you create a larger partition for TM than your old volume.
Next, clone your old TM volume:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

How do I restore a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive in an iMac 5.1?

Hi all,
I recently had a hard drive failure in my mid-2006 iMac 5.1 and have now installed a new drive. The iMac was previously running an up-to-date version of OSX 10.7 - Lion. However I've struggled to restore the machine from its Time Machine backup, trying using both Setup Assistant which has never allowed me to overwrite my startup files with the restore, and several attempts using Migration Assistant and following Pondini's Migration Problems tutorial, which worked partially, but has left me with a series of files/folders, many of which have Permissions problems.
The most recent attempt, using Migration Assistant is giving me a new error message:
You can't transfer from your other Mac to this one because your other Mac uses a newer version of Mac OS X. You must upgrade this Mac before you can transfer from your other Mac.
I'm getting it that the Time Machine data is more current (in terms of OSX) than my desktop machine - which I have prepared using my Snow Leopard start-up disc (but wonder why this is the first time that I'm getting told this on attempting to restore). But how do I get my iMac to a state whereby I can restore from the Time Machine?
I can't upgrade the Mac using Software Update as this will only get me to OSX 10.6.8 (which is where I currently am, although some applications don't seem to want to work in this state - App Store, Safari on occasion); I can't download OSX 10.7 from the App Store as it is no longer there, and I can't install OSX 10.8 as my iMac is not compatible with this release. I seem to be stuck in an infinite loop from which I don't seem to be able to get out of.
Can anyone help at all?
Many thanks in advance for any contributions & apologies if I've omitted any crucial information that might be needed to help me out.
Paul

Thanks den.thed,
Apologies for not replying back sooner - I've been away.
Although your suggestion helped me in getting a copy of Lion that I could use, it didn't help with the restore from Time Capsule issue. I had to download the Lion app onto my MacBook & then transfer it across but it wouldn't let me upgrade my OS for some reason, so I ended up wiping the iMac completely and restoring via my Snow Leopard install disk. For some reason, this time, it let me have the option of using Setup Assistant to access the Time Capsule for a complete restore.
Now, over a week later, with various bits of tweaking and reinstalling some apps that didn't seem to come across, I have my system back.
Thanks for the help anyway.
Cheers,
Paul

Unable to restore time machine backup onto a new hard drive

I recently bought a new hard drive for my mid-2010 white Macbook. I have kept this computer regularly backed up with time machine, but just to be sure I made sure I hooked up my external hard drive prior to changing the hard drive and made sure it was fully backed up. I checked my exceptions and saw that my system files and applications were listed, so I removed them from the exceptions list and let it back up again (it only backed up a further 60MB though, so that made me a little uneasy).
I successfully switched over the hard drive and then plugged in my external hard drive so I could do a restore from Time Machine. My external hard drive has 3 partitions: 2 time machine backups for each of my computers, and one partition for storing files that also has an old copy of 10.6 on it.
When I booted the computer, I held option, then selected Macbook TM. When it came to the window with 4 options, including disk utility and restore from time machine backup, I selected restore from Time Machine backup. When I did so it said "No OS X Backups Were Found." Why wouldn't it have backups listed if I have been consistently backing it up? How else do I do a full system backup?
Also, how can I be sure that I'm restoring this backup onto the new hard drive? It didn't prompt me to select that drive at any point, and I want to make sure I'm not overwriting the middle partition on the backup drive (or anything else).

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
You will find that Mountain Lion stores an invisible copy of the Recovery HD. You can boot from your Time Machine backup drive by restarting with OPTION boot:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon for your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
Your computer should boot into the Recovery HD. You will be presented with a main window of options. Select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

Restoring from a Time Machine Backup on a new Hard drive

Hi,
I have a late 2009 iMac and I had the HD replaced (it was included in the recent HD recall).
Before I had it replaced, I made a backup using my time capsule and it was on the latest version of Mountain Lion.
My question is, since I have to install the OS using the original install discs which was Snow Leopard, if I use the restore from Time Machine using Mac OSX Utilities, will my Mac restore my Mountain Lion backup (and have everything like it used to before I had the HD replaced)? Or do I have to reinstall Lion then Mountain Lion then restore from there?
It would be a pain to re download everything.
Hope someone can help me out.
Thanks in advance

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
You will find that Mountain Lion stores an invisible copy of the Recovery HD. You can boot from your Time Machine backup drive by restarting with OPTION boot:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon for your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
Your computer should boot into the Recovery HD. You will be presented with a main window of options. Select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

HT201250 Can i restore the entire system from a time machine backup to a new hard drive ?

If yes... does it restore EVERYTHING like it was before the crash... including Applications, emails, etc. OR i am better with a disk image to restore EVERYTHING ?

You need to install Lion on the new drive first, and then use Setup assistant.
After you've chosen a language and your network settings, it will take you into migration assistant, from which you can choose to tranfer information from Time Machine.
You can choose to migrate all users and apps or just some, according to your preference.

How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?

I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.

ivan wrote:
How Can I Migrate My Time Machine Backups To A New External Hard Drive?
I have a external hard drive that has 500 GBs left, but I want to buy a larger drive.
Hi iVain
Fire up *Disk Utility*, click the Restore tab, then drag your old and new TM drives into the Source and Destination fields. Click Restore, and a complete copy of your old TM files will be made on the new drive. Go to TM preferences and select the new drive, and it will continue backing up just as it left off.
Hope this answers your question. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2595485&tstart=0

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the b.u. stops

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the backup stops. The system preferences are set to "Never" for Computer sleep and Display sleep. The computer does not ordinarily log off automatically, but it has done this twice since I started the Time Machine backup.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the search box.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Can I still use my "old" Mac after restoring Time Machine backup to a new Mac?

Hi guys.
Will I still be able to use my old Macbook Pro 2008 (Leopard) after restoring his latest Time Machine backup on a new Macbook Pro 2012 (Lion)?
Using Setup Assistant and transfering data using Time Machine creats the same Account on the new machine that was on the old one. I just don't know how the old machine will react towards his clone. I don't want to make a mess...
Please let me know.
Thanks

It should work if the drive is connected directly to your Mac. That is not the same as saying that it will work.
Since Mountain Lion was just released, it might make sense to hold on a few weeks and watch the forums for new and unforeseen issues before you dive in.

Can I transfer a Time Machine backup to a new empty hard drive, without installing Mountain Lion again?

Can I transfer a Time Machine backup to a new empty hard drive, without installing Mountain Lion on that new hard drive?

Yes - I just did it the other night. Took five hours, but it finally finished and is working great.
I sort of followed the instructions found here -->> http://pondini.org/TM/18.html.
Also, if you want to have dual backups, see -->>
http://pondini.org/TM/27.html.
I say 'sort of' because I used Carbon Copy Cloner to do a block-level transfer. I just didn't want to get hung up with a Finder copy.
Give CCC a try - you have to enable the block copy in Preferences before using this method, but I was quite happy with it. I used it to move over 1TB of TM backups from a FireWire 800 drive to a 2TB Thunderbolt drive. 5 seconds short of taking 5 hours.
It should work well for you.
Clinton

Transfer Time Machine backups to a new drive

Is there an automated or an easy way to transfer my current Time Machine back ups to the new Time Capsule (I am sure I will inevitably buy it]. Looks like a great system for notebook users but I wouldn't like to start again with time Machine I like having the security of back ups I have already accrued. My current drive is certainly not full and won't be for a while.

So far not very many people have had much success in copying their Time Machine backups to a new drive although the Restore option in Disk Utility ought to be able to do this. However, SuperDuper will support that capability when their new Leopard compatible version is released which should be in a week or so.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/

HT201250 when restoring a time machine backup to a new computer, does it affect the new operating system on the new computer

when restoring a time machine backup to a new computer, does it affect the new operating system on the new computer?

That depends on how you do it.
By far the best, easiest, most reliable method is to use Setup Assistant when your shiny new Mac first starts up, to transfer your apps, users, data, etc. That doesn't disturb either the OS or basic Apple apps that came with the new Mac. See Using Setup Assistant on Mountain Lion or Lion.
There is a facility to restore an entire system from Time Machine backups, including the version of OSX on the backup, but that's for use when your internal HD has been erased or replaced only. It's not a good idea to restore the full backup of one Mac to a different one. Depending on the circumstances, the installer may not allow it. Even if it does, the Mac may not start up, or may kernel panic, or not work properly.

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.

How do I access an old Time machine backup from my new MBP?

I wanted to access my Time Machine Backup from a new MBP. Time machine recognized my backup drive but could not find my Backup file. What's wrong here? I use another Login name on my new MBP - could that be the reason?

Take a look on this page at item #17:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html

Moving Time Machine backups to a new larger drive?

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