Only backups offered by TM for a full restore are two weeks old.

Question

I just tried to do a full restore from Time Machine, booted from the install disk.
When it got to the "chose which back up" step it only offered me three backups, from the 4th, 5th and 6th October.
The TM drive is an external USB connected directly and has been running regularly without errors. I was to able to enter Time Machine and go to dates much more recent than 6th October.
I have sorted out the problem which caused the need to restore without TM, but I would like to understand why I couldn't do a full restore from a more recent TM backup, for the future.
Thanks

Answer 1

I hope it is OK to paste the prefs file:
START
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>AlwaysShowDeletedBackupsWarning</key>
<false/>
<key>AutoBackup</key>
<true/>
<key>BackupAlias</key>
<data>
AAAAAAEeAAIAAQhUaW1lTWFjIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADG2QQ0SCsAAAAAAAEI
VGltZU1hYyAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsbZBDQAAAAAAAAAAP////8AAAkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CFRpbWVNYWMgABAACAAAxtj2JAAAABEACAAAxtj2JAAAAAEAAAACABFUaW1lTWFjIDpU
aW1lTWFjIAAADgASAAgAVABpAG0AZQBNAGEAYwAgAA8AEgAIAFQAaQBtAGUATQBhAGMA
IAASAAAAEwARL1ZvbHVtZXMvVGltZU1hYyAA//8AAA==
</data>
<key>DestinationVolumeUUID</key>
<string>017FC86D-0AF0-3AD2-B913-3BE24663D99A</string>
<key>ExcludeByPath</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache</string>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db</string>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Mail/Envelope Index</string>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Mail/Metadata/BackingStoreUpdateJournal</string >
<string>/Library/Preferences/FLEXnet Publisher</string>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.DotMacSync.0017f20 43020.plist</string>
<string>/Volumes/PERSONAL/Libraries/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml</string>
<string>/Volumes/PERSONAL/Libraries/iPhoto Library/ThemeCache</string>
<string>/Volumes/PERSONAL/Libraries/iPhoto Library/iPod Photo Cache</string>
<string>/Volumes/PERSONAL/Libraries/iPhoto Library/Data/iMovie Converted</string>
<string>/Users/michaelb/Library/Icons/WebpageIcons.db</string>
</array>
<key>ExcludedVolumes</key>
clip
END
I am not sure about the first list under "exclude by path". The Users/michaelb/ items are not things I have specified for exclusion. And I certainly didn't change any TM prefs after Oct 6th and today.