Permissions? Time Machine Migration MB to MBA

I'm struggling here, perhaps from my own ignorance, so all I'm looking for is a pointer on how to get myself out of this frustrating time wasting...
New MacBook Air. Want to migrate content from MacBook. Thought I did enough online research to know how to make this work, but it's not happening.
Waited for a fresh Time Machine backup from MB. Plugged in external USB drive to MBA, ran migration asst to bring in TM bu. Took a couple of hours, but the material showed, in a folder in the Users folder, separate from the one I set up on MBA. All folders with the do not enter symbol, and I couldn't find a way to access these.
Erased and installed again on MBA (from MBA disc drive-remote disk was too slow), set up to migrate directly from MB, via ethernet wired network. Initially it showed 17+ hours to migrate. Went to bed; 7 hours later it still showed 12+ hours to complete. Force-quit all and rebooted, re-erased and installed on MBA.
So I've had this nice machine 2 days and am no closer to having it usable than before. The fastest migration seems to be via TM bu on the USB external drive, so:
-how do I fix the MB so that its TM bu doesn't transfer as inaccessible data?
-this is something to do with permissions, right?
(for background, the MB was set up with three accounts, which I consolidated to one in anticipation of the MBA, so my suspicion is that I did something wrong there; now I need to better clean it up to a single-user condition)
-given that background, if this can be solved, please point me in the right direction with suggestions of keywords to search the kb with, etc.
Thank you very much. Hopefully I can end the day with the MBA set up correctly.

Thanks to those that replied.
I eventually gave up after about 8 or 9 erase and installs over four days.
It's obvious to me that a user would want to change the "home" name when moving data from an old to a new computer, so why this isn't given as an option during migration is hard to say. If Apple can't figure out how to make that happen, maybe they should more strongly emphasize to users the importance of, and some naming convention suggestions for, naming one's home folder, since it will travel with you for years.
Dug into the sharing and accounts settings in the MB and tried to simplify.
The final technique was to erase and install from the usb superdrive, which took around 90 minutes for a customized minimum install, then migrated from MB via direct ethernet cable-usb adapter during the subsequent restart; data transfer of about 28GB took around two to three hours.
Ended up with all the previous apps and docs in place with the same old home folder name. All apps work fine but a few had to have registration #s re-entered.

Similar Messages

Error "The Connection Failed" in Time Machine, Migration Assistant and Restore From DVD

I am receiving this error when trying to connect to my Time Machine Backup in my Time capsule. I input the proper password to access my Time Capsule and It returns me to the screen with the caption "The connection failed" under the Time Capsule name in the "Select your Disk" screen. What would cause this error. I am connecting via WIFI (AirPort) and have full signal. I am using Mac OSX 10.6.8
I recently had my 1TB hard drive replaced and I am attempting to restore using Time Machine, migration assistant or from the startup dvd (tried multiple ways, no success). The initial setup of mac OSX 10.6 would not let me connect or other attempts after erasing hard drive and reinstalling OSX from disk.
Worked on it all weekend and don't have enough beer to drown the frustration, any help is appreciated.

You are correct TM is not at all easy to do a full restore.
To answer your question: Yes TM disk does show up in finder.
After my initial startup setup I was able to start TM and access all my previous backups. I migrated some files and was able grab the data from finder. Not satisfied with that I tried to do a restore to that previous date, to no success. I then erased the HD and reinstalled OSx and tried again from the setup screen. That didn't work, sulked over some beers. I then tired with Migration assistant...same result (more beer).
In starting TM after trying MA, only one backup was showing in the Star screen (today). None of my previous backups were showing. Since exiting TM it has been "Making Backup Disk Available" ( xGB of 6.29GB). Considering the size, I can only assume that these are my previous backups.
I have reviewed Pondini's posts, FAQs, and tutorials. I am a little scared to try and locate the drives through Terminal as in Pondini's TS #6 guide. If I can get my previous backups to show up, I will be happy with dragging files from Finder to restore my data and slowly work at restoring my settings/applications.

Trouble Accessing Virtual Machine After Time Machine Migration

I am hoping that someone else has run up against this problem and is able to help.
I recently purchased a new iMac. I upgraded to 8 GB of ram specifically because I have VMware Fusion and want to use it on my new machine.
I chose to migrate my entire old iMac to the new machine using my Time Machine backup.
VMware appears to have migrated successfully. I do not have any trouble accessing the application, but when I try to resume my only virtual machine, which is for Windows XP I get the following message:
VMware Fusion cannont connect to the virtual machine. Make sure you have rights to run the program and to access all directories it used and rights to access all directories for temporary files.
How do I resolve this problem?
Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to offer me a clue on how to overcome this.
If I can't access this machine it appears as if I will be able to create a new one. I would like to avoid having to do that if it is possible.
Terri Schurter

Captfred,
In that folder there is a virtual machine. It is called Windows XP Professional. So it is there. When I am in VMware Fusion I can see Windows Media Player, which is what I was probably accessing the last time I was in the machine, so it does appear to have backed up the virtual machine. I would expect it to because it is a part of a Mac application, VMware Fusion.
It appears to be an issue with permissions that I don't know how to solve.
I know there is a VMware forum, but I can't even figure out how to sign up for it the darned thing is so confusing. I can't seem to post to it no matter what I do.
Terri

Time Machine migration problems

Hello!
I've just bought a new 15" MacBook Pro, to replace my 13" MacBook Pro as I needed a bigger screen.
However, I'm having a lot of difficulty transferring my files across from a Time Machine backup I have of my old computer (and now it's the only copy of my data that I have).
About halfway through the transfer (during the initial computer setup, on the migration page), it seems to freeze up, then when you put your fingers on the trackpad it restarts into the 'Welcome' video again. So it takes me throughall of the steps, and I try to create a username - which I shouldn't have to do - but it won't let me create my usual name because it already exists. I create a different account and login and it looks like a fresh Mac installation - but half of the 500GB drive is used up and in 'Users', my original username exists with about half of its files and an 'incomplete migration' file.
So I reinstalled Snow Leopard and tried again, and I had the exact same result. Now I've created another duplicate account, deleted the half-migrated user account, and I'm using the migration wizard from within OS X.
Failing that, any other ideas as to what it could be?
The drive my backup is on is an external 500GB drive, but I have no others big enough that I could copy the files to to try. It is possible the drive is falling asleep halfway through? I've done exactly the same procedure before though with another MacBook, and it all went through smoothly...

It sounds like there's something corrupted on your backups.
From the Install disk, after selecting your language, select Utilities from the menubar, then +Disk Utility.+ Use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your TM drive. That may fix whatever's causing the Migration to hang.
Then us it to Erase your internal HD and try again.
If the migration fails again, about your only option will be to move the rest of your data from the backups manually -- use the normal "Star Wars" display to restore what Migration Assistant didn't. It sounds like you got at least part of your home folder, so try to restore one sub-folder at a time. One of them may well fail (when it hits whatever's corrupted), so try smaller and smaller pieces of it until you get all you can.

Read only access issue after time machine migrate

Having a small issues on my new rMBP. I recently switched from my MBA to this newer rMBP and I previously had a Time Machine backup that I migrated over. For some reason though..when accessing my external hard drive it keeps asking to authenticate the user and I have to put in a password anytime I edit or add files to this external drive. I was also having issues running some commands in Terminal where it said I didn't have access..my current user shows up as being admin but I'm not entirely sure how to get past all these restrictions and have read/write access to everything.

So I looked at the above images and noticed that the disk labeled "HD-PATU3" is almost entirely full - only 5GB of 1TB is available - so it's essentially "full".
You said that this drive "was" used for Time Machine backups - is that still what you want to do with it in addition to your own files? If you do still want to use as TimeMachine that's OK, but you can't predict what TM will do with it as far as space goes unless you split the disk into two partitions. TM knows how to remove old "snapshots" to make room for new backups, but do you need space on there as well for your own stuff? Some people think it's not a good idea to mix your own stuff and TM stuff on the same disk volume, so that has to be your decision to do.
You might want to take a look at http://pondini.org/TM/6.html and read what he has to say (Pondini is a TM expert/god/phsychic - basically he recommends splitting up the drive into two partitions - one for TM and one for you - that way things are easier for your data as you don't have to live with issues the TM enforces on it's backup volumes. So answer the questions:
     1. how large is the internal drive on the rMBP?
     2. how much do you want the external drive to have for backups and your stuff - in fact is there a reason why you don't have all
         stuff on the internal drive? There are performance penalties for having your data and TM backups on the same disk. You
         probably have a nice large internal disk on the new rMBP so is this really what you want to do?
     3. Depending on the answers we can get more specific to solve your issue(s)
later......

Mac air with external hard drive - not being found on Finder, Time Machine, Migration Assistant

I have been using an external drive (Imation Apollo) to access only, old files from previous computer (PC) on a new Mac Air. I had not transferred them across to new computer (didn't want to do that) just accessing them from the HD. It had been working fine until recently. Each time the external drive had been connected Time Machine would come up and ask if i wanted to use this drive for back ups, and I always chose 'Decide later'. So, as yetI hadn't as yet configured Time Machine to do back ups.
Recently I noticed that the extrnal HD was no longer showing up on Finder. Slight panic as i have 5 or 6 yrs of work saved on that HD
Further investigations - it's also not showing up either on on Disk Utility, or on Migration Assistant.
I've done the following:
Tried HD in each of different USB ports - made no difference, HD still not showing up
Tested different Hubs in each port with HD attached - no difference HD not showing up
Tried USB flash drives in the USB ports - These are working fine and show up on finder
Tried the HD on other comptuters (a PC though, don't have access to another mac to do this test)- working fine, the HD is showing up and is accessable
Interrogated the Console logs to try to see if the act of attaching the HD creates a log entry - couldn't find anything
Rebooted computer via shut down, power disconnect - no difference
Reset PRAM - no difference still not showing up
Reset SMC - no differnce still not showing up
So I think I have established that all the USB ports are functioning correctly and able to access other external drive devices, using hubs with external powersource is not the issue, identified that the external hard drive is working OK, and it appears that the Mac itself is functioning normally.
What would be the reason the Mac now does not allow this specific external HD to be identified and accessed. The only possible things I can think of are
if I had in fact pressed 'Do not use' when Time Machine asked 'do you want to use this drive for back ups'. Would that mean that the Mac now totally rejects this HD from being a source of accessible files - I hope not!
I also think that my husband may have disconnected the hard drive from my computer to access some stuff and he just yanked it out rather than use the safe eject method. Could this create an issue? The Hard drive works fine on his PC.
Why is my Mac Air now rejecting this HD and what can I do to access my historical files now.
Any assistance anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Anna

I can't answer why it isn't accessing it, but I have a slightly related issue w my back up drive starting to get noisy.
Realizing that redundancy is safety for critical data. I talked to my brother about my situation the other day & he said he has 3 small Western Digital portable HDs that he rotates for backup. He even keeps 1 in the safe deposit box.
I have read for some time that we should have multiple back ups & also have our critical stuff backed up off site. Amazon HD reviews had a woman telling about how she was very backed up on multiple computers & hard drives, but they were robbed or burgeled & all of them were stolen including her thesis that was on the computers.
Hard drives aren't that expensive. I just bought a new Western Digital 1 TB drive for $89.99. I plan to use it to back up the Seagate that is getting noisy & then maybe alternate them.
Also, when I came back to Mac, I moved practially all of my documents to Mac. I think I just dragged & dropped or something. Photos, Office, & pdfs do fine that way. & then you could back them up to a couple of different external drives & remove from your MacBookAir.
Unfortunately I think most of us do not back up until crisis & then it may be too late.
Also use Time Machine. For the 1st time in my computer life, my computer is well backed up--although now realizing the need for redundancy so will start backing up to at least 2 different HDs alternatly.
So, not sure why it isn't working & hopefully you have come up w a solution by now.
I think what I would do in a situation like this, since you can access it on the Windows machine would be to transfer the data to the Windows machine & then transfer it back to a different back up.
I'm looking into backing up what I still have in Windows using a thumb flash drive. I think it should all fit ok now that they have the larger drives & I don't have very much left in Windows format.

ITunes 12.0.1 on Yosemite cannot locate my music after Time Machine migration

Hi hi
On my old 2008 iMac, my iTunes consists of music media on the internal iMac hdd and on an external HDD.
The option "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" was left unchecked on my iTunes.
My 2008 iMac froze and stopped working thereafter a few days ago and I bought a new iMac.
After updating my new iMac to Yosemite, I transferred my old iMac settings and data from the most recent Time Machine backup via Migration Assistant.
Loaded iTunes on my new iMac and noticed that certain playlist are not working, i.e. cannot locate the media file.
I narrowed those unplayable playlists to the music located on my external HDD.
For those that were working, when I get info on the music files, they were located in my new iMac's internal HDD that were transferred over from my Time Machine backup, i.e. ~/Downloads/MP3s/etc.
Those that were unplayable and located in my external HDD points to ' ~/user/xxx/Music/iTunes/iTunes media', roughly along this line despite my old external HDD being plugged into my new iMac.
May get some help as to how to get the unplayable media on my external HDD working on my new iMac?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

actually i have same problem with yours. Finally i get iTunes update from apple website, not thru app store.
but so far i still have no idea to make those iTunes update(8 times) disappear.
it's really ugly in that page.
maybe some one have idea to solve it , please advise it. it will be appreciated much ~

Uninstall problem in cc applications after time machine migration to new mac

Newbie to cc. Having problems with cc programs that were migrated across to new iMac via Time Machine back up when setting up new mac.
Attempting to open PS cc results in error message 86. I have now uninstalled Creative Cloud program and a PS cc program in Utilities via Adobe Installer in Ulilities however, (other copies?) of the programs PS cc and Bridge cc, the only 2 cc programs I have so far, are listed in my Applications folder.
I think I need to remove them both from the Applications folder but am unsure how to do this safely. There is no Abobe Uninstaller now in Utilities as it was empty after uninstall removal of duplicate? programs noted earlier so I deleted that too.
Should I send them to trash? And then perhaps I can start afresh with new installs of Creative Cloud and required cc programs.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thank, Barry

Hi Jakekira14,
We never suggest our customer's to move Adobe softwares using Timemachine because it causes launch/Licensing issues. I would request you to kindly delete all the Adobe folders and then install everything from scratch. To remove the left over's, please delete the following folders from your machine.
Click on Go>Go to
/Library/Application Support/Adobe
/Library/Preferences/Com.adobe.....
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe
~/Library/Preferences
Cheers,
Kartikay Sharma

Missing a month's emails after time machine migration

I backed up my MacBook Pro before migrating all the data to a new iMac. Opening Mail on the iMac I discover I am missing the last month's emails. What might be the problem? Has TIme Machine lost them or not recognised them? How can I now get the missing email datga from the Macbook Pro into the new iMac Mail package? Advice, please.

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data. That means you know you can restore the Mail database, no matter what happens.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens (command-V), then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
Envelope Index
ExternalUpdates.storedata
Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Log out and log back in. Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Warning: The process may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. For reasonable-sized mailboxes, it should only take a few minutes.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

What to miss out in partial Time Machine migration?

I have a Mac Book early 2009 machine, running 10.7.5 which had become increasingly slow, with endless spining wheel syndrome, finder windows taking ages to respond etc. Sometimes it will not restart - getting as far as a blank desktop, then giving a spinning wheel instead of loading the desktop icons.
Anyway, I have bought a new Mac Book Pro as my old machine is going to be passed along for less onerous tasks.
Going through the initialisation process, I first opted to restore the new machine from my Time Machine backup. This completed fine, but the new machine is then as sluggish as the old one. Clearly something is locking things up. I tried investigating the old machine for a software problem, used spring cleaning etc and never solved it.
Given the problem, I thought I would initialise the new Mac Book Pro with a clean system install - it loaded Mountain Lion 10.8 (not Maverick) from the initialisation menu.
Now I have a window that will allow me to migrate data from my Time Machine backup.
I was hoping I would have the option of choosing which applications to bring over, rather than having to find installation discs, enter license keys etc. but it does not allow me to select individual packages.
I can select all applications or none.
There is the option of importing system settings and content (where it is possible to define which top level folders are imported).
So what is the best approach?
I'm thinking to bring over the files and system settings, then install programmes piece meal as I need them.
But could issues such as the slow running be due to system settings?
Suggestions welcome.

Time Machine will (should) restore your old accounts. If you used a different user and password to set up your new MBP, try using one of your old accounts to log in. If that doesn't work, call back. You might also want to research your problem on Pondoni's Time Machine FAQ pages - http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
Good luck,
Clinton

Mail 5.3 crash after Time Machine migration

All,
I'm facing a problem with Mail 5.3 while trying to recover my email db from Time Machine after an update of MacOS.
Here the following steps I made to perform this update:
Update my iMac from SL to Lion 10.7.1 using the clean install way.
Install last 10.7.5 combo update.
Perform migration of content and system preferences from my last Time Machine backup before the upgrade (using the Migration wizard)
Finally, run Mail.
After having performed the email db conversion (without any error message), Mail seems to crash since no main window appears in the application.
I need to force the application to show the main window with the dedicated command of the Window menu.
But the result is not what we should expect !
Please check the snapshot herein attached.
While looking at the console, it seems that an error occurs during the execution of Mail, with the following error message and code :
29/10/12 08:30:37,835 Mail: An exception occurred during invocation of -[MailboxesController _writeSmartMailboxesToDisk]
29/10/12 08:30:37,836 Mail: *** -[NSSet initWithArray:range:copyItems:]: array argument is not an NSArray
Is there any member of this community who could have an idea what's wrong with this ?
Thanks,
Michel

Some progress on this issue to share with you.
First, Mail.app on the others user account was fine and I managed to successfully perform the migration from Time Machine.
This led to the point that the problem was relying on the Mail DB rather on the Mail.app itself.
I have reinitialised the Mail.app on the user account where the problem occured using the following guidelines:
- access to the Library folder using the [Alt]+[Goto Menu] of the Finder
- rename Mail and Mail Downloads folders into Mail.old and Mail Downloads.old
- delete com.apple.mail.plist and all com.apple.mail... files in the Preferences folder
Then, start the Mail.app again
Mail.app has been reinitialised completely !

Can't log in after time machine migration.

I just bought the latest model running Lion today, used time machine to migrate my data from my old MBP running 10.5. After the migration done I couldn't log in and stuck at the start up page. Is there any way to solve this problem (I'm pretty sure that's not the password issue)?
=_= Please help.

Time Machine will (should) restore your old accounts. If you used a different user and password to set up your new MBP, try using one of your old accounts to log in. If that doesn't work, call back. You might also want to research your problem on Pondoni's Time Machine FAQ pages - http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
Good luck,
Clinton

What to do after Time Machine migration (how to start using TM again)

Hello,
I have just restored my system from my Time Machine (TM) backup (I have a USB hdd plugged into my airport extreme (AEB), so the TM backup is a sparsebundle file on the USB hard disk).
The initial setup with migration assistant did not work - it could not find the sparsebundle on my hard disk (this was with leopard 10.5). After setting up a dummy account and doing a system update to 10.5.6 migration assistant then worked fine.
My question is how do I start doing TM backups again? If I am logged in as the user who was restored via migration assistant and then enable TM and then select the HDD that is shared over my AEB will it automatically recognize the old sparsebundle and use that as the starting point for backups? Or do I need to delete the old sparsebundle and then start a brand new backup?
My external HDD is not big enough to accomodate an additional backup, and so I would prefer to just use the existing backup if possible.
Thank You!

atticus_pf wrote:
Hello,
I have just restored my system from my Time Machine (TM) backup (I have a USB hdd plugged into my airport extreme (AEB), so the TM backup is a sparsebundle file on the USB hard disk).
The initial setup with migration assistant did not work - it could not find the sparsebundle on my hard disk (this was with leopard 10.5). After setting up a dummy account and doing a system update to 10.5.6 migration assistant then worked fine.
My question is how do I start doing TM backups again? If I am logged in as the user who was restored via migration assistant and then enable TM and then select the HDD that is shared over my AEB will it automatically recognize the old sparsebundle and use that as the starting point for backups? Or do I need to delete the old sparsebundle and then start a brand new backup?
My external HDD is not big enough to accomodate an additional backup, and so I would prefer to just use the existing backup if possible.
not possible. TM will make a complete new backup after a new install and there is no way around that. if your existing backup drive is too small for that you have to delete the existing backups and start TM backups from scratch. (just thrash the sparse bundle and empty trash).
Thank You!

"Reboot screen" after time machine migration

After a blue screen one morning I decided to check HDD through Snow Leopard CDs.
HDD and Permissions were fine. But still no boot.
After reinstalling OSX and full Updates I transferred Time Machine Back-up.
On reboot a dark grey screen appears and asks me to reboot, again and again and again...
HELP!

Startup - Gray, Blue or White screen at boot, w/spinner/progress bar
Startup - Gray Screen
Startup Issues - Resolve
Startup Issues - Resolve (2)

Kernel panic after time machine migration after clean install of 107.3

I had the hard drive replaced in in my mid 2009 17" MacBook pro. After the clean install of lion I migrated my data from time machine (lion) to the new clean partition.. Upon completion the machine is unresponsive. The progress wheel turning for 10 minutes. I force quit and restart to kernel panic. I have been through this 3 times same sequence of events same results. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
John

See
What is a kernel panic,
Technical Note TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics,
Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ,
Resolving Kernel Panics, and
Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics for more details.

Permissions? Time Machine Migration MB to MBA

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