Post Lion: How to get access to old Time Machine backups?

Hi,
I did a clean install of Lion. Before doing this, I cloned my Snow Leopard Macintosh HD onto another partition. After installing, I ran Time Machine using the same HDD for my previous SL install. Time machine must have recognised I am running the same hardware laptop, and renamed the folder under Backups.backupdb. It created new backups, but left my SL backups alone. When I enter time machine, I can view all my backups from the Lion install, but the rest are all greyed out.
If I bootup into my old SL partition and access Time Machine, do I risk corrupting the Lion backups? If yes, is there another way to access these backups from Time Machine on SL? I've tried moving the folders under Backups.backupdb but they are protected.
The reason I want to do this is I want to run both OSs for a while, until all my apps are Lion compatible.
Many Thanks,
Prashant.

_prashantp wrote:
I did a clean install, which is why I have this issue.
That's correct.
When you erased the drive, it got a new UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier), so even if it has the same name, it's treated as a different drive, and the "old" one is no longer connected.
You can still view the old backups. See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
EDIT: Sorry, I misread your post. You have two volumes being backed-up, both connected. Use the same procedure to look at the volume you want.
One caution; if you have the Lion drive being backed-up by Snow Leopard, and use any of the apps that use Autosave and Versions, the backups will fail because of the hidden /.DocumentRevisions-V101 folder on the Lion volume (and the /.MobileBackups folder). Either exclude those folders or your whole Lion volume from Time Machine on Snow Leopard.
Similarly, if you use any of those apps on Lion to edit any files on the Snow Leopard volume, it will create a /.DocumentRevisions-V101 folder on the Snow Leopard drive, too.

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Access to old Time Machine backups in Mountain Lion

I would like to perform a clean install of Mountain Lion on my Mac and I have a few questions regarding Time Machine. I currently use Lion and Time Machine is set up on an external drive. I do not wish to use setup or migration assistant.
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If I do copy the files, will I have permission errors?
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lukemac77 wrote:
I would like to perform a clean install of Mountain Lion
Why? That rarely accomplishes anything good.
I do not wish to use setup or migration assistant.
Why not?
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1. After the clean install, will I be able to browse AND copy filed from the old backups manually?
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2. If I do copy the files, will I have permission errors?
If you copy them via the Finder, possibly. Especially if the UIDs don't correspond, the new user account may not have permission to change or delete things. You may be able to put default permissions on them via
Resetting Password and/or User Permissions.
Basically, I wish to copy only select files from the Home Folder and re-install everything else anew.
If you skip Applications, and reinstall them, your best bet is to use Setup Assistant, omitting any broad categories you can. Otherwise, let it all transfer, then delete what you don't need.
After that, I want to restart Time Machine in Mountain Lion and start a new backup.
If you don't use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, the next backup will be a full one. Plus, the previous backups will be treated as if they were made from a different disk. You can still see them, but via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
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Hello,
I would like an answer to this question as well. As this is a time capsule and not a Airport extreme question I think here is a better start.
I'm planning on getting a Time Capsule but have been backing up to a 500GB USB drive connected directly to my MacBook. It's probably only a month or 2 worth of back ups and not that big of a deal but if i get a Time Capsule and want to access the old back ups it would be nice to know if that is possible and if so how it can be done. I was thinking it might be possible to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner and move the back up file to the Time Capsule drive and erase the external that I have now, and have Time Machine use that file like it has been doing from the wired drive.
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Privilege problem with old Time Machine backup

There are all kinds of posts about privilage problems, but I can't find my answer. I did a clean install of Snow Leopard, and now I want to only drag my iTunes library and iPad backup files from my time machine backup onto the computer. I can access all the files on the backup drive, including MobileSync and my iTunes folder, but when I try to pull them off the drive I get the terrible message "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access “MobileSync”." The sharing & permissions for the folder say "read & write" for my user, and the "Locked" box isn't checked in the Get Info window. When I click on the settings gear in the Sharing & Permissions window, the "Make me the owner" option is grayed out even after I unlock the options. I tried resolution for issue 1 here. And I also tried those terminal commands to no avail. When I access Time Machine from the dock, all the backups prior to my reinstall are listed, but I can't access them. Anyone have any other ideas? This is extremely frustrating. Note: I am able to copy over files from the backups created after I reinstalled Snow Leopard.
sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/Volumename
sudo chown 0:80 /Volumes/Volumename
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/Volumename
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I personally think that Time Machine is a magical process run by unicorns.
I just moved from a MacBook Pro to a brand spanking new iMac 27". My iPad just does everything that I need a laptop to do, and an iMac is so much more powerful than a MBP.
Anyways, I setup my new iMac with the MBP Time Machine backup, as I usually do with new Macs. As I was going to sell my MBP, I was just going to use my 3TB Time Machine drive on my new iMac, thinking that I'd lose 9 months of backups, as I usually do with a new Mac. Except, apparently with Mountain Lion, the unicorns and wizards have decided that the old Time Machine backups are now transferred to the new iMac. So, even though my iMac is only 15 days old, it shows 9 months of backups. Which was a lifesaver, because an important photo got corrupted in the restore process, and I found it in the Wayback Machine.
Cool stuff.

Old Time Machine Backup Problems - Permissions

Today, I figured out how to access my iPhoto Library photos from my old Time Machine backups. I was SO happy! The backups were from 2011 and earlier (hardrive crashed in May 2012). I had not done a Time Machine backup since 2011, so I decided to do a new backup today. After the backup finished, I decided to look at my old photos again (in the old backups) and when I tried to click on any of the files in the old backups, I get the message: The folder “Pictures” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.
Of course, now I am crushed/frustrated because I do not understand why I cannot access the old backups anymore. *Note: the new backup is accessible.

No problem.
You probably need to use Browse Other Time Machine Disks and within that older backup go to User/Pictures and restore the file "iPhoto Library" to a separate folder on your drive (so as not to replace your current iPhoto library) and then look in that restored photo library.
You need to do this in the Time Machine "Star Wars" interface from "Browse Other...."

Old Time Machine Backup

OK this is complex so hope u can bear with me...
I backed up my computer with Time Machine running lion, or maybe snow leapord.
Now I have a new computer and the old one is gone, and it's running Mountain Lion.
I'm just trying to get my old data back, but when I go to "browse other time machine backups" my old backup does not appear in the list.
I've taken this disk to other computers before and accessed my old TM backup, I dunno why it's not working now.
Migration Assistant I learned does work, however there are a few problems with that...
First: Migration assistant did not copy my old iWeb site domain file to my new computer, so I'm hoping its still in there somewhere, becuase iCloud deleted my mobile me site by now.
I also clicked every option therefore now I have two accounts. I DO NOT WANT TWO ACCOUNTS. I have now one with the old time machine backup restore, and one with the new computer account. I want one account, I don't want to have to relogin to have to check my old email box. Not only that the directories of one account are locked an not accessible by another... not good.
Finnaly Time Machine just popped-up a window asking if I should "integrate" old time machine backups into this computer backup, saying that if I did this the old computer would not be synced with this new time machine backup. Since I don't have the old comptuter that should be fine. However I'm still hoping to find my old website on that disk somewhere, perhaps in a earlier version of the TM backup.
If I do this "integration" will I be able to now browse my old time machine disk as I was able to before and on other computer's which run lion?
Thanks.

OK it's actually called "inherit" it says:
Would you like this computer to inherit the backup history from "XX" on "X" backup disk?
3 options
don't back up now, Create new backup, Inherit backup history
If I click inherit backup history... it will backup my new disk... and hopefully allow me to accesss the older one like i've been trying to do all along...

A question about restoring from an old Time Machine backup

My computer has been acting very slow and freezing frequently lately. The spotlight background processess keep hogging the processor, and
It keeps getting catalog b-Tree corruption. I've already done one complete reformat of my drive and a restore from a time machine backup hoping it would fix things, and that didn't work.
I tried a complete reinstall and used the migration assistant to move all my files and settings from my time machine back over to it.
That worked for about a week, then had b-Tree corruption that could only be fixed with disk warrior.
I was suspecting a hardware problem, but I have done thourogh tests of my Ram with memtest from single user mode, and a disk surface scan with Tech Tool Deluxe. Everything checks out.
I am thinking there is some corrupt system file or setting that is getting reinstalled from my Time machine backup that is messing things up.
This all is a leadup to my question:
I would like to try restoring from a much older Time Machine back up (6 months ago or so before I started experiencing problems).
If I do that, can I still use Time Machine to restore individual files and directories from later backups?
I'd like my system settings and applications to be from six months ago, but my desktop files and documents to be from my most recent backup.
Thanks,
-Matt

Yeah, I usually check the FAQs before posting a question.
They do talk about how to restore from an older back up, but not about what happens to your newer files once you have done it. They also talk about accessing files from another computer's time machine backup, but its not clear if that would work on a different fork of the same machine.
I may just have to learn from experience, but I don't want to risk losing any data.
I do recommend time machine though. Its saved me several times.
If anyone else has experience with this let me know.
Thanks,
-Matt

Want to move an old time machine backup

I'm trying to backup an old drive before it fails.
It has a folder on it with old time machine backups.
My system won't allow me to move that folder.
I get the message "The backup can't be copied because the backup volume doesn't have ownership enabled."
How do I enable ownership or force that file to be backed up?
Thanks.

nowsthetime wrote:
Now I'm stuck with these files taking up space on a drive and no way to get rid of them without wiping the drive. Which is what I'll have to do.
Launch the Terminal app, in the window that pops up, copy & paste in this snippet, follow by adding a space, and then dragging one of those files into the window. Hit the return key and at the Password: prompt, carefully enter your admin password, and hit the return key:
sudo rm
so it looks something like this:
sudo rm /Users/username/Desktop/"name of file"
If that works, then collect the others into a folder and repeat, but use this as the leading part:
sudo rm -R
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Help. I hit 'Restore All' in an old Time Machine backup

I fully realize I made a terrible mistake. I had an iphoto library on my imac that i haven't backed up at all. I was playing around with an old time machine backup and i pressed restore all thinking it would warn me that i was going to overwrite my existing library. well, now i have lost a years worth of photos without having backed them up. my question is, is there anyway to retrieve them? the trash holds nothing. there is no backup save my iphone. when i hook that up it only shows 2 photos. hide already imported photos is NOT checked. i imagine i can pull them off. i'm wondering if they will be the full resolution however. i would like to UNDO the restore first if there is a way. if not i guess i have to do it with the iphone which i'm not sure if it had all the photos from my previous library anyways. please advise and i will love you forever.
mark

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. About the only recourse is to use a file recovery application like SubrosaSoft FileSalvage. You can run it in demo mode to verify that you can recover the photos you want before you have to pay for it.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
Note: There's now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

Post Lion: How to get access to old Time Machine backups?

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