Privilege problem with old Time Machine backup

Question

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
sudo chmod -N /Volumes/Volumename

Answer 1

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.