Replacement iMac hard drive not an option for "restore from backup"

Got my iMac back from Apple today with a new hard drive following a hardware failure. Unfortunately, I cannot restore from Time Machine as the internal drive is not listed as a choice for "Destination". My Firewire drives are visible but the internal drive is not. It wasn't visible at the initial attempt to restore when the drive was under factor fresh OS installation, it wasn't visible after partitioning the drive, and it wasn't visible after repartioning into a single partition. Any advice or ideas/explanations?

In your "Applications" -> "Utilities" folder you'll find a utility named "Migration Assistant".
Migration Assistant was originally created for Mac owners who buy a new Mac and want to migrate all their data over to the new machine. But it turns out this is exactly what you do when you do a full restore from a Time Machine backup to a new/empty disk.
As a result, Migration Assistant was updated since they came out with Time Machine so that one of the options is "From a Time Machine Backup or other disk".
Choose that option and it should let you do your backup (it'll ask you what you want to restore... user accounts & folders, apps, etc.) You probably just want to have it restore everything.
When you get a new disk you really don't want to run Time Machine interactively to pick the restore. The interactive mode was really designed to help you search for subsets of files to restore (when you're missing just one or two things). You'll be missing a LOT if you try to do a restore that way.
There are some caveats... since you probably already created a user account without doing a restore first, you probably already created an account with the same name that you had before. Migration Assistant wont let you do a full restore overwriting an existing account. You can get around this by creating a temporary account (and flag it as an 'administrative' account), then delete all other accounts on the fresh hard drive. Now when you do the Migration you will have no conflicting accounts and all will go as expected. You can then delete the temporary admin account when you're done.
Time Machine should figure out that the backup does belong to your current machine BUT that the disk being backed up is NOT the original disk. This will cause it to not trust that it can tell what data has changed since the last backup and forces something called a "deep traversal". A deep traversal means it will do a comparison of every file in the backup with the corresponding file on computer to determine if it's the same -- and this takes about as long as an original Time Machine backup (as if you deleted the whole thing and started a new backup) except you wont lose your backup history. Expect the first backup to take many hours to complete. After that initial "deep traversal" you'll get normal backup performance on all subsequent backups.

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How to start up laptop from grey screen with circle and slash through it?

After you installed Yosemite and prior to restoring from the backup, were you able to start the Mac?

HT1766 i am trying to restore my iPad from a backup. I do not get the option of restoring from backup.... I only get restore to orginal settings?

I was attempting to update my ipad to the newest OS system and it crashed... I came back with it saying that it had an error and did not update. Now I only get the iTunes logo on the ipad witht he usb cord picture.
I have gone into iTunes & it says I have to do a restore. But it does not give me the RESTORE from Backup option. Only the Restore to Factory Settings. Is this normal?
Thank you for any help you can give me.
D

Marrtin S wrote:
Hi I am trying to restore my iphone from the itunes back and it is asking me for a password, I don't ever remember putting a password in. how do i get the password reset?
You can't get it reset; if you could there would be no point in having it. If you have an encrypted backup there are two ways this could have happened:
You checked "Encrypt Backup" in iTunes at some time in the past, either intentionally or by accident
You have a corporate MS Exchange account and your Exchange administrator installed a security profile on your phone that requires the phone'a contents to be encrypted. This, in turn, requires the backup to be encrypted for obvious reasons.
In either case you were prompted for a password the first time you backed up after whichever of these happened. So think about what you might have entered for a password at that time. Fortunately you get an unlimited number of tries. Other threads on this subject have shown that it is always a password known to the user, so it wasn't something made up by iTunes. Also, everyone who has figured it out has found it to be a different password type, so try your Apple ID password, your computer's login password, your WiFi password, your corporate domain password, etc. And try passwords that may have been changed since your first backup. As a last resort there is a professional password cracker available, but it isn't cheap - it's targeted at the law enforcement market - from Elcomsoft. There are also some scam password crackers available that don't actually work and possibly steal your information. It's likely that a developer of one or more of these will post a response with a link (possibly hidden) to their "product". So before clicking any links you might want to install the Web of Trust plugin that keeps track of scam sites and warns you. http://www.mywot.com.

For restoring from backup itunes is asking for password

Hi Experts
for restoring from backup itunes is asking for password and i didn't give any password when backup was going on not even i checked on encrypt my backup.
please help me ASAP

See:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3057884
I too have experienced the "blame everything but Apple products/software" indoctrination of the Apple phone support techs!
I have a feeling that iTunes automatically switches encryption on and puts as default a previous iTunes store password but as I don't leave mine the same all the time (and don't feel the need to remember historic passwords that I'm not using to secure anything against) I have no clue what it is.
Good luck trying to get useful advice on here relating to the issue, it will go along the lines of...
1) Its your fault for setting it and forgetting the password,
2) We know everything and theres definately no way iTunes would set backups to encrypt without your knowledge and...
3) Theres no fix for this issue, you might be able to save some of your data, but most will be lost (unless you specifically ask for an iTunes redownload exemption/ token then your purchases could be lost too).
Welcome to the world of Apple!

IMac hard drive failing; external TM will restore but won't then back up

It appears my early 2009 (OS X 10.9.5) hard drive is failing as it crashed 6 months ago, in November and again this week. SMART Utility says it has re-allocated 6 bad sectors and there has been 1 re-allocated event. Each Time I have successfully restored from an external hard drive with TM on it. Prior to the November fail, CCC reported an odd (unknown to me system file) corrupt file but, instead of replacing the file as perhaps I should, I decided to re-boot which it wouldn't do and hence the November TM restore.
However, despite restoring successfully the external TM will no longer make back ups. I have tried repairing it but it is greyed out and Verify says 'unable to complete.' Eventually I did get the greyed out button to work but Repair reported:
Verifying volume “Time Machine”
Checking file system
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Keys out of order
Invalid extent entry
Incorrect block count for file iNode785919y8
(It should be 13 instead of 4194317)Invalid extent entry
Missing thread record (id = 82)
Incorrect size for file iNode78591999
(It should be 4096 instead of 274877907467)
Invalid extent entry
File record has hard link chain flag (id = 78591999)
File has incorrect number of links (id = 78591999)
(It should be 1 instead of 17)
Missing thread record (id = 18)
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
Incorrect block count for file iNo$e78592002
(It should be 4194317 instead of 13)
Missing thread record (id = 82)
Invalid extent entry
Incorrect size for file iN/de7x592003
(It should be 4096 instead of 274877907467)
Invalid extent entry
File record has hard link chain flag (id = 78592067)
File has incorrect number of links (id = 78592067)
(It should be 1 instead of 17)
Missing thread record (id = 4194322)
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
File record has hard link chain flag (id = 78592004)
File has incorrect number of links (id = 78592004)
(It should be 1 instead of 17)
Missing thread record (id = 18)
Incorrect size for file iNode78592005
(It should be 0 instead of 64)I
nvalid extent entry
Invalid extent entryIncorrect size for file iNode78592006
(It should be 0 instead of 4194304)
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
Missing thread record (id = 4194322)
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
File record has hard link chain flag (id = 82786312)
File has incorrect number of links (id = 82786312)
(It should be 1 instead of 17)
Missing thread record (id = 18)
Incorrect block count for file )Nod%78592009
(It should be 65 instead of 1)
Invalid extent entry
Invalid extent entry
Incorrect block count for file iNode78592010
(It should be 0 instead of 4194304)
Invalid extent entry
Incorrect size for file iNode78592011
(It should be 0 instead of 274877906944)
Invalid catalog record type
The volume Time Machine could not be verified completely.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Whilst pondering this, the hard drive crashed again this week. Bizarrely I was able to restore from the very same external TM that will not let me do further back ups nor be repaired.
I wonder if there are any further checks I can do to establish if my iMac hard drive is failing? I will then decide whether to replace the hard drive - I see I can fit a WD 6TB with the jumpers set to reduce the speed to 3GB/s - or buy a new iMac.
I wonder also whether there is anything I can do to preserve my TM back ups. I realise I am being guided to re-format this external drive, but can I do that and then add back the actual existing back ups (which I would transfer to another disk before re-formatting) rather than start again from no history newly formatted?

Omdineen wrote:
It boots up to where its just my background and the Finder bar but then crashes, so I can't click anything. Anything from here or am I just screwed?
There are a few remaining options.
If you have another Mac with a FireWire port, try FireWire Target Disk Mode: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
You need a FireWire cable to connect the two Macs. This will allow you to mount your failing HD on a working Mac and copy files that way.
Try Safe Mode - read about it first:
Safe Mode or "Safe Boot" is a troubleshooting mode that bypasses all third party system extensions and loads only required system components.
Starting up in Safe Mode
This assumes the Finder is crashing due to a third party system extension or optional system component that Safe Mode will prevent from loading. You should still be able to copy files directly to an external device, but file sharing will be disabled.
Lastly boot from the DVD again, repair the disk again, reinstall OS X, and keep your fingers crossed. You're squeezing the last drops of life from the thing.

Old Hard drive died...automated restore from Time Machine?

Is there a way to just sort of "one click" the process for restoring from an external drive I've been using? My hard drive died on my MacBook and I had it replaced under my Apple Care warranty. Without dragging and dropping things is there an easy way to just pick up where I left off? I'm trying to search around and I'm not finding any solutions for this particular situation.

you can do a full system restore from TM.
Start from the leopard install DVD, once past the language screen go to Utilities menu and select "restore from Time machine". follow the instructions.

Early 2008 iMac will not reinstall OSX or restore from backup

My system started rebooting on startup a few weeks ago. It would eventually get so I could use it. I backed all my important files except for some audiobooks from the library I had saved to iTunes and some archived emails on my HD. Now, I can't get the system to reinstall OSX Mavericks or restore from Backup. They start but then reboot. Disk utility is now showing the HD as verified. I installed the 6GB memory pack from OWC about 3 weeks before everything started to go downhill. I had no prior problems with the memory upgrade. I even removed the 4 GB module. Still no improvement. Does anyone have any Idea how I can retrieve my audiobooks and email files and save them on my PC laptop? Thanks!

When I try to boot up in Safe Mode, sometimes I get 3 beeps which repeat over and over. I tried to repair disk, it said to erase the disk, format and restore from backup. The backup stops after about 3 percent of the restore is accomplished. I am super frustrated!!!

How can I restore my iPhone 4's iOS5 backup without restoring iOS if the option to "Restore from Backup" doesn't appear when I right click it in the device list?

(Lengthy question, I know Let me explain.)
A few days ago, I decided to clear out the music on my computer. So, I copied everything out of iTunes to my external hard drive (podcasts, music, movies, tv shows, books, and apps) and deleted all that I could find, including the iTunes folder. I forgot that the iTunes library files were in there, and those went too; unsurprisingly, I was greeted with an empty library when I next opened iTunes. After adding all my files back from my external hard drive, everything's all good there - no lost files, everything seems fine. However, since my library is a "new" library, iTunes wishes to erase everything on my iPhone 4. Which is also fine, for everything except my apps. I'd really rather not lose all my application settings and data that are saved in my backup. But, I cannot just "Restore from Backup" by right-clicking my device in the list in iTunes, so... I haven't synced my iPhone since I did this, so all of my data is still on there, but it's in the backup as well. If I have to erase all iTunes content, I definitely have to be able to restore the backup over it since I don't want to lose all my settings and Springboard layout. I'd prefer not to restore iOS because I don't want to go from iOS5 to 5.0.1, nor do I have 8 hours to download the IPSW file on my super-speedy internet connection Any guidance on restoring my iPhone from its backup?

Here's an interesting bit: iTunes will let me restore my iPod touch from backup: it's still running iOS 4.3.3. I figured as much... there's backups showing in the Preferences -> Devices list for both devices (and even my old, long gone iPod touch 2G), but my iPhone (on iOS5) isn't giving me any such option. I remember I had to downgrade before to get the backup restored (something went haywire in the setup assistant, and I couldn't restore a backup from iTunes there)... If it was possible to go to iOS 5.0 rather than 5.0.1 I would just do the same thing again, but iOS 5.0.1 isn't an option. I attached a screenshot. Hopefully Apple can get this nonsense sorted out; I think iOS 5 might be the root of this, somehow.

ITunes only gives iPhone 5 the option to restore from backup or eject

I know this question has been asked in the past, and I have read many threads and articles on this question, but I still have not been able to find a way to backup my iPhone 5 (running iOS 6.1.2) to my computer without losing all the data on it.
Brief explanation of my problem.
I purchased an iPhone 5 new back in December 2012 Removed it from the box, powered it on and started entering my contacts from my old (non-smart) phone by hand. After done entering my contacts, I then proceeded to setup Messages, iTunes, the App store etc with the Apple ID of my wife's phone since we really don't have a need for separate Apple ID's.
All works fine with all our Apple iOS devices.
My problem lies with me not being able to plug my iPhone 5 into my computer and being able to make a backup to the computer. No matter what computer I plug the iPhone 5 into, I get the Welcome to Your New iPhone screen. If I right-click on the phone in the left hand column, my only options are Eject (or Restore from backup... if I plug the iPhone 5 into the same computer that my wife's iPhone has been backed up to) as seen in this image.
How do I get the phone to be recognized by my computer so I can do a backup to the computer like my wife's iPhone. I currently do NOT have a backup anywhere of my iPhone 5?
Is the only time you can associate an iOS device to a computer is when it is brand new before being used?
By comparison, I can plug my iPad 2 (running iOS 6.1.3) into any computer (be it the one it is synced and backed up to, or a completely different machine) and iTunes will show the device, ask to update the firmware if an update is needed, and allow me to see what is currently installed, drag and drop items to certain apps that allow it, see the breakdown at the bottom of the screen as to what percent of music, apps, pictures, etc are installed on it and such.
So, why can't I see my iPhone 5 in the same manner when I connect it to a computer?
Any and all advice greatly appreciated.
If any further info is needed, I will be glad to supply it.
Thanks in advance to all that respond.
- Dan

I would like to preface that I have NOT tried what I am about to post.
I came across this forum post that seems to answer the question I originally posted above.
The post is will itunes erase my iphone if I set it up as new?
Based on this post, it seems that if I create a new library using the hold Shift Key while starting ITunes and then selecting Create library, and then starting iTunes in this new library, when connecting my iphone I should be able to select the Setup as new and then based on the postings in the above link, give the phone a name and it should backup the phone without deleting anything from it.
Again, I have not tried this myself as I finally broke down and created a new user on my PC to do the backup. I came across this link after I had finished my backup.
Just thought someone might find this useful.
Dan

Having a hard time rebooting iPhone 5 after restore from backup!

Here is my problem, my new iphone 5 did a restore from backup from my 4S. It took awhile because I have a lot of apps. Unfortunately not all the folders were intact. I heard that you have to do a double restore from backup. Once I did my 2nd restore from backup, the phone goes through a reboot process. I get the apple logo and then a blank screen. I have tried holding the home and top button with and without it being plugged in. I got it working and did a restore from backup again, thinking the folders would be restored. It did not work again. After trying about 5 or 6 times, I finally got the phone to come up again. Unfortunately I still have not gotten my folders back they way it was. It's partial and now I don't want to try to do another restore from backup. So I guess itunes is still not fixed in terms of restoring apps and folders they way it is supposed to be. Anyone else have this issue?

Sorry to say my friend, but any second you going to lose from that moment on is a lost second. I d like to wish you luck and after all said and done - get back here and tell me if I was wrong. BTW if those were text group messages, your phone was never a problem.

Not syncing when choosing restore from backup

After I upgraded to version 2.0, my computer recognized "iphone" and I had a choice to set up as a new iphone or restore from last back up. I chose to restore from backup. NOTHING happens, there is nowhere to click to get it to sync from computer to phone.

You're saying I should put the backup on another, bigger external drive, erase everything on my computer and restore from the 2nd external drive? Sounds a bit risky, especially if I erase my computer and the problem is with the backup.

Replacing iMac Hard Drive

My existing hard drive is nearing its maximum capacity, and I want to replace it with a newer, larger hard drive. I have a 450MHz Indigo iMac G3 running OS X Tiger. In all other respects, the system is working beautifully. Anyone have suggestions for a compatible HD that I should buy? The larger the drive the better - I have quite a lot of photos and music to load into the new drive from an external HD as well as my current.
As a second question, what's the best way of going about making this transition? What are the steps involved?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
iMac G3 450MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

The iMac G3 takes any old standard desktop hard drive however you should get a 3.5", 7,200 rpm drive with at least an 8Mb Cache - this will give you a significant speed boost over the original drive.
As already stated you can install up to a 128Gb drive. This is due to the addressing limit on the IDE bus. You can install a larger drive but only the first 128Gb will be accessible. So it's sensible to buy a 120Gb drive to maximize your investment.
You should also purchase an external Firewire hard disk enclosure. Once you've removed the small internal hard drive you'll screw it in to this and then connect it to your FW port and 'clone' your data across using Carbon Copy Cloner. You can then use the old drive as a back-up device.
Alternatively to avoid that hassle and the risks involved with opening the iMac up just buy an External Firewire Hard drive (There are no limits on the size so you could buy a 1.5 Tetrabyte(!) drive to use). Of course this option involves additional cables and power cables. Any new external drive will be far faster than the internal (if connected via FW not USB) and you can install Mac OS on the external if you wish. Check with the Vendor that the external drive or enclosure has an Oxford or bootable chipset.
HTH
mrtotes

Exactly how do I go from 10.6.1 to Mountain Lion on an Apple replaced iMac hard drive please?

I am having the hard drive (from the recall) on my 2009 intel iMac in an hour in my home via Apple. I have 2 seperate backups on two different external drives. Both have Mountain Lion which I purchased when it came out. Apple specifies the tech will only put the install dvd that came with the iMac in 2009 which has 10.6.1. so will i have to update to 10.6.8 (can I even do this?) which is a Mountain Lion requirement and then firewire transfer from my backup drive? I'm looking (gratefully) for the exact steps. Thanks. dennis

The easiest way to accomplish this, assuming your hard drive is working and it's being replaced as a precaution, is to make a complete bootable clone of the internal hard drive to one of your external drives using a utility such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!. Then once the drive has been replaced, just boot your system from the clone and clone it back to the internal drive.
Regards.

Replaced iMac Hard Drive, now having trouble getting TM back working

The drive on my iMac failed and was replaced. I used Migration Assistant to get data from my Time Machine backups (on 1TB Time Capsule) to the new drive--no problems! (Time Capsule is connected to my iMac by Ethernet as the wireless part of TC doesn't work anymore.) Now I'm trying to get Time Machine back working with this new drive and would like to continue from the backups I have. However, for several hours all it has done is cycle through Calculating Changes to Cleaning Up multiple times. When I look at the TM prefs, it knows the oldest backup was on Feb 28 before the drive starting failing, so I know it's seeing the backups on the TC. I believe I read that because of the new drive the first backup would be a full backup. However, for several hours all it has done is cycle through Calculating Changes to Cleaning Up multiple times.
I've been reading through some of the discussions and the tips at top of page, but am still not sure what to do. Is there something I can do to get this working from where I left off, or am I just going to have to reformat the TC and start over?
Thanks for any help/suggestions.

On a Time Capsule, deleting a lot of old backups is an excruciatingly slow process.
TM must delete the oldest backup, dismount the sparse bundle, compact the sparse bundle, then mount it again to see if it's made enough room. This can go on (as you see) for a very long time, even via Ethernet.
Since Time Machine will never delete the last remaining backup, it needs twice the space of the data it's backing-up, plus 20% temporarily for workspace. So if your TC isn't 220% the size of the data on your system, the backup will (eventually) fail, and you'll have no choice but to delete the sparse bundle.
On the other hand, if it's considerably larger than that, you can speed the process up a bit by manually deleting several old backups at a time, then compacting the sparse bundle yourself, per #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. That will show how much space it needs, and how much is currently available, so you can determine how to proceed.

External hard drive that had my itunes on it crashed; had to recover data on new external hard drive; not can't access iTunes from my iMac - how do I name it correctly in order to make iTunes work again

how do I set up a new external hard drive with my recovered iTunes (from a hard drive that crashed & had to be replaced) so that I can access iTunes on my iMac again?

Take a look at this link, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

Replacement iMac hard drive not an option for "restore from backup"

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