Restore from Time Machine / Migration Assistance Utility

Sorry if this is obvious, but just want to restore wo further user complications.
_Back story:_ 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot. Genius Bar determines HD needs reformatting. Reformats and installs OS v10.5.7, not Snow Leopard. Explained to follow new setup and when prompted select from Time Machine (external HD) and restore. At home I do, it won't. Everything is recognized (External HD, Time Machine, File), but tells me OS on machine older than Time Machine files and to upgrade iMac (and can try again from Migration Assistant Utility).
Continue with prompted new setup and created User Account. iMac now ready and like new. Installed Snow Leopard. Run Migration Assistant Utility and select restore from Time Machine.
Issue: External HD recognized by iMac but not by Migration Assistant Utility. Only selection choice is internal HD. Additionally when connecting external, always get prompted (separate prompt from Migration Assistance) if I want to setup Time Machine and I've been declining. Do I have to set up Time Machine before? It didn't require that when doing new user setup.
Thanks for any and all assistance.

Chad Krukowski wrote:
Than you! that is what I wanted to do, a full restore. Unfortunately was following the direction of the genius bar.
Yup. The Geniuses (like most Apple folks) don't actually use Time Machine on their work computers, and aren't real familiar with it, so this sort of thing isn't all that unusual, unfortunately. You could even have gotten similar advice from AppleCare, depending on the expertise of whoever you happened to get. Sigh.

Similar Messages

Restoring From Time Machine Migration Assistant (and other ??)

Hello
Please bear with me on this long question....
For several reasons I reinstalled ML which involves erasing the HDD first. I do have everything bakced-up to Carbonite and TM. Carbonite is slow as molassess so I opted to try Migration Assistant/TM to restore my files. MA does not allow you to choose an older (good) backup and the backup that was used was an incomplete one as evidenced by the photo library being incomplete. Another poster had a similar question and the solution involved using the install disk. There is no install disc since it was a download from the Apps store.
Carbonite has a tendency to freeze-up during a long download. Restarting it brings your download back to the very beginning. I'm not happy about Carbonite. I've heard of SuperDuper and seems to have gotten good reviews.
Questions:
1. Is there a method to access an older TM backup from MA?
2. Is there a better option that Carbonite?
3. Is SuperDuper a good option for backups?
thank you, Bruce.

If your Mac shipped with a System Install DVD then boot from it and choose "Restore from Time Machine backup".
If your Mac shipped with Lion already installed you should be able to use OS X Recovery. Boot while holding ⌘ R and choose "Restore from Time Machine backup".
Either one should present a dated list of complete system backups from which to choose. Ideally it should be the most recent one, but if you have reason to believe it is incomplete (it should not be) then try an earlier one.
You can also boot from a locally connected Time Machine backup volume. Make sure it is connected with USB or FireWire and boot while holding an Option key. This will invoke Startup Manager, from which you can select your Time Machine backup volume. It will present the same restore options as OS X Recovery.
These options will be faster and should be less prone to difficulty than using Migration Assistant.
Time Machine and "clone" software use very different philosophies. SuperDuper! is good, so is Carbon Copy Cloner. They are more customizable than Time Machine, whose customizable features essentially consist of an "on / off" switch
Of course that is also its sole advantage over the others - it's boneheadedly simple to use.
Forget Carbonite, as you learned it does not work well on Macs. I know of no similar offsite backup services to recommend.

Restore Conundrum, Time machine & migration assistant

Hi All
I have got myself in a bit of a pickle and would really appreciate some advice.
My HD crashed and after trying to repair it I got an "Invalid Node Structure" message. Disk Warrior wasn't able to repair it but at least allowed me to copy the drive folders to my external firewire drive. I wasn't able to do an 'Archive & Restore' as the disk wasn't accessible and the only option was to erase the disk. I then re-installed from my Leopard startup disk and currently have 10.5.2 on my machine.
when my machine crashed I was running 10.5.7
My last Time Machine backup was 2 months ago and is 10.5.6 (and the partition map scheme was unfortunately MBR on the external drive!!!)
What I would like to do is to restore my system from the TM backup and then update my data from the copied folders on my external FW drive that I copied with Disk Warrior. The problem is that migration assistant doesn't recognise the copied folders as the disk is not a start up disk. I am therefore in the process of using disk utility to create an image of the folders on the FW drive on another partition on that drive that has a GUID partition map scheme.
Am I doing the right thing? what else should I do or to get back up and running with the most up to date data and system settings?
This is my proposed sequence of activities:
1. Restore system using my time machine back-up
2. Use migration assistant to update data from the copied files disk image
Many thanks

I'm not sure how well the current version of Spotlight works with external drives, but you might try a Spotlight search of your backups, using the "Last Modified Date" criterion to help find files & folders you want to copy over to the startup drive. However, I think you will have to copy the files from the mounted disk image back onto some drive to do this because I don't think Spotlight works with disk images.
For Mail, iCal, & some other apps, you can probably just replace the appropriate folders (like your ~/Library/Mail/ folder) on your startup drive with the corresponding backup ones. To be safe, I would use the backup options provided with these apps (like those mentioned in How to back up and restore your important Mac OS X 10.4 files) and/or make copies of the startup drive versions in case something goes wrong or you find that there are items in one folder that aren't in the other.
Other possibly useful links:
iCal, Mac OS X 10.5: Empty "Home" and "Work" calendars may appear after installing Leopard
Mac OS X 10.5 Help: About application data and preferences
I'm fairly sure some other user will have a more detailed answer for you....

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.

I cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac wit

i cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac with time machine no option appears if i reinstall from Mac OSX error comes and cannot able to recover from disk utility please help how can i reinstall mac OSX

Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now?

HT1379 I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do?

I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do? The problem began when I tried to restart my computer and the only thing I saw was the grey screen, Apple logo, and the timer; the computer wouldn't restart from there.

I searched through trouble shooting options on the Apple Support page and was able to make it this far.

Migrate, restore from Time Machine or fresh install

Folks
Getting an MBP today and migrating from MBA. Should I fresh install, use the migrate tool or restore from Time Machine?

You are going to get several answers here depending on users' opinion and experiences. My own view, having done the Time Machine backup as demo in a class, is that, if you have the time and all the settings written down, the best way is to start from scratch. Indeed, the last two Macs I bought, I even installed the OS myself, despite them being out of the box.
Having written that, I do find Time Machine a useful facility and it is possible to selectively bring the data back, which is really quite useful with a new machine. This would be a great tool in the case of a stolen computer or if a hard disk had crashed and it was necessary to get up and running quickly. As a note, I still found that with the TM restore, certain parts (such as Mailboxes and some other network related security stuff) still needed setting up again.
I did use the migrate tool once and was not over-convinced although I understand it has been updated. Someone else should offer an opinion on that.
If time is of the essence, go for the TM or Migrate tool. If you want a more stable and secure environment (perhaps that backup could bring over a problem), go from scratch with a selective backup.

Installed new harddrive and I am trying to restore from time machine external back up. I restarted the computer and held the Command key and the R and the restore utility does not appear. what can I do

I installed new hard drive and I am trying to restore from time machine external back up. I restarted the computer and held the Command key and the R and the restore utility does not appear. what can I do

Command + R keys are for Macbooks running Lion and Mountian Lion only. ( i could be wrong on this)
you have a couple of options:
Do a clean install of Snow Leopard via Install DVD.
Clone your old hard drive to your new hard drive via Carbon Copy Cloner
Or click on the link below to give you a better idea.
Hope you get it sorted out.
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

Restore from Time Machine or Migrate individual folders?

I'm getting ready to do a clean reinstall of Leopard because of some lingering weirdness after my initial upgrade install (intermittent mouse lag, system stalls). I've got several weeks worth of Time Machine backups and wonder if I can restore my iTunes, email, and bookmarks from there instead of copying individual folders (like I did when moving my stuff to a new laptop).
I'm looking for the most stable install, so whichever method is better in that respect is the one I would favor.
Thanks very much!
Tony

Hi
When you run the installer (from the DVD), & get past the language screen, I believe you go up to the menu bar &, under Utilities, there is an option to restore from Time Machine backup. Not sure as I have not had to use it yet.
Steve

How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac

It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!

Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing!

Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.

I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

Full restore from Time Machine fails

I am trying to replace a failing hard drive. The failing drive in in a box. A new one is in the computer.
When I try to run a full restore from Time Machine it comes up with an error saying the restore failed. No useful information like codes or reasons are given.
I'd prefer to do a full restore, but I fear the cause is too much system file corruption on the TM drive. I think the only alternative is to recreate the four user accounts and somehow copy the files back to the accounts.
Before I swapped the drives I set all permissions on the files in each account to admin=read/write, user=read/write, other=read only. I then created a couple incremental backups to Time Machine.
Currently I have 10.5.0 installed. I have to install 10.4, then upgrade, which is a very lengthy process.
The old drive is still (barely) functional. While using it though, if I try to run any program, the system hangs for minutes at a time, (BBOD).
How should I proceed? Is there a way of repairing the backup? Do I try the copying all the files? I have no way of using the Migration feature since I only have the one Mac. I do have a PC.
Thank you in advance.

Melnibonean wrote:
When I try to run a full restore from Time Machine it comes up with an error saying the restore failed. No useful information like codes or reasons are given.
It's possible that as the HD was failing, it corrupted something in your installation of OSX, and that was backed-up, so when you restore it, you're restoring damaged items.
Try again, but pick an earlier backup, from before the problems started.
When you do, once it starts, select Window, then +Show Log+ and +Show All logs+ from the menubar. Watch the messages; if it fails again, note what it says. That will tell us, roughly, where it was, so we may be able to avoid it.
Currently I have 10.5.0 installed. I have to install 10.4, then upgrade, which is a very lengthy process.
Huh? Why would you install Tiger?
How should I proceed? Is there a way of repairing the backup?
Possibly, depending on what's wrong.
Instead of selecting +Restore System from Backup+ from the Utilities menu, select +Disk Utility+ and use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* on the backups (via your Leopard Install disc). Then quit DU and try +Restore System from Backups.+
I have no way of using the Migration feature since I only have the one Mac.
Yes, you do, if the backups are ok. You can use +Setup Assistant+ or +Migration Assistant+ from your backups (or a clone), not just another Mac. But they both only use the most recent backup, which may be damaged, so try the full restore first.

Full restore from Time Machine fails what now!

Just upgraded to 10.8 and all was fine except on crucial pice of software that was supposed to work in 10.8 but didn't.
I tried to revert back to 10.6 via full restore but it failed. Now I just tried to restore from TM backup of the 10.8 restore point.
It fails too. All my HDs check out fine. What went wrong and how can I get back to working?

Melnibonean wrote:
When I try to run a full restore from Time Machine it comes up with an error saying the restore failed. No useful information like codes or reasons are given.
It's possible that as the HD was failing, it corrupted something in your installation of OSX, and that was backed-up, so when you restore it, you're restoring damaged items.
Try again, but pick an earlier backup, from before the problems started.
When you do, once it starts, select Window, then +Show Log+ and +Show All logs+ from the menubar. Watch the messages; if it fails again, note what it says. That will tell us, roughly, where it was, so we may be able to avoid it.
Currently I have 10.5.0 installed. I have to install 10.4, then upgrade, which is a very lengthy process.
Huh? Why would you install Tiger?
How should I proceed? Is there a way of repairing the backup?
Possibly, depending on what's wrong.
Instead of selecting +Restore System from Backup+ from the Utilities menu, select +Disk Utility+ and use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* on the backups (via your Leopard Install disc). Then quit DU and try +Restore System from Backups.+
I have no way of using the Migration feature since I only have the one Mac.
Yes, you do, if the backups are ok. You can use +Setup Assistant+ or +Migration Assistant+ from your backups (or a clone), not just another Mac. But they both only use the most recent backup, which may be damaged, so try the full restore first.

Restore from Time Machine fails

I just got a new HD from the apple store and had them flash 10.5.8 onto it so that I could restore my MacBook right when I got home.
The problem is that when I get through to the "Restore from Time Machine" screen, the mac only finds one backup available and even then it won't transfer the files to the new HD, the TM external sits and spins and then the macbook goes through the welcome video again and starts me all over again.
what did I do wrong and did I lose everything?
I just plugged in the TM external to another mac in the house and it sees every thing in TM fine.
Message was edited by: MrBackpack

MrBackpack wrote:
I'm trying to use the set-up assistant.
One of the problems that I am running into is that when I get to the point where is calculates the size of the files that I want to restore, it sits at calculating then it restarts the set-up assistant.
Ah, that does sound like the backups may be corrupted.
One question and three options:
Did you get a larger drive, or was there a problem with the old one, requiring a replacement? If there was a problem, it's possible something got corrupted on your internal HD before the last backup. When the last backup ran, the damage would have been backed-up, too, and could be why Time Machine is having trouble dealing with it. If so, you probably want the first option below:
Boot up from your Install disc. After selecting your language, select Utilities, then +Disk Utility+ from the menubar on the next screen. Use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your backup drive. If that finds no errors, or fixes whatever it finds, quit Disk Utility, return to the Utilities menu and select +Restore System from Backups,+ per #14 in the FAQ. The advantage here is, you'll get a list of backups to restore from. If the last one won't work, try an earlier one. Be sure to get the log window per step (h), so if it fails or hangs, you'll know where, and we can help figure out how to recover.
Boot up from your Install disc and repair the backups as above. If that finds and fixes errors, boot up normally and try +Setup Assistant+ again. Note that +Setup Assistant+ always uses the most recent backup -- you don't get a choice as with the full restore.
Skip +Setup Assistant.+ Select +Do not Transfer+ instead, and set up a temporary user account (use a different name from any that are on your backups). Then do the +*Repair Disk+* on the backups from the copy of +Disk Utility+ on your Mac. If that finds no errors, or fixes whatever it finds, use +MIgration Assistant,+ per the pink box in #19 of the FAQ. The advantage to it is, you can use it multiple times, so you can transfer one thing at a time, and perhaps bypass whatever's corrupted. But +Migration Assistant+ also uses the most recent backup -- you don't get a choice.
(p.s.: I'll be going to bed soon, so if you post back after half an hour or so, I won't answer until tomorrow.)

Restoring from Time Machine doesn't work

I am attempting to restore from Time Machine on my 13" Late 2008 MacBook, but the restore stops about halfway through.
Some background information: A few weeks ago my computer started exhibiting some weird behaviour. It would turn the disk off or log me out after a few hours (I typically sleep with it on and use at as my alarm clock). Then, apps would crash and quit unexpectedly. It would kick in the HDD when I was not using anything that required it, and the fan would turn on for no reason. Then the worst thing happened: Some days I would get the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen multiple times. It almost seems like a virus. The problems persist after multiple PRAM and SMC resets. Sure enough, I tried turning on my computer yesterday and it just won't even start. It would give me the Apple logo, a spinny loading indicator, and then it would give me a very slow progress bar. As soon as the progress bar gets to about one tenth of the way, the computer turns off.
I have everything backed up to a very recent Time Machine. I opened the computer in Recovery Mode and verified the disk. It needed repair. So I repaired it, and it said the repair was unsuccessful and needed to be restored. So I tried restoring it. I ended up having to erase Macintosh HD and reinstalling Lion (which thankfully I could do over the Internet). After reinstalling that, I tried "Restore from Time Machine." It got to about 30% of the restoration and then took me back to the Utilities page spontaneously. It didn't give me an alert or an error of any kind. It has done this multiple times. I may try Migration Assistant and see how that works. I know that a 4-year old MacBook is a bit of a dinosaur anyway, but the machine has been very useful and powerful for the whole time I've had it, and this is not how I'd like to see it die.
I also have a lot of important data on the Time Machine and fear that whatever afflicted my MacBook may afflict the MacBook Pro I intend to get soon, which I will load my TM onto.
Any and all help is deeply appreciated.
-Sam Taylor

I have always had problems restoring from my backups. I just replaced my hard drive and did a restore and now there are no icons in the dock (all ?'s) and I cannot click on my Applications folder in any finder window. (Oh, and the fans run constantly at top speed after being on for about 3 minutes.)
This is probably the 10th restore I've done in the past couple of years and I don't think one has worked for me.

Restore from Time Machine / Migration Assistance Utility

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