Restore via time machine - user folder blank

I recently wiped my disk trying to install snow leopard. I decided to go back to my time machine backup but when I do my most used user has a blank folder. Here are some facts:
1) the backups show something like:
2009-09-26-091858
mark ( red minus icon in bottom of folder )
Macintosh HD
2) expanding "Macintosh HD->Users->mark_1490812198" are always blank except for the year ago first time backup
3) browsing via finder shows the last backup full file set for user mark is from a year ago
4) I changed the hard drive name at some point from "Macintosh HD" to "Home Mac HD"
5) the other user has the sparsebundle and looks just fine
I see 2 sets of backups, one for the "Macintosh HD" and one for "Home Mac HD". Neither latest backups from those sets restore the user mark correctly, the folder is just empty. In fact the folder name comes back as something like mark.1490812198. Then when I try and log in via this user I get an error about logging in. If I mv the folder to just "mark" then I can log in but there are no files.
a) why doesn't my latest backup have the full file set? Is this because I've never logged out as this user and allowed time machine to back it up?
b) what do the red minus icons on folders mean?
c) why is there a mark folder at the top level of the backup next to "macintosh hd"

It sounds like something was corrupted, somewhere. Were you able to recover all the data?
I was able to recover everything after jumping through hoops.
I'm not sure just what you mean by that. Your backups should be arranged this way (simulating a Finder window in List mode):
Backups.backupdb
...Computer name
......Date & Time
..........Volume name (ie, "Macintosh HD"), containing the same folder structure as the original
......Date & Time
..........Volume name (ie, "Macintosh HD"), containing the same folder structure as the original
It looks like this:
Backups.backupdb
...computer name
......date & time
.........volume name
.........mark
the mark home folder is at the same level as the volume name
The only difference being for a FileVault account, where there will be a sparse bundle instead of the normal folders inside the home folder.
In Time Machine, it should look something like this:
|
Yes the other user has the bundle like that, the user mark just has "Macintosh HD/Users/mark.1490812198" in the time machine backup folder and it's blank.

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Can't fully restore my Time Machine/Time Capsule Backup to my newly-wiped SSD/HDD

On receiving my leased, Bootcamp-enabled MacBook Pro, I saw that there were no installation discs for Windows or OSX, and that there were 2 partitions (or so I thought) for Mac and Windows: 375GB each. As I produce music using software in both OSs, I wanted to create a 185GB FAT-32 partition to store my sound samples, projects etc. I attempted to create this partition by resizing (halving) my Bootcamp partition in OSX Disc Utility. The first time I attempted it, resizing was possible, but after the new partition was created, I had problems booting and so had to edit my GPT in order to boot again. Once ‘fixed,’ (by deleting the new partition) I couldn’t resize the Bootcamp partition to fill the 185GB gap, and that 185GB was ‘lost.’ The Bootcamp partition was 375GB but its used space + free space added up to 190GB
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None of my icon customisations at the top of the screen were there (DropBox, Evernote, Google Drive, Kuvva, the way battery icon was displayed
Safari: Top Sites, History, Plugins
Logic Pro: Downloaded sounds, presets (10+GB), recent items, plugin settings/AU manager
Mail: Settings (and I’m assuming, the downloaded/cached mail: 7GB)
Trash can: Empty
All recent item lists apart from cloud-based services like Evernote, Notes, contacts
iTunes library
Dock view and settings
Settings for most programs
And I'm sure there are more!

Thanks Pondini; I'd hoped you'd reply. I'm still getting used to this tech, no can't even quote here.
Pondini wrote:
AkaraE wrote:
Time Machine backups etc were inaccessible after a normal re-install.
If you mean you installed OSX and created a user account, then couldn't find the backups, that's because they're treated as being from a different disk, until you either transfer your data or do a manual "associatedisk". See the blue box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #19 for details.
Yet to try the associatedisk...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides. The explanation makes sense now. On installing OSX it said transfers were possible after installation, so I put off transferring as the first 'restore' had frozen on 10%, thinking I'd do it afterwards.
Re-installing with file transfer at setup froze at the 10% mark, with an estimated 200 hrs to go
That sounds like damaged/corrupted backups. Try to Repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Yet to try...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides
The option to try a full-system restore via Time Machine is greyed-out.
You mean, on the Mac OS X Utilities menu on the Recovery HD? I've never heard of that. That should always be selectable, so you can specify where the backups you want are located. Nothing happens when you click it? Can you click the other options there?
Even the Migration Assistant failed at a similar point. On the occasions where it claimed to complete successful (most recent situation) it seemed to neglect files, etc., and I'm now stuck at this stage.
Also sounds like directory or file problems on the backups.
This is just when I go into Time Machine/Star Wars. I can't just go to the latest backup and click "Restore" (which I assume would just restore my whole computer/HDD, although I have no experience in this). I can only select files and restore them individually.
Time Machine isn't a flawless backup & restore process.
There has never been any such thing.
I bought into the Time Machine 'hype' and thought it was an easy and reliable tool, but was a lot more difficult to do a full restore than I thought.
Trash can: Empty
Correct. Time Machine (like most backup apps) don't back up trash.
All the rest should have been backed-up and restored. Do you see them in the backups? What, if anything, was excluded from being backed-up?
As a non-native Mac user, I'm not sure where all these things are stored...perhaps in Library? I think that not having the full hard-drive just restore annoyed me...I felt that backing up my whole hard drive every hour should've allowed me to restore everything to as it was without a hitch, and when it didn't work I just tried a few things before posting on here.
If repairing the backups finds and fixes things, you might want to try again.
Gonna try now
If not, and if you can see the missing items via the Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display), you should be able to restore them selectively.

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Regards,
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Got it working--not sure what happened.
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Reset Learned from Old Toad
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Hi all,
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Hroodbwai wrote:
I can't find it! not sure what's going on but the only folder shown is the " Shared" folder.
Did you have only the one user account? If there were others, they should also be in the "Users" folder. You probably won't have access to the files inside them, but they should be there.
From what can make out, it looks like it's not backed up any of the files for the filevault account. Can't see user folder when looking through previous backups in Time Machine galaxy view.
Are you doing that from a Finder window set to your internal HD, or your computer name? It should look something like this (with the Finder in List view):
|
|
I'd been logging out and backing up manually on a regular basis.
Scheduled backups should run normally; but they won't back up the File Vault sparse bundle, nor will any run manually.
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|
|
followed by this one:
|
|
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Not sure if this is related enough, but I just wrestled trying to restore from time machine too, trying to reinstall 10.5.8 after putting a new HD in my MBP, 2006 vintage.
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Not sure if this is related enough, but I just wrestled trying to restore from time machine too, trying to reinstall 10.5.8 after putting a new HD in my MBP, 2006 vintage.
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THANKS

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Will update thies Thread when i've any news...
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Restore via time machine - user folder blank

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