Restoring entire mac from Time Machine

I had my HD re-formatted and the OS re-installed in order to get rid of some bugs that had crept into my laptop and now I am attempting to restore my entire computer from an image I had backed up on Time Machine last week. I have tried holding down the Command-R key combination at startup but that doesn't take me into a restore mode (as much of the technical support documentation says it will), so what should I do in order to restore my entire mac from an earlier image on my Time Machine?

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
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Similar Messages

Restoring entire system from time machine

The internal hard drive on our imac had to be replace because it died on us. The guy at the store said that I could restore using our time machine backup which is on an external drive. He said that we could do this when we turned the computer on for the first time. I tried to do this but when I went to select our external hard drive to restore from it did not show up on the "select your disk" window rather the only disk showing was our internal hard drive. Assuming I could do this later I skipped the restore option and finished the setup process. I am now trying to restore our mac from the last time machine backup. What I have read on Pondini's site is that I can do this using Migration Assistant. I tried this but I am having the same problem. When I get to the "select your disk" window my external hard drive is not showing - only my internal HD is listed. This is strange because my external hard drive is on and connected and appears in the list of devices on the Finder. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks very much in advance!

The internal hard drive on our imac had to be replace because it died on us. The guy at the store said that I could restore using our time machine backup which is on an external drive. He said that we could do this when we turned the computer on for the first time. I tried to do this but when I went to select our external hard drive to restore from it did not show up on the "select your disk" window rather the only disk showing was our internal hard drive. Assuming I could do this later I skipped the restore option and finished the setup process. I am now trying to restore our mac from the last time machine backup. What I have read on Pondini's site is that I can do this using Migration Assistant. I tried this but I am having the same problem. When I get to the "select your disk" window my external hard drive is not showing - only my internal HD is listed. This is strange because my external hard drive is on and connected and appears in the list of devices on the Finder. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks very much in advance!

Help with restoring Address Book from Time Machine

Problem: I really, really need to retrieve someone's number. I know it'll be in an old version of my Address Book. I can see when I open time Machine that my address book is backed up, but no matter the date I go to, it says the Address Book was last modified in 2012! I know for a fact I've updated (and backed up) the Address Book many times since then.
Whenever I try to restore the Address Book, I do Time Machine > Applications > Address Book > 'restore'. But whenever I do this, the mac refuses to open the restored Address Book because it's 'required by mac OS X'.
I don't understand.
Please, how on earth do I dredge my Address Book from the depths of Time Machine?
Please help!
M

Hello mb9236,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with restoring a contact from Time Machine.
It sounds like you are trying to restore the Address Book application. The Address Book application is just the application and does not include the content in Address Book.
Instead, you will want to open Address Book and then launch Time Machine and restore your contacts from there. Use the steps below to restore your contacts form a previous date (in step one instead of opening Mail or Finder, be sure you have Address Book open and in focus):
If you use Time Machine to back up your computer, you can easily bring back one or more items you’ve lost, or recover older versions of files you’ve changed.
Open a window for the item you want to restore. For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock, or open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine. If you back up to a Time Capsule or other network disk, a message briefly appears while Time Machine connects your computer to the backup disk.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the snapshots and backups Time Machine created. Gray tick marks on the timeline represent snapshots stored on your internal drive (portable computers only). Pink tick marks represent backups stored on your backup disk.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it. The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, and then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk. The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
You can use Time Machine from within many applications. For example, you can open Address Book and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to recover contacts you may have accidentally deleted, or open iPhoto and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to view past versions of your iPhoto albums.
OS X Lion: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH4256
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I rest

I had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I restarted the computer and tried again to run Photoshop and the same error message appeared. The message was followed by a message that stated that I needed to contact Adobe technical support and mention Error: 150.30. I need Adobe technical support to provide me a solution for my problem so I can continue using my Adobe products installed on my computer.

Unfortunately when Adobe products are restored from backup, especial CS4 and especially Mac, it breaks licensing.
There is a python script included in the license recovery kit that should work if you are familiar with Terminal.
If not, you must reinstall your CS4 suite. You don't need to delete your preferences, so it should be the same as before.
Error "Licensing has stopped working" | Mac OS
Gene

Empty iTunes, then Restore Some Playlists from Time Machine?

My MacBook Pro is full, mainly because of the massive collection of music. Everything is backed up on Time Machine. I want to reduce my iTunes library by about 50% to regain some capacity. Can I delete my entire iTunes library off the MacBook, then reinstall only the playlists that I want from Time Machine? What's the best/safest way to do this?

+I just restored my MBP from Time Machine, everything went fine. But I feel my MBR start up much slower than before. So now I want to do a clean install Leopard.+
Wait on the erase and install. Launch Disk Utility which is in the Applications > Utilities folder and Verify your disk and repair permissions. If Verify shows any errors boot from the Leopard install DVD by holding the "c" key down until the spinning gear appears. Pick a language and choose Utilities > Disk and run Repair until no errors appear. Repair permissions.
If that doesn't work try resetting the PRAM which quite often fixes slow boot times.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
+Would like to ask you guys who experiences in Time Machine that after installing Leopard, I want to restore some applications from Time Machine such as MS office, Wow, Photoshop...Will they fully function if I restore from TM?+
I don't know about Wow but Photoshop and MS Office install too many files in too many places for it to be practical to restore them from Time Machine backups after doing an erase and install. You need to reinstall those from the original disks for those applications.

Restoring hard drive from Time Machine

I was having trouble starting up my computer, the gray screen with question mark was appearing over and over after other attempts to correct it I reinstalled the start up disk and then restored my files from Time Machine. Everything seemed fine for a day then my computer was freezing up again and grey screen with question mark appeared again. Is it time to go to the apple techs? Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks,
Cindy

Cindy 2 wrote:
I did as you suggested and my computer is running but Time machine will not back up. I tried to verify disk and got an error: filesytem verify or repair failed also incorrect number of extended attributes. Do I need to reformat it somehow?
This is for your internal HD, right?
If so, you need to repair the file system, as that can cause various other problems. Insert your Leopard Install disc and start up while holding down the "C" key. This will take a few moments. Select your language, then on the next screen select Utilities from the menubar, then +Disk Utility.+ Use that to +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) on your internal HD.
Most likely, all the errors will be repaired. If not, run it again. If they still don't repair, you've got a more serious problem.
Then reboot normally.
Do a +Repair Disk+ on your Time Machine disk (you can use the version of DU in your Applications/Utilities folder for this one) to be sure there isn't trouble there, too.
Then try a +Back Up Now.+ If it fails, download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
My partition map scheme reads guid partition table, is this correct?
I don't know, since you still haven't specified what kind of Mac you have in your profile. But if your internal HD is GUID you must have an Intel Mac, and it's correct.

HT4710 how to restore/import photos from Time machine while using Lion

how to restore/import photos from Time machine while using Lion

Launch Time Machine, go to the time you want to restore from and select what you want to restore and click restore - once the photos are restored improt to iPhoto - or restore the entire iPhoto librarhy and use it
LN

Restore some application from time machine problem.

Hi Everybody,
I just restored my MBP from Time Machine, everything went fine. But I feel my MBR start up much slower than before. So now I want to do a clean install Leopard.
I would like to ask you guys who experiences in Time Machine that after installing Leopard, I want to restore some applications from Time Machine such as MS office, Wow, Photoshop...Will they fully function if I restore from TM?
I acknowledge that some applications are like packages so after installing in Mac OS, they are actually located in different places in the system. Whereas others is like small application so we just copy and use. So if big applications as packages, I can not just copy from TM and put it in my new Leopard to use, can't I? If I can't, so is there any ways I can copy it back and use?
I am so confusing about this and I hope very much that somebody could help me out this problem, I would greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

+I just restored my MBP from Time Machine, everything went fine. But I feel my MBR start up much slower than before. So now I want to do a clean install Leopard.+
Wait on the erase and install. Launch Disk Utility which is in the Applications > Utilities folder and Verify your disk and repair permissions. If Verify shows any errors boot from the Leopard install DVD by holding the "c" key down until the spinning gear appears. Pick a language and choose Utilities > Disk and run Repair until no errors appear. Repair permissions.
If that doesn't work try resetting the PRAM which quite often fixes slow boot times.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
+Would like to ask you guys who experiences in Time Machine that after installing Leopard, I want to restore some applications from Time Machine such as MS office, Wow, Photoshop...Will they fully function if I restore from TM?+
I don't know about Wow but Photoshop and MS Office install too many files in too many places for it to be practical to restore them from Time Machine backups after doing an erase and install. You need to reinstall those from the original disks for those applications.

Restore System Files From Time Machine

Hello,
Is it possible to to restore system files from Time Machine? I was trying to make the Imac a local host, and something is not working right. I just need to go back one day and over write some of the system files. Is this possible with TM?
Thanks JR

See Here > How do I restore my entire system?
From Here > http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
More Info Here > http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

HT201250 Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? I'm trying to restore lost photo files and I see them listed in Time Machine (without use of an external drive), but when I try to restore I get a error code 36.

Can I restore photo files from Time Machine without the use of an external drive? While I was transferring photos back and forth from a thumb drive something went haywire and my IPhoto was wiped clean! When I click on Time Machine I see all the dated pages (without an external storage drive connected), go back to a date where all my photo files are there, click "restore", and I get the message: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in file cant be read or written (error code - 36)"

Thanks so much Terence. I tried some of the fixes from that page, but then discovered the suggestion to compress the Time Machine Back up of the original library and transfer it as a zip back to my computer as detailed here:
http://pondini.org/TM/E9.html
That worked like a charm. I really appreciate it.

How to restore iTunes Library from Time Machine on Mavericks?

Please, can someone give me the instructions on how to restore iTunes Library from Time Machine on Mavericks?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

Why do I get "You don't have permission to perform this task" when I try to restore an application from Time Machine?

Why do I get"You do't have permmission to perform this task" when I try to restore an application from Time Machine backup on my Imac running Mavericks?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

How do I restore a calendar from time machine?

how do I restore a calendar from time machine?

You can find the solution already discussed here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3944847.
1- restore ~/Library/Calendars from time machine
2- restart in safe mode to clean the caches.

Restoring iCal Events from Time Machine

Hi
I read a few threads that were related to my question, but it was more from moving over files from different versions of the operating software. Here is my dilemma:
Somehow I erased all my iCal events. They were syncing with Entourage. I went into iCal because I had some duplicates and deleted event duplicates, when I did that I somehow deleted all my events. I do have time machine and have a back up of iCal. I restored the program from Time Machine, but the events are not back. I suspect that I need to restore the actual files that must be kept in a database somewhere?
Will someone please tell me how to restore the actual events and where exactly I can find the iCal events data. My plan is that once I restore iCal I will export and import into Entourage.
I really do not want to lose all my events. Thank you in advance for your help!
Brandon

HELP! Please.
I am a new iMac user. For weeks, the system ran perfect. This morning, I tried to synch my iCal with Google Calendar to let others have access to my events. Somehow, after the sync, all events at my iCal suddenly disappeared. Not just that, the list of calendars (private, business, etc.) was gone too. I then tried to synch iCal with all the events stored in my iPhone, but that only lead to my iPhone calendar being completely deleted too. I am totally desparate now. What happened? I then tried to use Time Machine to restore. But in earlier time machine dates, there was no calendar folder which I could use to replace mine. But I could not find a calendar folder there. Thank you for helping. Kind regards from Munich, Germany.

Restoring a folder from time machine.

I have updated to 10.7.4 and after having problems with "home" directory permissions, I reset the home directory permissions as per "http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4040". My filesaving problems seemed to be ok after that.
Time machine has since performed a backup but to test a problem I had before upgrading, I again tried to restore a folder from time machine. The folder was in ~library/applications support/"appname"/"folder"... I deleted the old folder first (after copying it of course).
The folder restore failed with this message:-
I checked the file on the time machine backups and it shows me as the owner in group "staff" which appears fine for Lion. The old file I had copied showed the same permissions.
I restored the copied library and tried to restore a single file after a similar procedure with the same error relating to the particular file.
It seems to be a permissions problem at a higher level but at this point I seek a few pointers.
Lion seems to have broken time machine and also introduced various permission problems. The referenced doc indeed addresses that but it should not even be an issue - if Apple techos know about it why does it even happen ??
A more major issue is that there must be millions out there relying on the once reliable (and the best backup system I have aver seen in 30 years of computing) time machine for backups - if that now fails, it is basically useless. Apple techos dont seem to actually test their updates anymore - this should never happen - work arounds or not.
Appreciate any help here. I dont want to wait until I REALLY need it.
Regards.

I don't use TM, so don't know if there's a simpler solution. The issue's whether or not you want to restore the folder or not. Only you can answer that.

Restoring entire mac from Time Machine

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