Restoring entire system from a backup

For future use, I am interested in restoring my entire system, but I am confused with the following directions:
"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"
My mac book pro did not come with a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc, so I'm not sure how to go about restoring my entire system. What is a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc?

Banaple wrote:
My mac book pro did not come with a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc, so I'm not sure how to go about restoring my entire system. What is a Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc?
That is the Snow Leopard installation disk used on older MBPs. It does not apply to a MBP that came with Mt. Lion installed such as yours.
Ciao.

Similar Messages

Restoring Entire System to Earlier Backup with Leopard CPU Drop-in DVD

After some programs failed in a pernicious manner, I decided to return the entire system to a Time Machine backup made earlier today. Time Machine Help "Recovering your Entire system" seems to be the only relevant help. It says to choose Utilities > Restore System from my Mac OS X Install disc. But I was shipped two Tiger Mac OS X Install Discs and a Leopard CPU Drop-in DVD (updates to Leopard). The Leopard Drop-in does not have Utilities > Restore System and I am reluctant to use either Tiger disc to restore my Leopard system.
What should I be doing? I hope the answer provides a restore process that is relatively quick because the changes are relatively small.
Message was edited by: Butterflie14

Butterflie14,
The term "delta" doesn't really apply to Time Machine backups. Each backup is a complete "snapshot" of the entire installation. In order to do this without copying over huge amounts of data, Time Machine uses "multi-linked" files in the various backups, all pointing to the same data. That is, with the exception of any new/changed files; these represent the only real data that is transferred during each backup. Only in this sense does "delta" apply.
Restoring from a backup, at least in the context of "going back to a previous state," is an all-or-nothing proposition. That doesn't mean it has to take a long time. First, the process of erasing a drive takes mere seconds. Second, a Time Machine "Restore" doesn't include a new installation of OS X from the installer disk (which would take a long time), but rather a restoration of the entire system from the backup. As such, it is dependent entirely on the speed of the drive and connecting bus (FW 400, 800, USB, etc.). In the case of my FW 800 drive, a complete "Restore" of a 50 GB system took about 30 minutes.
I agree, to take this step seems like a waste just to recover from some "pernicious" action of a particular application. If you were a bit more specific about what application we're talking about, and just what it did, perhaps I could offer better advice. You can restore anything that has been backed up by Time Machine, but may have been deleted from your internal disk in the meantime, but you cannot really "un-modify" OS X, if that is what has happened. To do so, you must perform a complete "Restore."
Scott

After formatting my HD and eventually restore my system from a backup on Time Capsule, will I still have access to my old backups as normally used to do via Time Machine?

I have a Time Capsule (4th Gen) and my backups on it, I need to completely erase my hard drive. My question is: after formatting my MacBook HD and eventually restore my system (OS X 10.6.8) from a backup on Time Capsule, will I still have access to my old* backups as normally used to do via Time Machine?
*(-and to the newer backups- if I had not restored my system from the last backup).
THANKS

That's a good question. Technically, Time Machine should make a new backup but not erase any old backups. But if there isn't sufficient space on the backup drive, then I'm not sure if Time Machine will simply warn you or just go ahead and remove old backups to make room for the new ones.
In any case, the new backup should have a different backup folder on the backup drive. That's my understanding. You can learn more at pondini.org.

Restore entire system from a Time Capsule backup?

Can anyone help me restore my entire system (MacBook Pro, os x 10.5.8) from a set date in time using Time Machine. I use a Time Capsule wifi for back-ups. I have found lots of tutorials and how to's that say it can be done, but none which actually spell out how to do it step by step if you're not changing Macs or using a more modern operating system. I've been to two Apple stores with all of my equipment and the instructions from the Genius Bar haven't worked when I get home to start the back-up. One Apple store wiped my iPhone and restored and synched it to a store laptop when I had my own with me, so now those don't synch or recognize each other and I've lost all my iTunes settings. The second store said I needed to restore my Mac with a snapshot from my HD, which seems like the place I'm restoring to, not restoring from.
I want to first ensure TM is backing up to the Time Capsule and not to my Mac before I do a complete restore. The store seemed to indicate that TM was backing up to the Mac. Every Apple tutorial reads that the Time Machine recognizes it is connected to a Time Capsule and after initial setup "just takes care of itself," so this is a surprise to me and I want to triple-check my files and the snapshots in time are on an external Time Capsule. The settings in Time Capsule all look fine, but I can't tell if it's the actual back-up drive. When I go into TM I see the dates on the right hand side, but none are pink as some tutorials read they should be? Is that a new addition with later operating systems.
The problem started when I was trying to synch and charge my iPhone routinely. During the synch I received a software update window that read I should update the latest iWork software updates. So I clicked yes. Then a window popped up reading I needed to download the latest iPhone software updates, so I said yes. After two hours of downloading and installing my iPhone screen went black, read I needed to plug into iTunes, which it was. And when I unplugged and plugged it back in to the Mac and iTunes it read my only option was to Restore to factory settings. I immediately shut everything down and went to the Apple store and when I got back home iTunes doesn't open on the Mac. The phone is on a different system than the Mac. My iCal and Address book files are corrupted, missing information, some records are duplicated. And all of my photos in iPhoto are all dated with the same date from 9 months ago. The photos from recently are in the Library, but the date informaton is corrupt.
From what I'm reading I can restore the computer to what it looked like in a point in time when I know everything looked and synched correctly, a few days before the problem without losing too much data? Can anybody shed some light on this? Thanks so much.

smnolmagic wrote:
Can anyone help me restore my entire system (MacBook Pro, os x 10.5.8) from a set date in time using Time Machine.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for all the gory details.
The second store said I needed to restore my Mac with a snapshot from my HD, which seems like the place I'm restoring to, not restoring from.
There may be a misunderstanding there -- effective with Lion, Time Machine does make "Local snapshots" on the internal HD of laptop Macs, so they're available when your regular TM backups aren't. But you can't do a full restore from them.
And since you're still on Leopard, the only way to have backups on your internal HD would be if you'd created a separate partition on it and directed TM to back up there, instead of to your Time Capsule.
Since Lion has been out for about 18 months, the AppleStore folks may have forgotten (or never known) the differences from Leopard and Snow Leopard.
I want to first ensure TM is backing up to the Time Capsule and not to my Mac before I do a complete restore.
Use the Time Machine Browser (the "Star Wars" display) to see your backups. You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial, and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
When I go into TM I see the dates on the right hand side, but none are pink as some tutorials read they should be? Is that a new addition with later operating systems.
Yes, that's a change effective with Lion. The "Local Snapshots" are shown in white, backups on an external HD, Time Capsule, etc., in pink. But on Leopard, all you'll see is white. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #15A for details.
From what I'm reading I can restore the computer to what it looked like in a point in time when I know everything looked and synched correctly, a few days before the problem without losing too much data?
Yes, per #14 in the FAQ as above. Once that's done, you can then selectively restore more-current items from subsequent backups, if you want.
However, note that, on Leopard, doing a full system restore makes your internal HD look like it's an entirely different disk to OSX and Time Machine. Once you're running on the restored version, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see the backups from the "old" disk.
Also, when you do the next backup, it will be a full one -- everything you just put back on the disk will be backed-up in full. That will take a long time and probably a lot of space on the TM drive.

How do you restore the system from a backup file that you created previously

I have a notebook, Pavilion g6 - 1031TX running windows 7 64bit OS, and ran the backup utility a few weeks ago before running a full system recovery to attemp to fix an issue - this issue was fixed by warranty, and now I need to recover everything from the backup files, I have run the restore executable in the folder and it created another folder on my C: drive (System recovery files), how do I use this to restore the system to its previous state?

Unfortunately, the backup utilty portion of Recovery is not optimal solution for restoring many files.Unless you know exactly where they go you are stuck. Most of the important stuff such as photos,music,etc will be in the 'Users' folder under your user name. You will have to manually move them to correct location.
A better option in the future is Windows 7's backup app in Control Panel.
******Clicking the Thumbs-Up button is a way to say -Thanks!.******
**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

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!

After restoring System from TM backup is too big for drive

I had to restore my system from TM recently. When I plugged in the TM drive after restoring it tells me that there's not enough space on the drive to perform the backup.
Am I just going to have to chuck away the original backups and start a new one, or is there some way I can get the original backup to work again?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Yes, that's normal behavior, unfortunately. When you erase a disk (done automatically as part of a restore), everything you put back on it is treated as new: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338
You may need a larger drive for your backups. It varies greatly, of course, depending on how you use your Mac, but a "rule of thumb" is that TM needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up to be able to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.

I had to restore my system from a time machine backup. It Failed...

I had to restore my system from a time machine backup. It seemed to go alright up to it asking me to resart to complete the installation, but it would not boot. It forced a panic screen that told me to force quit my computer and resart which did not resolve anything.
Now I have installed the original Leopard 10.5 but I used to have 10.6.8 on it. How can I get it back to 10.6.8? or do I have to buy it again?
Any ideas why the restore failed?
thanks,
R.

It seems you had a kernel panic (see attached link):
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742
Regarding upgrade to Snow Leopard (10.6.8), you will have to install the disk you used originally. If you have lost it, then you will have to get a new one. The Apple online store sells them for about $29. When you install Snow Leopard, you should then do a Software update.
Ciao.

Need help restoring entire system

Last night I decided to upgrade the harddrive in my iMac and then use Time Machine to restore my system. However, I ran into a bit of a snag. When I go to restore I have to select the file I want to restore from. Time Machine states that it only shows "complete backups", however I find this very inaccurate as the list showed every single backup for each hour they were created. If I selected the last backup it wouldn't copy anything, reboot and hang until it loaded the cd again. I then selected the first backup since I know it contained the entire system. That worked fine, however, obviously I had made several changes since the first backup. Most of my apps are missing as well as all file changes that were made. I can't find a way to simply restore my system to the last state it was in. If I reboot and tell it to restore the last backup it erases the drive and ofcourse there are no files for it to copy over. How do I get my system to look exactly like it did prior to changing the hard drive? There has to be a way to do this using Time Machine since they claim you can restore your system after a hard drive failure.

Just to clarify what I did. I booted using the DVD and can successfully restore my system from a Time Machine backup, however, I can only restore using the first backup Time Machine makes (where it backs up the entire system). What I can't get it to do is restore from the last backup point. So basically I can restore my system to look like it did on October 26th, but I can't restore it to look like it did yesterday. The problem with that is not only am I not able to see applications I have installed since the first backup, but all the file changes I have made are gone. If I try to reboot from DVD and restore from backup and select the last backup that was made on Nov 7th, it says it is "copying files" but within 10 seconds the system reboots and loads from the DVD again because the Nov 7th backup didn't contain anything (although the Backup process says it only shows "complete backups" I assume it shows more than that. I will try again tonight and select the last backup to see if it works properly the second time around.

Advisable to Exclude "Library" and "System" From TM Backup?

In the event I need a complete restore, can I use the Leopard install disc with the TM backup? And if this is the case, can I exclude "Library" and "System" from TM backup without harm. If there is personal info in "Library" (I have checked all the MobileMe sync options) can I retrieve it from the MobileMe cloud? Since my backup drive is same capacity as computer, my goal is to effectively economize.

nublu wrote:
In the event I need a complete restore, can I use the Leopard install disc with the TM backup?
Yes, as long as you DO let TM back up everything, including your OS and apps. You don't reload Leopard from the Leopard Install disc for this; you just use the installer on it to restore everything from your TM backups. See item 14 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
And if this is the case, can I exclude "Library" and "System" from TM backup without harm.
Not to be able to do a complete system restore. If you do exclude those folders, you'd have to install Leopard from your Leopard Install disc, then "migrate" from your TM backups, then download the appropriate OSX update package to get back to 10.5.7. If you decide to do this, you might as well exclude the hidden top-level folders as well.
If there is personal info in "Library" (I have checked all the MobileMe sync options) can I retrieve it from the MobileMe cloud? Since my backup drive is same capacity as computer, my goal is to effectively economize.
You're not going to save much space that way, and your TM disk is probably much too small anyway. The rule of thumb here is that TM needs 2-3 times as much space as the data it's backing-up; so if your internal HD is only 1/3 to 1/2 full, you may be ok. If it's more than half full, your best bet may be to get a bigger drive. See item #1 of the FAQ referenced above for more details.

IPhone 5: Restoring Camera Roll from iCloud Backup.

When restoring all data from iCloud Backup, Camera Roll never finished downloading. It was stuck at 5 out of 715. How can I restore Camera Roll from iCloud Backup now that the initial "start up" Restore is complete?

Got my photos & videos back into camera roll! I woke this morning and all 701 were there. This is a few less than the most recent backup had, but good enough. So, there were a few things flakey about my experience restoring from iCloud. Therefore as many, including yourself have noted, iCloud IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A TRUSTED METHOD for backing up, storing or restoring photos & videos. If your photos & videos are important to you, backup to your computer at regular intervals.
What worked?
1: Following randers4's suggestion to review ezjules' post (see above for link).
2: When the most recent backup failed, I went to the next one available (2 days old)
3: When the Photo App displaying X of XXX images downloading in camera roll got hung up on the first few images, I powered down the phone and it resumed downloading more. However, it hung up 2 more times and then proceeded while I went to bed.
4: Phone was plugged into A/C outlet entire time, no incoming or outgoing phone calls or texts.
I am no longer going to back up photos or videos to the cloud. I will also cancel my additional storage capacity on iCloud. Why pay for secure storage that is so flakey?!?

Updated iPad 1 to IOS 5. When trying to restore my iPad from my backup it gets half way through and the iPad reboots and iTunes says "An error occurred while restoring this iPad (-1)"

Updated iPad 1 to IOS 5. When trying to restore my iPad from my backup it gets half way through and the iPad reboots and iTunes says "An error occurred while restoring this iPad (-1)"
I have tried to restore my contacts and company data at least 20 times and every time half way through THE iPAD REBOOTS! When it boots back up it is at the brand new iPad screen.
This makes me angry as I do not use the iPad for fun and games. I use it for business. My company data and records for the last year are gone. ALL of my out standing customer invoices are gone. ALL payments received are gone! ALL Business contacts and emails ARE GONE! All my company, personal email accounts and settings ARE GONE!
What am I supposed to do now? In 6 hours I have to get on the road and conduct business with a empty blank factory out of the box iPad. How am I supposed to know who owes me money or who has paid their bills Apple? All of my meetings and calendar dates are GONE!
Everything was supposed to be backed up and restored after the update!
Question???WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS UPDATE WIPE OUT ALL SETTINGS AND APPS ON THE iPAD??? All the other updates left everything on the iPad intact and ONLY upgraded the IOS,and when it was done everything was still there.
Yes! I have done everything. Rebooted computer, checked for updates, Hard booted iPad, Factory restored iPad to ios 5 twice, tried every usb port I have, unplugged all other usb components.
Everytime half way through "Restoring iPad from backup..." The iPad turns off shows a spinning circle then shows the Apple logo and takes me to the brand new iPad setup screen.
Apple, you have no idea the level of stress you have created today.....

Check the console app to see if there are any error messages. I had one app showing an issue (Pet Hotel) the error was (truncated):
ERROR: Restore message response: 102 rename error: File name too long (63) at path "/var/mobile/Library/SafeHarbor/com.pocketgems.tappethotel/Container/Documents/ savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHis tory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGa meHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/sa vedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHisto ry/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGame History/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/save dGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory /savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHi story/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedG ameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/s avedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHistory/savedGameHist ory/savedGameHistory/1313349538-pocket_gems_crash_report.txt" (MBErrorDomain/102)
I manually snyc'ed that particular app and then re-ran the restore and am now the proud owner of a working iphone. Not sure it is the same problem or app but looking in the console was the key!

I have to restore my phone from back up but in order to do it i had to update my software. now that my software is updated there isnt enough room on the phone to back up. is there a way to only restore certain things from the backup like contacts?

i have to restore my phone from back up but in order to do it i had to update my software. now that my software is updated there isnt enough room on the phone to back up. is there a way to only restore certain things from the backup like contacts?

Because it says it's incompatible when it can't be, I got hope. I get error messages all the time with my iPod and iPhone that it cannot sync and that 'this device is not capapble of connecting to iTunes' stuff. I literally forget that happened, plug it in again and it works, I later realize that iTunes made a mistake, they do that.

In the context of restoring a drive from a backup, i copied /etc/sudoers from my backup. Now it does not work due to the permissions not being correct (even though it was copied via sudo cp -rp)

In the context of restoring a drive from a backup, i copied /etc/sudoers from my backup. Now it does not work due to the permissions not being correct (even though it was copied via sudo cp -rp)

Most likely you have Office 2004 which are PPC-only applications and will not work in Lion. Upgrade to Office 2011. Other alternatives are:
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.)
Open Office (Office 2007-like suite compatible with OS X.)
NeoOffice (similar to Open Office.)
LibreOffice (a new direction for the Open Office suite.)

Restoring itunes library from a backup

I copied my iTunes folder into a backup drive. My hard drive died, and now I want to "re-connect" my iTunes with its library. How can I do it? Simply pointing iTunes to the library location doesn't work.
I need to be able to sync my iphone, etc... Help!

When restoring Itunes library from a backup DVD, will it overwrite anything already in the library?
No.
(47058)

Restoring entire system from a backup

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for