Restoring from a Time Machine back up: iMac can't find them

A series of set backs after initially attempting to update Pages to be consistant and usable across my devices. iMac required me to update to Mavericks to be able to download the latest Pages update. After doing this, my iMac failed to reboot - just stuck on the white apple screen. This happened again next tie I attempted a Mavericks installation. So, I tried to restore from a Time Machine back up. After restarting in recovery mode I selected Restore from Time Machine back up - message reads "Searching for Time Machine back ups" (and hard drive is plugged in and switched on) but nothing is found.
How to enable the connection to the TM back up?
How to install Mavericks in this situ?
Thanks!

It may be that you can't do a full-system restore because system files were inadvertently excluded from your backups. But it could also be that the backups aren't usable at all. Since you don't know and can't check at the moment, you should assume the worst.
If you want to preserve the data on the startup drive, and it's not already backed up, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Start up from the Recovery partition, from Internet Recovery, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
2. If Method 1 fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
3. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
4. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

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I restored from a Time Machine back up and now my Creative Suite 4 gives me error 150:30

I have the same problem when I migrated CS4 to a new Retina MacBook Pro from a Time Machine drive. I get Error: 150:30 when I try to launch Photoshop CS4. The License Recovery Tool does not seem to work with Mountain Lion. I cannot reinstall the software from disc unfortunately. That was too many moves ago and the discs are no longer available. I don't even think the installers will run with the current OS.
Any help would be much appreciated.
All the best,
Tom

I have branched this off to a separate discussion.
TomWolsky in general it is best if you install the applications instead of restoring them from Time Machine or using the Migration assistant to copy them from one computer to another. You can try the steps listed at Error "Licensing has stopped working" | Mac OS - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/error-licensing-stopped-mac-os.html. This may allow you to resolve this difficulty.
If it doesn't I would recommend formatting and only restoring your documents and settings from the Time Machine back up. You can download a fresh copy of your installation files by following the directions listed at http://prodesigntools.com/download-adobe-cs4-and-cs3-free-trials-here.html.
You can also find the serial number if it is registered to your account by following the steps listed at http://forums.adobe.com/message/3987968#3987968?promoid=KBHJW.

HT4491 Trying to restore from a Time Machine back-up

Had bad HD replaced on my iMac by Apple. I updated the OS to Mountain Lion, boot in restore mode, start the restore from the last back up, get the "restoring..." dialog box with the progress bar, but it just keeps running and never finishes. Neither the iMac internal drive nor the external drive I use for Time Machine back-up seem to be doing any read/write activity. I even let it run over night justto see and nothing. Any ideas on what might be going wrong?

Had bad HD replaced on my iMac by Apple. I updated the OS to Mountain Lion, boot in restore mode, start the restore from the last back up, get the "restoring..." dialog box with the progress bar, but it just keeps running and never finishes. Neither the iMac internal drive nor the external drive I use for Time Machine back-up seem to be doing any read/write activity. I even let it run over night justto see and nothing. Any ideas on what might be going wrong?

I had a new hard drive fitted to my imac and restored it from my time machine back when I try to open itunes I get this message "the itunes library extras.itdb file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file"

I had a new hard drive fitted to my imac and restored it from my time machine back up on an external hard drive when I try to open itunes I get this message "the itunes library extras.itdb file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file"

To solve this issue all I did was check to ensure that the file permissions were set as described by the earlier posts, followed by simply deleting the iTunes Library Genius.itdb file. Once the file was deleted I was able to open iTunes without difficulty. Note that I am running Windows 8. Hope this helps!

How can I restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. Using Migrat

I would like to restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. When I tried using Migration Assistant it only gives me my internal hard drive as an option to restore to. The internal hard drive on my macbook isnt large enough to store the files.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X can only restore data to the drive where Time Machine backed up files from.
If you want to restore files from the Time Machine backup onto an external drive, your only option is to access to the Time Machine drive manually (open a Finder window and choose your Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar), navigate through its folders and copy the files you want to the external drive

How do i restore all my data from a time machine back up from an iMac to a Macbook Pro?

How do i restore all my data from a time machine back up on an external hard dirve???
From an iMac to a Macbook Pro.

I tried this but my external drive is not appearing for some reason. Although it is accessible through finder.
Is ther perhaps another way of doing this??
Your help is massively appreciated!!

My 27" iMac has just creen issue repaired. I restored from my time machine and now the white screen is back and I am unable to access an recovery option. It looks like its no responding to the USB keyboard

My 27" iMac has just come back from the workshop after having a white screen issue repaired. I restored from my time machine and now the white screen is back and I am unable to access an recovery option. It looks like its no responding to the USB ke

Thanks for your reply! I must apologise for the quality of my post. I inadvertently posted it before it was corrected.
I am very disappointed with this iMac. It is only 18 months old and this will be the third visit to the workshop. I had expected more from Apple and from their repair agents. Luckily I have AppleCare.

I just restored my Mac HD from a time machine back-up and PS 4 Will not open. I get an error code 150:30. Any Idea what I should do ?

I just restored my Mac HD from a time machine back-up and PS 4 Will not open. I get an error code 150:30. Any Idea what I should do ?

Photoshop's licensing information might have lost when you restored it to new HD. Re-install Photoshop CS4 and enter the same serial key for PS CS4 which you used before.
In case you need the download link for PS CS4, you can get it from here. Download CS4 products
Let me know in case you still get any issues.
~ Arpit

How do I restore iCal data from a Time Machine back-up?

Recently, all my iCal data disappeared, possibly due my efforts to unlink iCal from Google calendars.
I have read posts here, and have tried restoring ~/Library/Calendars in its entirety from a Time Machine back-up from about a week ago, where data definitely existed .... however, iCal remains empty. What am I doing wrong?

Triple-click the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item selected. Restore it from your backup.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

REstoring from old time machine backups on new install

Hi, I've been looking for good documentation on this and haven't seen an answer yet.
I want to blow away and reinstall my OS (10.5.1) I made a full backup to my time machine disk and I had planned on reinstalling the OS and all my apps for a clean start, then when the time came to move my photos and itunes back just connect my time machine disk to the new installation and copy the data back. Once I was satisfied that everything I needed was restored from the time machine dist to the new install I would go ahead and re-enable time machine on the new install and blow away my old backups starting from scratch. Has anyone done this yet? I do not want to plug in the old time machine disk and not be able to access the data that was created by the old installation. I would be bitter to say the least. Before anyone suggests another means of backing up I have thought of that, but, I'd like to see if this works.
I understand the scenario of beginning an install and choosing to restore that way, but, the reason I'm reinstalling is to start with a fresh OS form scratch an be able to restore selectively.
Thanks for reading my wordy post, I look forward to hearing back!
Thanks again

I think I'm facing the same issue as you. I ran Time Machine on my MBP. Now I've bought a new iMac. I started it with the Leopard CD and instead of installing Leopard on the new machine, I selected Restore from Time Machine Backup (or something like that). Everything from my old machine is now on my new machine. Sweet!
Only one problem. I've now enabled Time Machine on the new iMac and it tells me that there's not enough room on my external 320 GB drive for its first backup. It also tells me that its first backup will be 112 GB in size! This large size leads me to conclude that Time Machine will not add to the backups from the old MBP, but instead start a new series for the new iMac. To confirm this, I looked on the backup drive.
On the external backup drive, there are a series of 4 KB files, one for each machine that has previously been backed up. These names are nearly identical to the machine's MAC address (which you can find by open Network Preferences > Airport > Advanced). Time Machine will create a sparsebundle file for each machine backed up over the network; its name will have the format MachineNameMacAddresssparesebundle (Backups made when the backup drive was connected locally are saved in a folder called Backups.backupdb). So, to delete an old backup from a machine you're not using any more, you need to delete the 4 KB file containing the machine's MAC address, AND either the sparsebundle file OR the machine names' folder inside the Backups.backupdb folder.
Hope this helps.

I am trying to restore my calendar from my Time Machine backup. I can get through the process, but at the end I get a message that Calendars cannot be amended as it is required by OS 10. There is no facility to authorise a change. How do I get round this

I am trying to restore my Calendar from my Time Machine back up. I can get through the process but at the end I get a message that Calendars cannot be removed or amended as it is required by OS10, there does not appear to be any option to authorise the backup or change. How can I get round this roadblock?

I am trying to restore my Calendar from my Time Machine back up. I can get through the process but at the end I get a message that Calendars cannot be removed or amended as it is required by OS10, there does not appear to be any option to authorise the backup or change. How can I get round this roadblock?

How do I recover my Bookmarks from a Time Machine Back Up

I just upgraded from a 2 year old MacBook running Snow Leopard to a new MacBook Pro running Lion. Because of the problems Apple has between these 2 operating systems, I can not use the automated Migration Assistant to migrate over any of my old files, user info, or settings to the new machine. I'm having to manually pull over document files and applications from my Time Machine back up disk.
I can't seem to find my Bookmarks from the old computer in my back up files. On the Time Machine drive, I've looked in User, Application Support, Library, amongst many others. Not seeing it anywhere. They don't seem to be in Time Machine at all, or rather they're only there if I do the automated migration for all of my programs and settings. Which of course is not possible, because it leads to massive disk permission errors and a corrupted hard drive on the new machine. One thing I'm realizing i should have done was make a manual back up of my bookmarks in Firefox before I wiped my old machine. If I didn't do this, am I screwed?
If anyone has ideas I would love some help, I really really don't want to lose years of bookmarks.
Oh, and whatever you do, don't buy a Mac with OSX Lion unless you want to waste LOTS of time fixing Apple's mistakes. This whole process has been a disaster so far. There are all kinds of issues with the transition to Lion, I'm 40+ hrs in now. Apple now has their very own version of Vista.

The following has instructions: OS X Mavericks: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
The following is old but specific to iPhoto and may help: iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later)
Also, see http://www.imore.com/how-set-and-restore-time-machine-backup

I can't migrate from a time machine Back up. I select my TC and it says "some backups can't be opened." My HD failed and I'm Trying to get everything back... Can anyone make a suggestion?

I can't migrate from a time machine Back up. I select my TC and it says "some backups can't be opened. Make sure that all of your network devices are connected and turned on. It appears that some backups are already in use. If you don't see the backup you need, make sure it is not currently mounted by another machine and try again."
My HD failed and i installed a new one... I'm Trying to get everything back... Can anyone make a suggestion?

Read the section E about restore issues.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
But you should be able to mount the sparsebundle and backup the major items if they are not damaged. You might also do a disk verify to see if the corruption can be repaired.
Have a look here also for restore of selected items.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

I have no folder for firefox in application support... where can I find the stored passwords from my time machine back up!!?

Everywhere I look it says I should have a folder for Firefox in library/applicationsupport/ BUT I don't have one! I'm looking to restore passwords from a time machine back up but there's no Firefox folder so I don't where to look. I even did a fresh install of Firefox on my mac and even then it never created a Firefox folder in library/applicationsupport/... they must be store somewhere in my back up...!?

Hello kamilr, check also in :
~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/<profile folder>
The tilde character (~) refers to the current user's Home folder, so ~/Library is the /Macintosh HD/Users/<username>/Library folder.
note that in mac 10.7 and above, the ~/Library folder is hidden by default, see : http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders#Mac_OS_X
when you find the file seek for '''key3.db''' and '''signons.sqlite''' files.
Your passwords are stored in two different files, both of which are required:
'''key3.db''' - This file stores your key database for your passwords. To transfer your saved passwords, you must copy this file along with the following file.
'''signons.sqlite''' - Saved passwords
thank you

New MacBook Pro Can I set up from a time machine Back Up from my Macbook?

I have a 3 month old Macbook (white) that I have been happy with so I've decided to upgrade to a Macbook Pro. Is there any disadvantage up transfering the data from a Time Machine Back Up since the systems are physically different?

Is there any disadvantage up transfering the data from a Time Machine Back Up since the systems are physically different?
Use the Migration Assistant to migrate from the backup instead of restoring the whole system; it will appear when the MacBook Pro is started up for the first time.
(45788)

Restoring from a Time Machine back up: iMac can't find them

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