Restoring selected files from a networked Time Machine backup

My wife's laptop logic board failed 2 days ago. It is backed up over our home network to a separate partition on a second hard drive in my MacPro. I'm trying to recover a few specific files from the day the machine failed.
When I try to mount her sparsebundle image, I get a message that the image could not be mounted "Reason -- not recognized".
Disk Utility claims the sparsebundle appears to be okay.
Using "Browse Other Time Machine Disks..." only shows the partition on the backup disk associated with my machine's backups.
Suggestions?

I have found a way around the issue. My wife's user account on my machine is set up as Sharing Only (just so her Time Machine can write files to the backup drive). So I went to my daughter's machine, turned off her TM, disconnected daughter's machine from mine, and then reconnected from daughter's machine as my wife's username. Then I could mount my wife's sparsebundle on my daughter's machine.
DR

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Restore iphoto library from crashed mini Time Machine backup on new mb pro

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One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again.
Your worry now is what will you do when the single hard drive containing both your library and its backup makes a screeching sound one day and is toast, or get stolen?
from a YouTube video
Uh-oh, those unspecific and sometimes incorrect YouTube videos. I dislike those things. I watched one once and some kid droned on in a barely audible monotone for about 5 minutes to show how to do something to which I could have typed instructions in two sentences.
Downloading (using iOS or computer) past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

Help recovering files from an incomplete time machine backup.

I set up a network drive as a time machine backup for my mac and my wife's. As the initial backup was being created, her hard drive crashed!
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Hello,
I just bought a new macbook pro 15inch. I have a time machine backup but I wanted to start fresh so I didn't use the migration assistant to transfer my info. The only thing I want is my iTunes library with the playlists, ratings, artwork etc. But here's the problem... The computer knows that my external hard drive (it's a 1 TB toshiba) has a time machine back up, but it won't access it the usual way. I choose "browse other time machine disks", enter the time machine, then choose the external drive from there, and then I access my stuff. I copied the whole iTunes folder, changed the iTunes media folder location in preferences. Now all my playlists are gone, 400 songs are missing artist info and the library duplicated itself so now I have 12000 songs.
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bilunpe wrote:
I copied the whole iTunes folder, changed the iTunes media folder location in preferences.
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Then open iTunes.
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drjbscott wrote:
Lets assume I've used FileVault to encrypt my Time Machine backup drive (for the sake of example an external HDD).
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J
This may help.
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If that sends a message, please note the exact wording.

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How do I retrieve a file from my backup in Time Capsule?
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A question about restoring from an old Time Machine backup

My computer has been acting very slow and freezing frequently lately. The spotlight background processess keep hogging the processor, and
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I tried a complete reinstall and used the migration assistant to move all my files and settings from my time machine back over to it.
That worked for about a week, then had b-Tree corruption that could only be fixed with disk warrior.
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I would like to try restoring from a much older Time Machine back up (6 months ago or so before I started experiencing problems).
If I do that, can I still use Time Machine to restore individual files and directories from later backups?
I'd like my system settings and applications to be from six months ago, but my desktop files and documents to be from my most recent backup.
Thanks,
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Yeah, I usually check the FAQs before posting a question.
They do talk about how to restore from an older back up, but not about what happens to your newer files once you have done it. They also talk about accessing files from another computer's time machine backup, but its not clear if that would work on a different fork of the same machine.
I may just have to learn from experience, but I don't want to risk losing any data.
I do recommend time machine though. Its saved me several times.
If anyone else has experience with this let me know.
Thanks,
-Matt

Restoring selected files from a networked Time Machine backup

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