Restoring time machine back up to new hard drive

Today, I went to a computer store and had the hard drive replaced on my Macbook Pro 2008 model. I was running snow leopard, but with the update the guy updated my OS to Mavericks, he hasn't put anything else on the computer though.
What I want to do is restore back up from time machine (situated on an external hard drive). However I don't want my system to glitch or revert back to Snow Leopard. I want the back up to run on Mavericks. What is the best way to run this back up?

Hey jshark1,
You can use Apple's Migration Assistant (located in /Applications/Utilities) to bring your data to your new system hard drive. See this article for an overview of how to do it -
Move your data to a new Mac - Apple Support
While the article is about transferring the information from another computer, it also allows you to do so from a Time Machine backup. Start from the sections labeled Choose a connection method.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Be well,
Brett L

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How to transfer time machine back up to new hard drive

How to transfer time machine back up to new hard drive?

You may like to take a look at this thread... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4207670?start=0&tstart=0

Unable to restore time machine backup onto a new hard drive

I recently bought a new hard drive for my mid-2010 white Macbook. I have kept this computer regularly backed up with time machine, but just to be sure I made sure I hooked up my external hard drive prior to changing the hard drive and made sure it was fully backed up. I checked my exceptions and saw that my system files and applications were listed, so I removed them from the exceptions list and let it back up again (it only backed up a further 60MB though, so that made me a little uneasy).
I successfully switched over the hard drive and then plugged in my external hard drive so I could do a restore from Time Machine. My external hard drive has 3 partitions: 2 time machine backups for each of my computers, and one partition for storing files that also has an old copy of 10.6 on it.
When I booted the computer, I held option, then selected Macbook TM. When it came to the window with 4 options, including disk utility and restore from time machine backup, I selected restore from Time Machine backup. When I did so it said "No OS X Backups Were Found." Why wouldn't it have backups listed if I have been consistently backing it up? How else do I do a full system backup?
Also, how can I be sure that I'm restoring this backup onto the new hard drive? It didn't prompt me to select that drive at any point, and I want to make sure I'm not overwriting the middle partition on the backup drive (or anything else).

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
You will find that Mountain Lion stores an invisible copy of the Recovery HD. You can boot from your Time Machine backup drive by restarting with OPTION boot:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon for your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
Your computer should boot into the Recovery HD. You will be presented with a main window of options. Select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

HT204057 Time machine back up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme.

Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme? It worked very well.

Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme?
Time Machine backups are supported via USB hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme"ac" version.
Time Machine backups were not supported via USB hard drive connected to earlier versions of the AirPort Extreme.
Some users who tried this on earlier version AirPort Extremes seemed to have some success with Time Machine backups....some had moderate success and some had no success with this. Count me in the "no success" category.
See the topic about Time Machine support for USB disks in this Apple Support document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Can 'Time Machine' back-up other external hard drives

Can 'Time Machine' back-up other external hard drives connected to your mac as well as the mac memory itself?

As Neil says, yes, it can. But external HDs are excluded by default; you have to tell Time Machine when you do want to back one up.
See the exclusions box in Time Machine Prefs > Options.
If the drive is shown in black, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's shown in gray, though, it's not formatted for a Mac, and Time Machine can't back it up (and you can't remove it).

Problems Copying Time Machine Back-Up to New Hard Disk

I tried copying my old time machine back-ups from a 500 GB WD HDD to a new Seagate 1TB. Followed the instructions from "Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive". Although terribly slow it seemed to work all well initially. Had it run over night, then discovered the next morning the process was apparently hanging.
Thinking that maybe the energy saver options were the cause of the problem, I unchecked "put hard disk to sleep when possible". So went through the same painful process. Cannot believe that after about 7 h of transfering the whole thing is stuck again:
More than 2 million items were apparently copied, now nothing is happening at all... (neither GB nor minutes changing anymore)
1) Is this a common problem? More importantly: how can it be solved?
2) Is there another way to transfer time machine back-ups to another hard disk?
Thanks!

This is getting (more) annoying: turned out that something went wrong with the 500 GB HDD with the original time machine back-up. Managed to repair it in the 3rd attempt with disk utility. Heard of SuperDuper and thought I'd give it a try.
Cloning the back-up disk to the new 1 TB HDD seemed to work well, but I am a bit surprised with the result:
It seems time machine recognizes now the 1 TB Seagate HDD as a 500 GB (the size of the original WD) only?

Can Time Machine back up a failed hard drive, and how long will it take to prepare?

1. The hard drive in my 2009 MBP has failed. My Time Machine external drive failed about three weeks ago, and I don't know if I'll be able to restore from it. Is it ever possible to backup a failed hard drive with Time Machine? The machine boots, it just comes up beach balls if I use any applications for very long.
2. I'm trying to back it up right now. I have Time Machine running to a new external drive. It has been stuck on "preparing backup" for about 20 minutes. Everyone says that preparing a first backup takes some time, but no one says if "some time" is 15 minutes or one hour or more. What is a typical length of time for preparing first backup? At what point should I walk away?
If it's not worth trying to back this drive up myself anymore, I'd love to just drop the thing off and get the hard drive replaced -- but if it's worth doing, I'll take the extra day to back up what I can.

You might have better luck using a clone.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Time Machine "Backing up to multiple hard drives"

I had problems when switching between two external hard drives using Time Machine.
Upon speaking to Apple Tech Support I learned that when getting an error code that prevents me from using one of my hard drives, that there is a work around. Seems that when using two hard drives at different times an issue may be encountered. The solution involves using Terminal in Utilities and typing in code from Apple plus the error number on your computer. I'm no expert so won't try to go step by step but the solution worked in Terminal and the code started with sudo chown `id -un` "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.0016cbd00dc9"
Disregard the numbers after Time Machine Backups since that is my own error code.
After entering the 'sudo, etc...' it will ask for your computer password.
Then, in Terminal type in sudo chmod 400 "/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.0016cbd00dc9" and the return key again, and again your computer password.
That all helped solve a problem that even Disk Utility with the Installation Disk didn't help. The problem arises when trying to back up Time Machine between 2 different external hard drives.
Hope this helps some of you...

filterfactor wrote:
That all helped solve a problem that even Disk Utility with the Installation Disk didn't help. The problem arises when trying to back up Time Machine between 2 different external hard drives.
This will keep TM from objecting to the new drive, but you need to be sure the right things are getting backed-up to both drives. This has been discussed here before, and never confirmed, as far as I know. You can be a big help to us by confirming whether this actually works.
Do this please, both for us and so you're confident that both drives contain complete backups:
Download the TimeTracker app, from www.charlessoft.com.
It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.).
1. Turn TM off temporarily (so it doesn't interfere by doing a backup).
2. Perform backups to both drives.
3. Add a small test file to your home folder.
4. Do a +Back Up Now+ to the first drive.
5. Using +Time Tracker,+ confirm that the test file was backed-up to the first drive.
6. Do a +Back Up Now+ to the second drive.
7. Using +Time Tracker,+ see if the test file was backed-up to the second drive.
Post the results here. If it actually works (the file gets backed-up to both drives), we'll put this into step-by-step instructions for others who want to do this.

How to Copy a Specific Time Machine Back-Up to Ext Hard Drive

I'm transitioning from a MBP early 09 to a MBA mid 11. I pruned the MBP pretty well to migrate items from it to the Air, but I want to preserve the last "full" Time Machine back-up of the MBP to an external hard-drive. Not the "latest" - as the lastest back-up includes the pruning need to migrate necessary items from the Pro to the Air - but one dated a few days before I began the pruning. How do I get that specific back-up (currently on External Hard Drive A - 250 GB) onto a new external hard drive (Ext Hard Drive B - 1TB)? I want to preserve that specific back up then ERASE Ext Hard Drive A to use as a portable for the the MBA. Thank you.

don't delete anything on the TM drive using finder. you can do it from TM interface. however, in your case it will not help because TM will always make a full backup after a system restore like you did and there is absolutely no way to avoid it. as suggested you might want to reformat the TM drive and start backups from scratch.
BTW, to delete a single backup you start TM, scroll back to that backup, click on the "gears" action button in Finder's toolbar and select "delete backup".

Time Machine Back Up of Damaged Hard Drive

Hi everyone. I've searched through the forums for this, but I have not found an answer specific to my problem (at least that I could find).
Is it possible to perform a Time Machine back up of my damaged internal hard drive to my Time Capsule, but using a bootable external hard drive with Mountain Lion installed?
The issue is that I cannot start up my Macbook Pro (2011) itself. It gets stuck on the grey screen with a progress bar at the bottom that reaches under 1/4 of the way through before the screen goes black and the computer shuts down (silently, without the typical electronic *beep* when it is forcibly shut down).
I booted up from my external hard drive and ran Disk Utility. When I tried to repair the disk it gave the following message:
"Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
Although I have a recent back up, it doesn't contain the very latest work I have done and so if at possible, I would like to perform a back up if at all possible, before erasing and restoring.
(I assume booting up from the Time Capsule itself is not possilbe? And even if it were, could a back up be performed?)

Try cloning it to your Time Capsule/external hard drive.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

Will Time Machine Back up an External Hard Drive Attached to my Mac Pro?

Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up? So, I'd like to have Time Machine back up my Mac HD and the external HD. If Time Machine won't do this, is there a good back up program for Macs that is very turnkey?
Thanks in advance!!!

GregT wrote:
Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up?
If the drive is formatted +Mac OS Extended,+ yes. While it's connected, go to TM Preferences > Options. If it's listed in the exclusion box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's listed in gray, however, it's either formatted wrong or corrupted, and you can't remove the exclusion.

Time Machine whole system to new hard drive problems.

HI Folks
Having an issue that hopefully someone can kindly answer. Using a Dual core Intel Xeon Mac Pro. 6g of ram. with one main HD plus 2 internal drives for videos and photos etc. Recently upgraded to Lion, and sometime after Drive Genius' Drivepulse says that my main HD has issues should be repaired, Drive genius says it can't repair, and to back up and wipe or replace.
Everything is on Time Machine, and I cleaned up one of my extra internal drives, wiped it and was hoping to Time Machine my system to the extra drive.
Using a lepoard system upgrade disc, I went into Time Machine and backed it up one to the empty hd. Everyting is there, but when I try to boot from that system folder, I immediately get a kernal error screen.
I used to be so good with this stuff, but since kids my mind is mush. What am I doing wrong???
Does the hard drive need to be in the #1 slot? Does it need an existing system folder on it?(because the last system disc I have is Tiger(no longer works), and the Leopard is an upgrade and Snow, and Lion were downloads.)
I also have a new 2Terabit drive to put in as a replacement, but cant get it to boot is the current issue.
The current hd still works and functions, but if something is wrong I don't want it to die without options to fix. trying to be proactive here and it ain't going my way.
Please help!?!
Mark

Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup), erase the startup volume, reinstall Lion, and then import your data from a TM snapshot in Setup Assistant.

Can Time Machine back up an external hard drive plugged into a Time Capsule

I have iTunes and iPhoto libraries that have outgrown the hard drive on my laptop so I've moved them on to an external hard drive. Since I'd like to move around the house with the laptop, I've plugged the external hard drive in to the Time Capsule so that the files on the external hard drive will be accessible on the network. Now that my really important files live on an external hard drive, I want to back it up.
Time Machine is backing up my laptop's internal hard drive to the Time Capsule drive, but I can't seem to figure out how to make Time Machine also back up the external hard drive that's plugged in to the Time Capsule.
Is this possible?

I understand that [Chronosync|http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html] ($40 U.S.) can do that, but I've never used it.
If you do that, you'll want to back it up to a disk image on the TC's internal HD, or a separate HD. See #Q3 in [Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/TimeCapsule.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum) for details.

Will Time Machine back up two internal hard drives on the same computer?

Hi,
I'm running a Quicksilver G4 - the last of the dual booters - and I have two hard drives installed. One is an 80Gb carrying the OS, apps, and iMovie projects and photos.
The original 60Gb drive is still in there, and has the old OS9 and all my work on there, and my iTunes library.
I currently back up to a MyBook 500Gb firewire external drive. It's partioned into 3 sections. One for long term storage, not backed up. The other two hard drives are backed up completely in the other two partitions, using Retrospect.
Can I use Time Machine two back up these two drives, and what do I need to do to the partions?
I thought it best to ask first.

Thanks Ewan,
What I'd like to do is to abandon Retrospect and use Time Machine only for both the internal drives. The remaining part of the external drive just used for storage and not backing up, I'd like to leave how it is, I just drag and drop there.
On my partions, I've allowed 80Gb and 60Gb partitions, the same size as the drives, though neither drive is more than half full.
When you say I can change the disk volume for backup, do you mean that I have to give Time machine a seperate instruction and schedule for backup? That wouldn't be a problem.

Can Time Machine back on one external hard drive (work files) to another external hard drive (back up)?

Can Time Machine on a Mac Book Pro 10.5.8 back up an external hard drive (working files) to another external hard drive (WD dual backup)?

I have Mountain Lion here ready to upgrade, but I'm scared of what will happen - there's always something when you upgrade, but I guess that's for a different post!
Yes, it's a different post, but let's make a comment any way.
Your power pc apps will not work when you upgrade to Mountain Lion. You will have to replace all the apps you use.

Restoring time machine back up to new hard drive

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