Time Machine and Restoring to new Hard Drive

Computer: Intel Core Duo iMac, Model iMac 7,1
My hard drive bit the dust about a week ago (Work supplied computer). Everything is backed up through Time Machine. I took it into the local Apple repair service with a OS 10 (10.5.4) disk.
Had a new drive put in. The tech told me that the disk supplied was not the correct one and as a favor, he went ahead and installed 10.6.5.
Problem I have now is that I cannot restore from my Time Machine back-up. They told me to go ahead, put in the 10.5.4 disk, restart with it holding the "C" key and when it comes up, go to Utilities and restore from back-up (Time Machine). I have don that but as soon as it comes up, I get a message that says "Disk cannot be installed on this computer." I hit OK and go to utilities anyway (just a shot in the dark), select "Restore from back-up" and nothing happens.
I'm sure that going from the old to new OS is probably the reason for this. I really just wanted to restore it to what it was without having to go in sort files and redo all of the software, etc. So I sit here with a good computer running 6.5 and all my files sitting in a back-up folder on the desktop.
Is there a way to get this problem resolved? Help is appreciated.

Scott Hughes wrote:
Thanks for the help. Got the drive erased at least think I did (it was quick).
Did you reformat it? (and yes, it's quick). If the shop put the wrong partition map scheme or format on it, that could explain what you're seeing.
And let me be sure I understand: Your Mac was running Leopard, and the shop installed Snow Leopard, right?
And the 10.5.4 disc you're using is either the one that came with that Mac (gray), or a retail Leopard disc (black) that you purchased later?
*EDIT: If either of those is wrong, stop now and post back*
|
and when I start it from the disk, it still tells me that the disk cannot be installed on the computer.
Which disk is that, your Leopard Install disc or the internal HD? Do you get that when you start up (ie, never see the select your language, etc), or when you select +Restore System from Backup?+
If the HD is set up ok, I guess it's possible the backups, or at least the OSX part, are so badly corrupted the Installer doesn't know what to do with it.
Try Repairing your backups, via the copy of Disk Utility on your Install disc.
If all else fails, install OSX. When your Mac restarts, you might be able to use +Setup Assistant,+ per #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
But it may not like your backups, either. If so, set up an account with a name different from any on your backups. Then we can try some other things.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Similar Messages

Using Time Machine to restore to new hard drive missing recent backups

On Mac Book Pro 2009 with OS X 10.5.8.
I have been backing up to Time Machine on an external drive since 2009. A few month ago I upgrade to OS X 10.9 Mavericks.
Trying to install a new hard drive and restoring from Time Machine. Just before installing the hard drive I again backed up to Time Machine.
Trying to restore from Time Machine.
Note: this link shows the screen I am on. It isn't from my computer. Just showing for display purpose.
http://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/public/field/image/2014 /03/time_machine_select_backup.jpg?itok=G2WbV0Vu
"Select a backup. Select the Time Machine backup you want to restore. Only complete backups of Mac OS X appear in the list"
The problem is, the most recent "complete" restore point in the list is August 2011 (OS X 10.5.8). How can that be? Over the years I have checked Time Machine and I have back ups way past 2011.
What should I do?
Thanks

Daniel Greeney wrote:
So I just purchased an internal drive (separate from my system drive) to use as a Time Machine drive, for both of my computers (only one partition). Since they will be backing up every day, I will retain much more recent material in case of drive failure.
Let Time Machine back up every hour, as it's designed. That will protect you best.
My question is this - if I have a drive failure on my current internal system drive, and the internal Time Machine is intact, is it possible for me to take my external bootable backup (say 3 weeks older than Time Machine in how recently it was backed up), make a cone of that on a new internal system drive, and then use Time Machine to restore that drive to what is most current on Time Machine?
Does this question make sense?
The question makes sense until you realize that Time Machine backups contain everything you need (unless you do something silly, like exclude your system files).
Once the new drive is installed and formatted, you can restore your entire system from the TM backups faster than you can copy the clone to the new internal HD. See #14 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum. Note that you use the Snow Leopard Install disc only for the Installer on it; you don't install OSX from it.

Time Machine full restore to new hard drive

I'm going to change the internal hard drive of my laptop and before I do that I want to do a full restore of my last backup to the new drive via USB. I restart the computer with the Leopard installation DVD and use the Restore using time machine option under the Utilities menu. I choose my external hard drive as the source and the new internal hard drive connected via USB as the destination. Then I boot via USB to check that the copy was made ok before changing internal drives and I see that many files weren't copied. The applications folder wasn't coppied, and my home directory was 6 GB less. Even when I logged in my user icon was missing (not the other users ones)
Why Time Machine decided to copy some files and not others? Is there any other solution for performing the migration?
Thanks!

The PSU and then HDD in my iMac G5 both went (cause and effect!) and so I too replaced the hdd, although in my case, out of necessity.
I fitted the new hdd, then booted from 10.5 Retail version DVD.
First I had to format the hdd via Installer/Utiities/Disk utility. Then I installed Leopard. I did not take the first opportunity to Restore from TM (this first opportunity is after you select the Language, you select Options from toolbar, then use the bottom one Restore from TM) which is what they guy did in the weblink from the previous post.
I installed Leo, then it rebooted, then it went through the Welcome/StarTrek routine, then I did the restore from TM back up, after registration when it offers you the opportunity to restore from a previous Mac and it offers TM as an option. It looks like Migration Assistant but it isn't coz at that moment, nothing has been added etc. It doesn't give the dated options, and it took overnight, but hey presto! it was all there in the morning. Mail had to re-import the messages, other than that, it was fine.
BUT TAKE CARE.....After the overnight restore, and before it all worked hey presto!, I had a nightmare moment coz it wouldn't take the Password. In the end, I had to reset the password using the Leo CD/DVD (stick in the CD/DVD, select language, then use Options menu and select reset password [NOT the Firmware password option].
So, TM is impressive. But you MUST have the 10.5 DVD too.

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from Wigton

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

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

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

Time Machine and backing up external hard drives

Time machine will not back external hard drives I have connected to my Mac Pro. It works fine with the 3 hard drives mounted in the computer. Is this the way Time Machine is intended to work or am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

According to Disk Utility, GUID and AFP are both ok for a non-bootable drive with either CPU. The difference is when you want to make a volume bootable.
Since TM volumes are not bootable, it shouldn't matter UNLESS you have some other bootable system installed on the drive.
Right now, the drive on my Intel iMac is partitioned AFP and the one on the PPC powerbook is GUID. They both appear to be behaving themselves. The iMac has had one instance (since the last partition job) of a massive backup which occurred right after I changed the exclude list and the PPC has had no massive backups (other than the initial one). On that one, I built the exclude list BEFORE the initial backup.
- gws

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.

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.

Time Machine and SuperDuper on External Hard Drive?

Hi!
I really need a back up solution and after reading a lot of different articles and forums I think using Time Machine and SuperDuper may be the best option for me so I'm looking for advice:
Should I partition an external hard drive and have part of the partition for Time Machine and part for my SuperDuper clone? If I do this how much space should I give to each partition (the computer is 250GB and I'm using about 90GB, I mostly deal with documents, photos and music, I don't have movies or many huge files on my computer)
Will a 500GB external hard drive be sufficient and if the Time Machine partition becomes full as I assume it will in a few months if I understand correctly it will just start overwriting older back ups?
I know the ideal might be to have an external hard drive dedicated to time machine and one dedicated to SuperDuper but to be honest I can't afford 2 hard drives at the moment so I plan to partition (unless you strongly advise against it) and I'll also back up extremely important files with Dropbox. I'm at that stage where I just need to start doing back ups and I like the idea of it happening in the background via Time Machine and doing a weekly clone with SuperDuper. I'd like to get started immediately.
Any advice or problems I should be aware of would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

Effie Darrow wrote:
Should I partition an external hard drive and have part of the partition for Time Machine and part for my SuperDuper clone?
imagine that drive croaks. both backups will be lost @ the same time ...
If I do this how much space should I give to each partition (the computer is 250GB and I'm using about 90GB, I mostly deal with documents, photos and music, I don't have movies or many huge files on my computer)
see this read about how much space you should give TM: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/1.html.
as for a SD clone, the size of your startup disk will suffice.
Will a 500GB external hard drive be sufficient
see above
and if the Time Machine partition becomes full as I assume it will in a few months if I understand correctly it will just start overwriting older back ups?
deleting them, yes.
I know the ideal might be to have an external hard drive dedicated to time machine and one dedicated to SuperDuper
that would indeed be ideal.
but to be honest I can't afford 2 hard drives at the moment
USB drives are dirt cheap right now but stay away from WD drives.
good luck !
JGG

I'm currently backing up using Time Machine and a Seagate external hard drive, how to do I restore on a new computer?

I hate to say it.. But I have never backed up!! I have thousands of pics of my son on this mac book, it got wet and NOW I'm backing up (as i type) to a Seagate external hard drive- I plugged it in, and then Time MAchine launched automatically. It looks like it's backing up my whole computer, is it backing up everything? photos, address book, documents etc? If my computer crashes tomorrow, how would I restore all of this information on a new computer?
Help, I'm computer iliterate- hence the reason I got a Mac (so easy to use). I need reasurance that it will back up! How do I continue to back up? Leave the external hard drive plugged in? I'm telling you I'm below the knowledge of "Backing Up a Mac for Dummies"

Time Machine makes a backup of the whole OS.X volume automatically, so you will have an exact copy of your hard disk in your Time Machine external disk. Also, Time Machine will make backups every hour, always that your Time Machine disk is connected. If you want more information, visit this site > http://pondini.org
To restore this in a new Mac, you have to use Migration Assistant. Just connect the Time Machine drive into the new computer, open Migration Assistant (it's in /Applications/Utilities) and follow the steps. You will be able to select what you want to transfer.
Also, if you have a brand-new Mac, you can do this during the initial setup. Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the Time Machine disk and follow the steps

How do I restore a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive in an iMac 5.1?

Hi all,
I recently had a hard drive failure in my mid-2006 iMac 5.1 and have now installed a new drive. The iMac was previously running an up-to-date version of OSX 10.7 - Lion. However I've struggled to restore the machine from its Time Machine backup, trying using both Setup Assistant which has never allowed me to overwrite my startup files with the restore, and several attempts using Migration Assistant and following Pondini's Migration Problems tutorial, which worked partially, but has left me with a series of files/folders, many of which have Permissions problems.
The most recent attempt, using Migration Assistant is giving me a new error message:
You can't transfer from your other Mac to this one because your other Mac uses a newer version of Mac OS X. You must upgrade this Mac before you can transfer from your other Mac.
I'm getting it that the Time Machine data is more current (in terms of OSX) than my desktop machine - which I have prepared using my Snow Leopard start-up disc (but wonder why this is the first time that I'm getting told this on attempting to restore). But how do I get my iMac to a state whereby I can restore from the Time Machine?
I can't upgrade the Mac using Software Update as this will only get me to OSX 10.6.8 (which is where I currently am, although some applications don't seem to want to work in this state - App Store, Safari on occasion); I can't download OSX 10.7 from the App Store as it is no longer there, and I can't install OSX 10.8 as my iMac is not compatible with this release. I seem to be stuck in an infinite loop from which I don't seem to be able to get out of.
Can anyone help at all?
Many thanks in advance for any contributions & apologies if I've omitted any crucial information that might be needed to help me out.
Paul

Thanks den.thed,
Apologies for not replying back sooner - I've been away.
Although your suggestion helped me in getting a copy of Lion that I could use, it didn't help with the restore from Time Capsule issue. I had to download the Lion app onto my MacBook & then transfer it across but it wouldn't let me upgrade my OS for some reason, so I ended up wiping the iMac completely and restoring via my Snow Leopard install disk. For some reason, this time, it let me have the option of using Setup Assistant to access the Time Capsule for a complete restore.
Now, over a week later, with various bits of tweaking and reinstalling some apps that didn't seem to come across, I have my system back.
Thanks for the help anyway.
Cheers,
Paul

HT201250 Can i restore the entire system from a time machine backup to a new hard drive ?

If yes... does it restore EVERYTHING like it was before the crash... including Applications, emails, etc. OR i am better with a disk image to restore EVERYTHING ?

You need to install Lion on the new drive first, and then use Setup assistant.
After you've chosen a language and your network settings, it will take you into migration assistant, from which you can choose to tranfer information from Time Machine.
You can choose to migrate all users and apps or just some, according to your preference.

Restoring from a Time Machine Backup on a new Hard drive

Hi,
I have a late 2009 iMac and I had the HD replaced (it was included in the recent HD recall).
Before I had it replaced, I made a backup using my time capsule and it was on the latest version of Mountain Lion.
My question is, since I have to install the OS using the original install discs which was Snow Leopard, if I use the restore from Time Machine using Mac OSX Utilities, will my Mac restore my Mountain Lion backup (and have everything like it used to before I had the HD replaced)? Or do I have to reinstall Lion then Mountain Lion then restore from there?
It would be a pain to re download everything.
Hope someone can help me out.
Thanks in advance

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.

Time machine file transfer to new hard drive has stalled

I recently had the internal hard drive on my 2009 macbook pro replaced and OS X 10.9 installed (old hard drive had OS X 10.6). Upon starting it for the first time I was prompted to transfer files from My old hard drive using my Time Machine backup. The transfer seems to be about 95% complete and has taken about 26 hours so far. It says it is in the process of transferring files from my Applications folder, but there seems to have been no progress in the last 8 hours or so, and the estimated time to completion (5 hours and 3 minutes) has not changed. It appears as though the transfer has stalled. What should I do? What will happen if I pull then plug on the external hard drive? Is there another way to interrupt the process? Is it normal that it's taking this long?

If I were in your situation, I would erase the HDD and reinstall the OSX. Then I would use 'Setup Assistant' per the instructions here:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html
Read the directions carefully before you commit.
Also understand that you may have PPC applications which work with Snow Leopard (10.6) and will not with Mavericks. You may want to consider installing Snow Leopard instead. Read these:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2292
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6841
Ciao.

Time Machine and Restoring to new Hard Drive

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