Time Machine backups after a clean install

I recently performed a reinstalled Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro as it was suffering from running quite slow. Since I had upgraded this machine from an old Tiger install, I decided to manually migrate my files from a second backup, rather than restoring from my Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule.
Now I'm up and running, I wanted to be able to view my old TM backup on my Capsule, and restore other files if I needed to, but don't seem to be able to.
When browsing the Time Capsule, there is just the one sparsebundle for my backups, but when I enter Time Machine, it doesn't seem to read the older backups.
I would like to either:
1) Get TM to read my older backups
or
2) Clean them off
I still have my second backup so I'm not worried about losing the old data, but I am hoping to be able to claim back some disk space on my Time Capsule, without having to create a whole new TM backup.
Anyone got any ideas?

Dominic Barnes wrote:
I recently performed a reinstalled Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro as it was suffering from running quite slow. Since I had upgraded this machine from an old Tiger install, I decided to manually migrate my files from a second backup, rather than restoring from my Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule.
Now I'm up and running, I wanted to be able to view my old TM backup on my Capsule, and restore other files if I needed to, but don't seem to be able to.
When browsing the Time Capsule, there is just the one sparsebundle for my backups, but when I enter Time Machine, it doesn't seem to read the older backups.
Have you tried to click-and-hold (or control-click) on the Dock's Time Machine icon and selecting "Browse Other Time Machine disks..."?

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Can't access Time Machine backups after erase and install

Had iMac checked by Apple Authorized Service Provider after experiencing multiple problems I couldn't fix. No hardware problem. He did an erase and install of 10.5.8. The machine accesses my Time Machine backup, but in Time Machine/ iMacHome/ Sharing & Permissions says, "You can only read." If I access a folder in Home, like Desktop or Documents, it says,"You have no access." Permissions are locked and grayed out.
I spent over two hours on the phone with tech support last evening, and he finally said he'd have to turn it over to Apple engineers, which would take a few days.
Migration assistant only allows "all or nothing" migration, and I need to select just certain folders; I do not want to restore anything that might be corrupted.
Is it possible I could have an undetected hardware problem? Has anyone else done an erase and install and been able to use Time Machine backups to pick and choose what they wanted to restore?

Thank you for your reply. The apple support tech should have known this, but he didn't. However, in the course of our two hour discussion he said "Maybe it's because the computer name is different." I hadn't reached the new-set-up stage where I had changed the name of the computer from Apple's default, so I did that. My short name home folder I had already named the same as before, iMacHome.
But changing the computer name didn't help. After reading your reply, I unlocked the preferences (which were locked and grayed out in TM) to my home folder in the finder and assigned read and write to all folders within for everyone. Back in TM, preferences were no longer grayed out, but changing privileges was. I added iMacHome to the names in addition to staff read & write and everyone read and write. But ImacHome(Me) allows read only, options gray, and even though everyone is read and write, it says "You can only read" and I still cannot access Desktop, Documents, etc...
Fortunately I have a SuperDuper user file backup that I am restoring from, so all is not lost. But it seems to me TM backups should be readily available, and I want to solve this problem. I may still want to go back to a previous month to recover something. But mostly I'd just like to know that TM is a functional backup. It certainly isn't in my case right now.
Don't want to migrate the entire home folder. Too risky. Risky enough to bring over Mail and selected Application Support folders and keychains.
Thanks again. I think your answer is right on, but there must still be something else. I know I have those names correct because I see the old computer name on the sparse bundle, and the old home name in the TM backups. (Haven't read the tips yet. Will do so.)

Using Leopard Time Machine Backup after snow leopard install

So I want to install Snow Leopard (and set up bootcamp), and I wanted to wipe my hard drive and do a clean install - because in the past i've had some trouble creating a bootcamp partition.
would i be able to wipe and install snow leopard, and then easily restore my data and settings from a time machine backup?

You may get a better response if you posted your question
in the Snow Leopard forum...
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=263
Dave

How do I recover files from a Time Machine backup after a clean system reinstall?

I had a really funky problem with my Japanese input that is too weird (and irrelevant at this point) to go into here. The gist is that I took my 13-inch, Mid-2012 MacBook Air to the Apple Store in Osaka, and one of their geniuses told me he couldn't isolate the cause and that the only solution was to do a complete reinstall. Of course, I had backed up my whole disk to my Time Capsule before going to the store. The problem is, I cannot do a straight backup, because that will simply bring back the unsolvable problem.
I got the MacBook Air home and used the moving assistant utlity (sorry, I don't know the English name for it since my system's in Japanese) to resinstall all my applications. So far so good. The problem is, I have no idea how to get my files, photos, music, and movies from the Time Capsule into my new account. I didn't see any option for that when I ran the moving assistant utility, and I absolutely do not want to resinstall anything from the old Library Folder.
When I go into Time Machine mode, pinks lines on the right side of the screen indicate that Time Machine has all my old backups there, but when I try to navigate to them, I get only an empty black window. I assume that's because Time Machine does not recognize my old account and new account as the same account (and indeed there is no reason at this point that it should, since I don't know how to link them).
Any help would be very much appreciated.

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

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When I go back to the backup it does not let me go back to the previous backupprobably because the last backup was Lion and I am on Mt. Lion now. don't what to do another backup if that is going to mess up the old one. I can access it though by just going to it. So i am putting that one on my desktop and I am going to rename it and see if I can open in Iphoto.

Time Machine Backups after recent upgrade to Mountain Lion

Basically to keep a long story short - i need to take my computer in for repair tomorrow. I recently did an upgrade to Mountain Lion a day or two ago. I haven't done a Time Machine backup until today (a couple days after i upgraded to Mountain Lion) because i wanted to make sure that my previous TM backup (Snow Leopard 10.6.8) was the most up to date and best update that i could revert back to if i had any issues with Mountain Lion, or any application compatibility, etc etc.
I don't have any broken applications and it seems like Mountain Lion is running better than Snow Leopard. However, as i said - i'm taking my computer in for repair tomorrow, i would like to know that i have the most up to date Time Machine backup with the new Mountain Lion so that when i restore it back from my Time Machine backup after i get it back from repair, i won't have any issues with the migration, which could potentially lead me into more technicalities.
I have a 500GB Harddrive, with about 70GB left of free space....I did the initial backup prior to upgrading to Mountain Lion, and it upgraded 400+GB of info, now, since Mountain Lion - the first backup with Mountain Lion initially said 46GB - then it went down to 14GB by the time it was all said and done....so what exactly did it back up?
Did it back up all the necessary files to keep Mountain Lion running smoothly when i restore it back to the way it was after i get it back? Did it not back everything up that it needs to? Is it safe to erase my internal drive and do a clean installation so i can take it in, and not worry about not being able to migrate things back over or applications not working correctly?
When i get it back, i presume it will come with Mountain Lion back on it and i can just boot up into the Recovery Disk and restore it from a Time Machine backup that way, correct?
Thanks for the help.
- Jason

I received the same error and experienced the same issue that you have described but after performing a Time Capsule soft reset and then toggling the TM Off and then back On I was able issue a backup now and see my previous backups.
Here is the link to where I posted my fix; https://discussions.apple.com/message/19069543#19069543. Someone else had success using a different method. The only comment / complaint that I have since the ML OS X upgrade is that TM now takes at least 20 to 30 seconds before I can click/select a backup.
I hope this helps.

Is it possible to downgrade to mountain lion with the help of a time machine backup after having updated to Mavericks?

Is it possible to downgrade to mountain lion with the help of a time machine backup after having updated to Mavericks?

Just to be clear, if by downgrade you mean uninstall, then the answer is technically, no.
You can't uninstall an OS. You can erase and re-install the old OS, but if you don't have a prior backup of your data, you'll lose it during the erase procedure.

I can't install OSX 10.6.3 as it says HD used for Time Machine backup, I can't install OSX 10.6.3 as it says HD used for Time Machine backup

I've just received Snow Leopard disc and tried to install it but nothign is ever that easy. It says that hard drive in use for Time Machine backup so can't install. I've never used Time Machine and settings appear to confirm that. I don't want to set it to restore and lose everything and have to install it again so not sure what to do. Can anyone advise me

Jane Doubleday wrote:
I've got an Intel mac otherwise I wouldn't have bought Snow Leopard.
Please update your profile info, then Jane - we can only go on the info you give us.
Glad you're sorted though

Re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mer

re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mess, 20,000 photos. How can I restore my folders?
(iphoto 08)

Restore the library from Time Machine as shown in this screenshot:
Then open the library with iPhoto. No importing necessary.
OT

Time Machine Backup after clean install?

Hi,
I just took the plunge and made a clean install of Mavericks on an SSD called "A". On this volume I only have the system and the applications. My User Account is on a separate volume "B" and my third volume is a 4TB volume "C" with my Time Machine backup. My volume "B" is backuped on the TM volume "C".
In the past I have had very nasty experiences with Time Machine, where a whole backup was deleted because Time Machine thought I was on a completely new computer. Now I don't want to repeat this experience, because when opened after the system install, TM didn't recognize neither volume "B" nor "C".
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Can you import photos from time machine backup after clean install

I had to do a clean install of Mt. Lion. So now I have all my photos on the time machine backup. Is there a way to get those photos in to my library?

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Using old Time Machine backup after clean install of system

I had a system crash on my G4 iBook running Leopard. Based on advice given at the Apple store genius bar, I reinstalled Leopard from an install DVD, reformatting the drive. During the system installation process I used my Time Machine backup to reinstall the former users (but nothing else). I then installed my needed applications. So far so good.
Now I'm in the situation where I have an external drive with the Time Machine backup of the pre-crash iBook, and I'm not sure how to proceed. Do I start over and do a new backup (effectively erasing all my pre-restore data)? Or can the old backup still be used, and added to? While losing the pre-restore time machine data would not be a major loss, it would be kind of nice to have.
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DanK wrote:
I had a system crash on my G4 iBook running Leopard. Based on advice given at the Apple store genius bar, I reinstalled Leopard from an install DVD, reformatting the drive. During the system installation process I used my Time Machine backup to reinstall the former users (but nothing else). I then installed my needed applications. So far so good.
You didn't want any of your settings, preferences, data, etc.? The +MIgration Assistant+ app will let you do that, for one or more users. And of course, you can use the +Star Wars+ display to restore selected items.
Now I'm in the situation where I have an external drive with the Time Machine backup of the pre-crash iBook, and I'm not sure how to proceed. Do I start over and do a new backup (effectively erasing all my pre-restore data)? Or can the old backup still be used, and added to? While losing the pre-restore time machine data would not be a major loss, it would be kind of nice to have.
Your next backup will be a full one; everything on your internal HD is considered as changed, so will be backed-up again.
If there's room for that, it will just be a large incremental backup, added to the existing ones.
If not, Time Machine will begin deleting your oldest backups, one by one, trying to make enough room for the new backup (the amount on the internal HD plus 20% for workspace). But it won't delete the latest backup -- if that's the only one left, and there still isn't enough room, the backup will fail.
If there is room, the first backup may appear to be very slow; why is not clear, but as long as it's making progress, let it run. Subsequent ones should be normal.

Can I install a time machine backup after creating a fusiondrive via terminal?

Hi!
I have a Macbook Pro early 2011 with ssd and hdd. I would like to have a Fusiondrive and found a way to create it in the terminal. Do I have to reinstall Lion again or can I use my latest backup which I made from ssd and hdd? there are no further partitions except bootcamp.
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You should reinstall OS X and then, restore the Time Machine backup using Setup Assistant. That's because Fusion Drive is created by software, and if you restore the whole Time Machine backup, you will disable Fusion Drive.
Note that you have to reinstall OS X erasing the OS X volume, and then, reinstall it as a clean install. Then, when the installation finishes, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so do it

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I just had to do an "erase and install" ... trying to restore files from my last Time Machine backup but after completing the Airport Utility setup / configure steps, it says "waiting to restart" for a few minutes and then says it cannot find TIme Capsule after restart (though TC never restarted). I'm pretty desperate to get my files back as it's Sunday night and my business needs to be up and running by morning. Any help would be greatly appreciated ... even if it's saying I need to take TC into a Mac store to have them retrieve my files.

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

Still cannot access time machine backups after Yosemite install

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A bit more information would help figure out the problem. Maybe a screen shot of what you're seeing or not seeing (use Command+shift+4 to save an area of the screen or a window -type space first to capture an entire window- to a file and then attach that file to your posting reply). You might look at the Console app to get more information about what actually happened during your backups - suggest putting "backupd" (without the quotes) in the search field at the top right of window in Console - with the "All Messages" query selected on the left part of the window). Console is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. After you enter the backupd in the search field only those messages that contain that string will appear which helps a lot since so many messages are normally shown without any search field string.
Depending on how long ago the backups happened, you might need to select previous versions of the system log files - they get archived and compressed to files like system.log.0.bz2 or system.log.1.bz2 (these are in the /var/log query choice if you don't see them in the existing query choices - just click on the triangle to the left of the "/Var/log" entry if needed). Console knows how to show the messages that are in these compressed files, so you don't need to do anything other than click on the query name.
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Is there only one drive with the single Mac OS partition on it?
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Time Machine backups after a clean install

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