Time machine did not restore

I just had the apple store install a new hard drive in 24" Imac. i went throu the step to restore system using time machine and the external hard drive. after waiting a couple hours and a few setup questions I am back at the desktop. However, I can not find any photos, music, or documents. Even the software I downloaded ifs not here. What went wrong? I decided to use time machine and back the system up past the date of the crash. How do I get my stuff back? I can see backups on the external hard drive so I know they are there.

parkerlj wrote:
It is logged in under apple right now.
It sounds like you may have used the Migration Assistant app, in your Applications/Utilities folder. If so, see the blue box in Problems after using Migration Assistant
It is now in the middle of a manual system restore to the day before the crash.
Did you do that by starting from your OSX Install Disc (or Recovery HD if you're on Leopard), and dong a Restore System From Backup? If so, that will erase everything on your disk and replace it with everything from the backup you selected. That's the best way to restore after a disk drive replacement.

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After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

Janet.b wrote:
About 3 years old...pretty dated now I guess. Am thinking I may just need to have it upgraded by a Mac tech.
For what the Apple Store's charge you can buy almost buy a new computer.
Just for giggles I brought my old laptop in for a drive upgrade and asked, they wanted $600 for a drive that only cost $120 at the time and it was a slow 5,400 RPM drive. The new Mac's of a similar make were going for $1000.
I did the drive replacement myself, got a faster drive of better quality for $300 instead.
Then another time I asked for a RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, they wanted to charge $400 + $35 for the labor.
The same RAM is on Crucial.com for $90 and all I need is a 00 micro phillips screwdriver.
So you see what's going on here.
I think what you should do, if your out of warranty/AppleCare, is to call up the local PC tech guy who also does Mac's and have them fix you right up.
They can offer more personalized care which you need. Clone your old drive to the new and everything.
With Apple they are overworked at the Genius Bar and just place roadblocks so you buy a new machine instead.
For instance, all new iMac's now have proprietary drive software installed on the hard drives for heat monitoring. So now the only choice a user has is to bring their iMac into a Apple Store for a very expensive drive upgrade, which a person then decides the money is better spent buying a new machine.

Time Machine did not restore a lot of my old mail??

Hi,
Time machine did not restore all of my mail? I have two mailboxes in mail- comcast and cana.
I got all my messages from comcast but not cana. Does anybody know why it did not restore the messages in cana?
Thanks

When you open the mail app in an account you can work with Time Machine in the mailboxes for that account. To deal with the mailboxes for another account you need to go out of Time Machine, make the other account active and go back in.

Time Machine did not restore Address Book Contacts!!! HELP!!!

I have an iPhone. I had to get a new one because the old one was acting all weird after the latest update.
I have a MacBook. I had to reformat the hard drive so I can partition part of it off for Windows (for work, puke.)
When I reinstalled Leopard on my MacBook, I uploaded the information from the latest back-up on Time Machine. This did not, however, restore my contacts. I have a metadata folder which contains a lot of files which are supposed to be people's information, but nothing will open these files. I really need my contacts back. Can someone help?
I ran Time Machine just about every day while my computer was home and just copied over my entire Library folder before reformatting my computer. Is the information somewhere in there? How do I get it back?
This is very frustrating. The applications and music and stuff came back fine, why not my contacts? This makes me doubt whether Time Machine is a reliable back-up.

i will try the restore all feature, but i already restored everything except applications and nothing came back. there were some old stuff that i didn't want restored (deleted files/programs) so i did not do that restore all.
when i open address book, then time machine, for some reason nothing shows up. my home folder was renamed in the process (perhaps without me knowing i was doing so.) would that matter? i can still access all the files through the backup, but i can't access address book through time machine and i cannot open the contact information in any programs. they are all there, but they won't open.

Time Machine did not restore my MacBook Pro, many iOS apps were missing and replaced with "?" in the dock.

Hi all,
This weekend I had issues restoring my MacBook pro using Time Machine. I was left with question marks in the dock for the folloing apps in Bold, the others are not on the dock but they could not be found..
1. Safari
2. LaunchPad
3. Missing Control
4. Mail
5. System Preferences
6. Photo Booth
7. Terminal
8, Itunes
9. Disk Utility
10. iText Express
11. Notes
12. Maps
13. XCode
14. iPhoto
15. Calendar
They were not in Finder, and as the Lauchpad icon was not there I could not check there either. Spotlight was not showing them either. They simply were not there on the Mac.
I checked on Time Machine and they could not be found there either. I don't believe they were backed up by Time Machine in the first place. I do not have any programmes or applications excluded in the TM preferences.
Its interesting that all my 3rd party apps were there, all the missing ones are from the Maverics iOS.
I ended up having to reinstall Mavericks via a VERY SLOW internet connection and hey presto, everything came back to normal.
It was a very tense few hours as I thought I had lost the lot, photo's and itunes collections etc.
Time Machine is sold to us by Apple as the perfect solution to keep your data safe and recoverable.... Really?
I do like Apple products, but this has left me a little unsure about them now, its like the trust and confdence goes when you catch your child stealing and lying to you...The confidence will come back but I guess I will always be a little warey now..
Apple, please do something about this - I have paid through the nose for a robust system that I can rely on, not one that has aged me by 10 years...

It appears only the applications where missing. So your own data were safe all the time. However...
There appears to be a bug in Time Machine that causes it to exclude items that aren't supposed to be excluded. To check if that is the case, you can find more information here: http://pondini.org/TM/D10d.html
It appears the bug is very difficult to reproduce, mainly because in most cases it is only discovered when people try to restore an existing installation.

Time machine did not restore all of my iPhotos to my new mac

I bought a new iMac a few months ago. I had regularly kept backups of my old mac using time machine. When i installed all of my old mac on my new mac everything looked OK except for iPhoto. Some photo's transferred in the correct folders and others appear to be there as a thumbnail but when you click to ppen the pic it comes up with a black screen with a white warning triange with an exclamation mark in it. Anyone have any ideas?

These are your options:
1. Restore the iPhoto library from the most recent backup that predates the issue.
          Advantages: Always works, if library damage is causing the problem and the backup is intact.
          Disadvantages: Impossible if you don't have a backup. All changes made since the backup are lost.
2. Repair or rebuild the library. Be sure to back it up first.
          Advantages: May solve the problem with no loss of data.
          Disadvantages: May fail. May take a long time if the library is large.
3. Scavenge the library with a third-party application called "iPhoto Library Manager," which you can find in a web search. From the application's menu bar (not the iPhoto menu bar), select Library ▹ Rebuild.
          Advantages: All images should be preserved.
          Disadvantages: All books, calendars, and slideshows will be lost.

Time Machine did not restore Microsoft Office for MAC Product Key

My Tdisk failed and was replaced under AppleCare. I then restored from my Time Machine Backup. I used the (Command R Power keys to initiate this). It completed without errors (eventually).
All Apps that I tried seemed to have been recovered successfully except when I attempted toload my MS Office for MAC Apps, I was asked for my product key.
Unfortunattely this was saved in an email on my system and I cannot retrieve it since I cannot open my MS Outlook.
Does anyone have a solution I might try?
Has anything similar happened to others?
I would appreciate any help you might be able to give.
Barry

There are a few apps that seem to record the identifier (UUID) of the disk they're installed on, as an anti-piracy measure.
I don't use that app, but as Thomas says, if you know (or can figure out) where & how the emails are stored, you may be able to use the TM browser to locate the backup copy of the email, and either use QuickLook on it, or restore it to an alternate location, such as your Desktop, and examine it there.
If you haven't done a new backup yet, Time Machine won't have "associated" the new disk with the old backups, so the backups of the old disk won't appear normally. If so, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see them.

Time Machine did not restore my iPhoto library

Hi everyone,
I have been told that my hard drive has physical damage and all data are lost. I used TM to back up so I thought everything will be OK. I got new hard drive. When I was restoring my Macintosh HD from TM, I got restored pretty much everything. Problem was only that all folders and files were all of sudden locked, I had to unlock manually all files. I am still working on it. Not easy but I will get on with it.
However, my biggest problem is, that for some reason my iPhoto library did not get restored. I tried later to restore only iPhoto library. TM looked like it was working properly and TM was copying for about 2 hours all 25GB of pictures. However, once it was finished, my iPhoto library was still empty, no data. Where did TM copied all this pictures?
Can anyone please help me? I don't want to lose all my photos.

Hi Glen,
When I got computer back, home folder name was different that my original one. However, as I said, I manage to restore from TM almost everything, including all my video clips, but iPhoto library. When I try now to restore iPhoto library, I get message "Not sufficient privileges ..." and nothing happens. Computer name is same. Then I created new account with home folder name same as was before, tried to restore iPhoto library from TM and all of sudden, it was working and computer was copying all pictures. However, after he finished copying, iPhoto library stayed empty (iPhoto library icon changed and now looks like empty blank document), i tried in finder to find some image, just in case TM copied it somewhere else, but there was nothing.
Thats why I could not open iPhoto with option key because iPhoto library is just empty.
As you wrote, it looks like changing home folder name in the current account is not a good option.
I am thinking of deleting my account with wrong home name folder with option 'save home folder' just to keep all data that I have recovered already and leave an account with my original home folder name and try to copy pictures folder again, but now I am not sure that will work as it doesn't work now. ?

Time Machine did NOT restore AD User!?!?

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The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my Mac, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear. What is the next step?

The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my MacBook Pro, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear. I would like to set it up to do this. What would my next step be?

Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Open Time Machine preferences to select this drive for use as the backup drive. Turn on Time Machine.

Time Machine will not restore backup files.

trying to restore a backup to a new internal hard drive and time machine sees the external hard drive with the backup but no folders. tried a couple of different external hard drives and even installed new OS on the new internal drive. the original OS and the new are both Maverick and after three days of swaping drives and installing fresh installs of maverick and talking to tech support, i'm convinced the issue is in Maverick. anyone have a suggest without buying a third party package like Carbon Copy?

I got something simular. I restored the whole TM backup and the mail messages from august '08 till 15 jan '09 didn't import. I can see them clearly sitting in Time machine but the restore button won't lit up. And I cannot go back in time cause it only ofers me the today option. What to do?
Sakshin.

Time machine did not back up photos

When I was preparing to upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks, I heeded advice and purchased an external drive and backed up my iMac with Time Machine. I was very glad I did, because I encountered the 'There is a problem with your hard disc' message, so, I had to erase the hard drive and restore from Time Machine.
I felt very proud that I had been, for once, wise before the event, so I did not lose any of my important data.
That was a month ago.
Today, I decided to change my desktop picture and found no photographs available. When I opened iPhoto, it indicated that there were no libraries and prompted me to create a new one. No worries, I thought; the photos will all be on my external hard disc because of my prudence. But they were not there, as you, Dear Reader, will already have guessed.
I have looked at various Q & A discussions (here and elsewhere) and it seems at best that Time Machine is idisyncratic - and there are indications that it will not back up photos. This is despite the statement on the Apple website that says: 'Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, email messages, music, photos, movies, and documents.'
So, is there a solution to this? Am I missing something important? Or am I justified to feel outraged that I was fooled into thinking that a back-up would save my data for me to retrieve in the event of a crash, or the need to erase the hard disc? Is it simply a way of making people buy into iLife?
Please rescue me from my new-found cynicism

If it's true that the iPhoto library wasn't backed up, then it must have been excluded from your backups for some reason. Check the exclusion settings in the Time Machine preference pane. Even if you find nothing there, it's still possible for files to be excluded for other reasons, but that won't help you recover the lost data.
You can use Spotlight to search your backups:
Recover items using Time Machine and Spotlight

Time Machine does not restore Aperture library properly

After considerable testing, I have found 2 issues. (1) When the TM Restore takes place, it restores the contents of the Aperture package, not the package. This can be remedied by creating a new library, opening its package, replacing them with the items restored, closing the window and opening that package. Works but not the way it should work. (2) Although TM appears to save the full library size (5 gb in my test), and I can see it in backup.backup, the restore only brings back the bare database (500 mb for me) and thus it has to regenerate all of the thumbnails, which can be very very time-consuming for a large database.
Has anyone had a different experience and, if so, what did they do?

Update upon further testing: If you select an Aperture library icon in the finder, enter Time Machine, go to a previous version and do a Restore, you get a dialog box asking if you want to keep the original or replace it. In my testing I have found that Replace works fine, but if you select Both (keep the original), Time Machine returns a folder of the Aperture library contents, not the package as described above. The folder resides next to the original library but cannot be used until it is put into a package. I think this is a bug.
However, if you have the library in a folder and you restore that folder using the Both option, Time Machine will properly provide a new folder and a restored library in it in a package form.

Full restore from Time Machine has not restored my photos

I was getting a triangle with an exclamation mark in it when I tried to click on my photos in iPhoto (photos uploaded from my camera only - iPhone pics are still there). A backup from Time Machine didn't work, so I did a full restore from Time Machine to a date when I knew all was well with my photos but I still get the triangle/!. Where are my photos?

The ! means that iPhoto has lost the link to the original file.
Are you running a Managed or a Referenced Library?
A Managed Library, is the default setting, and iPhoto copies files into the iPhoto Library when Importing. The files are then stored in the Library package
A Referenced Library is when iPhoto is NOT copying the files into the iPhoto Library when importing because you made a change at iPhoto -> Preferences -> Advanced. (You unchecked the option to copy files into the Library on import) The files are then stored where ever you put them and not in the Library package. In this scenario you are responsible for the File Management.

Time Machine did not back up desktop folders?

Hello, I've been backing up my mid-2010 iMac 21.5" for over a year and a half every 24 hours to my external hard drive via Time Machine.
Recently, I just got back from a very lengthy and important trip where I was commissioned to take photos and videos. I made sure to do another time machine backup every day for a week until I needed to send the photos and videos in. I keep all of my photos and videos in separate folders on my desktop.
In that week time period, I sold my iMac in order to buy a Macbook Pro (needed the portability). No problem, just boot the Macbook while holding CMND+R to enter rocovery, and restore from my time machine backup on my external drive.
After booting up my Macbook, I noticed there were no folders or files on my desktop that I had originally on my iMac. Actually, there was virtually nothing the same that I had from my previous machine. There are now missing documents, applications, and many other VERY important files that I need to have.
My question is, where are these files? These backups took ages to perform, but what exactly was it even backing up? I desperately need these photos and videos for my job's sake. And they are nowhere to be found. I've tried entering Time Capsule and dating back weeks and months prior, none of which have any traces of files or folders being on my desktop. If anybody could help me out, or fill me in on a missing step perhaps, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I'm going to come accross sounding like a bitter old man . . .
Mac user since 1990. At the time, the whole cornerstone of the OS was "People don't want to learn how to use a computer. They just want to do their work." I bought it. Every piece of software (and operating system) I used was intuitive. You'd say "how do I . . ." and within moments, you could figure it out. No manual. No help.
To my dismay I've discovered (just bought 2 new Mac Minis for my business) that this is a thing of the past.
Case in point is Time Machine. I've just discovered, as did RoganLigby, that folders on the desktop are NOT backed up. Fortunately I discovered this (quite by accident) before a drive failure occurred.
My question: Why?
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?
What possible purpose is there to not backup items on the desktop? Perhaps more importantly, wouldn't it be a good idea to tell users that this is the case? Near as I can tell, there is no option to specifically add desktop folders to the backup.
Does anyone at Apple actually use their own creations?

Time machine did not restore

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