Time Machine from old Mac to new Mac

I recently changed my Macbook Pro (mid 2010) to one of the newer models.
I use an external HD via an Airport Extreme (I know its not recommended, but its been working perfectly for over 18 months)
I attempted to use a time machine backup to setup the new Macbook, but had to opt for using the Migration Assistant. I was able to restore from my last backup, but now Time Machine inisists on creating a new backup, instead of continuing to use the previous backup.
I've noticed that within the actual HD that it has a SparseBundle for the old Macbook, which can be mounted, but I cannot access any of the files due to restricted priveleges?
When TM begins creating the new backup, it creates the Backups.backupdb folder as expected, so I'm just wondering if theres anything I can do to try clean all this up so I can continue to use the same backup hierarchy as from the previus Macbook?
Apologies if I'm missing anything here or lack clarification, but I'm a first time user of the communities

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Just change the new Mac's +Computer Name+ in System Preferences > Sharing.

Similar Messages

Migrating from Time Machine from old iMac to new used iMac.

So, I bought a used iMac, and want to migrate to the new one using my Time Machine backup. Problem is, I go to Migration Assistant, and it asks for the admin password, which I don't have, and the place I bought it from is closed, of course. I had Lion on my old iMac, and I imagine my Time Machine backup is in Lion, but the iMac I bought has Snow Leopard. What do I do to migrate?

Yes, you will need the Admin password. See http://www.cultofmac.com/111456/discover-the-hidden-password-reset-tool-in-lion- os-x-tips/
Then follow the instructions in option #4 of the box in the green box in Problems after using Migration Assistant. (I know you haven't used it yet, but to transfer your user account(s) properly, without losing permission to your backups, that's what you need to do.)

How do I transfer files through time machine from old macbook to new macbook pro?

I have Lion on my old macbook and I have saved all my info through time machine. How do I transfer my files to my new macbook pro?

If you want to restore all you old machine to your new MacBookPro, simply restart you computer in Recovery mode (Hold option key while restarting), select restore from Time Machine Backup, and select the latest or whatever date you like.
On the other hand if you want your new MacBook to use your old TM back, just inherit that backup using the following command in Terminal:
tmutil inheritbackup {machine_directory | sparsebundle}
You will find detailed instructions for inherit backups here: http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html

Want to move time machine from a mac os external to larger drive?

I have been reformatting a 120gb (ex-ntfs) external drive to "mac os external (journal) . I simply want to move the backup(s) to a larger external drive. I have moved 9000 mp3's over to my Mac and the backup drive filled up fast. Being a ex-windows user since pre-Win 3.11 I am kinda intimidated , more just ignorant to Mac but trying to reformat my brain the MAC way.... Is it as easy as this? New Time machine drive will be a 250gb external "copy" the "backup.backupdb" folder to new drive? and then tell TM to use the 250gb drive? doubt it can be that simple... but... the only dumb question is the one u don't ask.

Here are the instructions to use Disk Utility for this:
You can duplicate the current backups to a different disk via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder). You cannot use the normal "drag & drop" with the Finder, as that won't copy their unusual structure properly.
You can duplicate to a disk/partition of the same or larger size. You may be able to copy to a smaller one, but you might not. If the old (source) disk has ever been near full, the files may be scattered over it in a way that you can't duplicate them to a smaller disk/partition.
Note that you must duplicate an entire disk/partition to another entire disk/partition -- you cannot copy only selected backups, or backups of selected items, or merge two or more sets of backups. And if you have other items on the disk, they will be copied also (this is a bad idea: see item 3 above).
In addition, if your backups were made wirelessly, you cannot copy them to a directly-attached internal disk, or an external FireWire or USB disk, and continue making backups to that disk, or vice-versa. This is because backups made wirelessly are stored differently from those done directly.
Here's how to copy the backups from one disk/partition to a different one:
a. Turn TM off, via TM Preferences, and de-select the drive (select "none"), quit System Preferences.
b. Be sure to format the new drive correctly. See item #5 Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum. for detailed instructions.
c. Connect both drives to your Mac, then open a Finder window. Make sure both partitions are shown in the sidebar (if not, from the Menubar select Preferences > Sidebar, and check the box to show +External disks+ in the sidebar). Leave the Finder window open.
d. Start Disk Utility, select either partition (indented under the main drive line), and click the Restore tab.
e. Drag the old partition to the Source box, and the new partition to the Destination box.
f. Be sure to check the +Erase destination+ box, then the Restore button. This may, of course, take a long time.
g. When the duplication is complete, note that DU has *changed the name* of the destination partition to be the same as the source. You do not want to leave it that way, so immediately rename one of the partitions. In the sidebar of the Finder window opened above, control-click (right-click) the one you want to rename. When done, look back at the Disk Utility display to be sure you renamed the right one, then quit Disk Utility.
h. Go to Time Machine Preferences and select the new or renamed drive.

Can I access my Time Machine from another mac?

My current mac (an iBook G4, early 2005) has I think died irreparably. I'm waiting to see if it can be repaired but in the meantime I'd like to know if I can plug my Time Machine into another Mac (either a friend's or a family member's, both have 2006 MacBooks) and be able to access my stuff? I read elsewhere in the forum that this was possible if you were setting up a new mac, but I won't be able to buy a new computer for a while and need quite badly to be able to get at my documents.

yes, it's possible. plug it into the other computer. control-click on TM inthe dock and choose" browse other Time Machine disks".

HT201250 Time Machine backup then install new SSD HD + Pulling files from Time Machine from 'old' HD

Hi Guys,
I currently have a mid 2009 Macbook pro and I decided to upgrade the current HD in it to an Intel 330 SSD. Which might I add was a *gongshow*.
Anyways before I did the switch I used Time Machine to back up all my information, and to be double redundant I backed up the REALLY important information on a 8gig flashdrive.
The removal and reinstall of the new drive went smooth, and once lion was installed I did all the usual system updates.
Once it came to importing files from Time Machine is when my hassle started.
The last backup I did on Time Machine with the old HD still installed was at 10:00 this morning.
I had the new SSD up and running and a new backup of that created by 1:00 (3 hours later).
When I loaded up Time Machine to grab some files off of my 10:00 backup, it would not let me. The current backups have a Grey/Silver snapshot, and the backups from the OLD HD were blacked out and I could not click on them. What can I do to get these files off my Time Machine from the old HD?
Thanks

Quick followup question,
If I do a migrate with the time machine will the system be updated to the version I had when I made it (10.8.6 I think) or will I have to do the system updates afterwards. If so, will that cause any clashes when applying the time machine migration?

Have a New MBP with Lion preinstalled. Need Snow Leopard instead. Have time machine from old computer running Snow Leopard as well. PLEASE HELP!!

I have a brand new Macbook Pro with Lion preinstalled. I haven't even turned it on yet. I desperately need Snow Leopard because my music software is not Lion compatible yet. I also have a Time Machine backup from my old Macbook that is currently running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. How can I get Snow Leopard on my new Macbook Pro? Also, will Time Machine replace the applications on the new Macbook Pro with the older versions I have in the backup or how exactly does that work? I've been staring at the box for 2 days now worried I won't be able to use any of my software. PLEASE HELP ME!

It depends on the build of your machine; normally, no Mac can ever boot from a system older than what it came with. However, there are exceptions: right around the time the new OS is released, there may be some machines which will be able to run both OS's. Here is some information on software builds:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1159
You may have to call Apple to figure out if you can use SL on yours or not.

Access specific files in the time machine from another Mac

I bought one mac air with less space than the mac pro backup that I have in the Time Machine, so I can't migrate the old mac to the new mac air. How can I Access specific files in time machine then? Thank you.

You can still get your files out of the TM backup..
There are several methods..
you can do it manually.
See Can't access old files on time capsule
You can also buy a USB drive large enough for the whole backup and simply restore the whole thing to that drive plugged into your computer.. you can then pick and choose what files you want. And at any time you want. Having files in their standard format and location is hugely easier than TM backups.
If you run into permissions issues there is a fair bit of help although a bit outdated in pondini KB.
So read through the info here..
Q14-17 on restore in particular. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
And check the troubleshooting for specific problems that can arise.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Section E in particular.
You can pull the hard disk out of your Mac Pro.. that is not hard.. put it in a USB to sata holder and access files that way..
Overall this is what I would do anyway.. because you will not want to junk the computer with files intact.. pull the files directly off the old hard disk.
Let me also commend to you a different strategy in the future..
TM is great when it works.. sadly on every upgrade Apple make changes to it.. and cause utter chaos.
Buy a 3rd party backup software.. I use CCC and like it.. you create bootable clones of your Mac.. that means all files are readily accessible because you can literally boot directly from the backup.. or access the files because they are not hidden, compressed, rewritten in strange formats.. etc.
Recovery of a computer with a dead hard disk is 3min exercise where you hold the options key during boot and choose the backup disk.
You can continue to use TM for the incremental backups which it does very well.. but have the bootable clone as a way of accessing everything. From which you can then easily access the TM backup for whatever might be missing.. I do not do Clones on regular basis.. so it is slightly different method of doing things..
You can never have enough backups.

Accessing Backup Files On Time Machine From Another Mac

Hi everyone,
I use 1 Time Machine on both my iMac and MacBook Air.
How can I access the Backup Files of my iMac on my MacBook Air, using the Time Machine?
I hope this is not too confusing! Thanks, everyone!

Unfortunately, what you ask is complex and difficult at best for most users. Please take a look at this User Tip provided by forum expert Tesserax for a review of the methods that might be used to do what you ask.
AirPort Disk - Remote Access (3 Methods)
Among the methods listed, I use Method 3, so can provide a few tips on that. It does require that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) furnish you with a a fixed or static IP address for your Internet connection....and....that you have the correct type of modem and router that would allow Port Mapping to be able to reach the data on the Time Capsule.
Most users choose the Back to My Mac Method, abbreviated as BTMM, which is supported by Apple. Depending on the nature of the network at work, you may or may not be able to access your backups at home. Please contact Apple Support for more details on this.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Time Machine from 2 Macs on 2 Drives

First post, hope I can make sense.
With Time Machine, it seems there are many different and unique situations for various users, and it seems there are options for everyone, but with all the searching I've done so far, and that's a lot, I can't seem to find the answer to my particular question/situation. I'll try keep it simple. Wife and I been sharing a Macbook Pro 13" for 2 years, 1 TM backup between 2 external disks, simple. But we can't share the same comp any more, so we got another of the same. What I want to do now is back up both computers to the same 2 drives, her computer now has all our photo's 57 000 of them, and my comp has our music, 16 000 tunes, and about 400gig home video, on another external drive for just that purpose(iMovie)
We travel a lot, so one of those drives is a 3T Seagate which stays at home, then we take a 2T WD with us, now add another computer to the mix and this is where I'm stumped. It's taken us the better part of 4 years to collect all this stuff, so I don't particularly want to mess it up.
I have just wiped the Seagate 3T, decided what it had was not needed anymore. I then proceeded to plug in my wifes new computer (to the Seagate) which now holds the photo's, and the 1st ever backup of her new computer was done successfully. I am now busy moving the WD backup to the Seagate, but when I did this, it asked if I wanted to replace the existing Backups.backupdb, or keep both.....I kept both. Now I have a Backups.backupdb, and a Backups.backupdb (Original) in the root of the Seagate.......is this a problem? should both laptops be inside one Backups.backupdb file, and then 2 separate computers can be seen?

Went through all backups and decided there was nothing to keep, so I just wiped the lot and have started fresh, made things a whole easier. Kinda like my basement....can't keep everything, otherwise I'll need another house, although hard drives are cheaper than houses!

Time machine deletes old backups with new system drive

So I decided it was time to get a larger system drive. After I finished migrating to the new drive, I plugged in my Time Machine backup drive, and now it's deleting all my old backups! What gives? Shouldn't Time Machine keep doing incremental backups the way it always has? Nothing has changed except the drive -- the files are still the same. I had backups going back to 2011, so it's a bit unsettling to see this happen.

Digijohn wrote:
So I decided it was time to get a larger system drive. After I finished migrating to the new drive,
On Snow Leopard, that's what usually happens.
On Lion and later, depending on exactly how you put your data back, it usually doesn't -- TM changes the backups so they look like they were made from the new drive. And there's a way to do that manually.
But on Snow Leopard, there's nothing you can do. Note that you can still see and restore from the remaining old backups, via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Time Machine - Copying old Files to new Hard Drive

Need Assistance to be able to copy time machine files from one external drive to another, to allow continuation of time machine without erasing older copies, spoke to apple support, they informed me that there is a third party software (untility) that will enable you to do that, has any bod have info on this issue, Thank You

Mtaff wrote:
Need Assistance to be able to copy time machine files from one external drive to another, to allow continuation of time machine without erasing older copies, spoke to apple support, they informed me that there is a third party software (untility) that will enable you to do that
Are your files on a local disk or a Time Capsule? I was able to use a Finder drag-and-drop to copy "sparsebundle" files from one Time Capsule to another, although I had to copy them to an intermediate device and then to the final destination.
If your Time Machine files are on a directly-attached disk, you might be able to copy then with the utility SuperDuper! (exclamation point part of the name):
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Time Machine To Be Used On New Internal Hard Drive

Hi
I recently bought a new 500GB internal hard drive, on which I have copied (not migrated) my files and applications to. I have used Time Machine on the old 120GB drive with a 1TB external hard drive. I have this drive partitioned such that only 320GB was dedicated to Time Machine and because I spent the last 6 months downloading files (mainly itunes music) onto my old internal drive, and copying it onto another part of the partition on the 1TB external, then updating Time Machine, I only have 135GB left in the Time Machine part of the partition.
I have not yet backed up my new internal onto Time Machine as I am worried about space.
I tried changing the sizes of the partitions in disk utility so I could put more space in Time Machine (I have 3 other partitions) by dragging the sizes of the other partitions to make them smaller. I received the error message "file system or repair failed."
Is there a way to make more space in the Time Machine partition?
Will a new back-up add all the files I have copied for a second time (they are now on different locations on the hard disk)?
Can I copy the folders of Time Machine back ups to another partition to free up space in order to use Time Machine from scratch with the new internal drive?
What is the best solution?
Thanks
Steve

okstevep wrote:
Hi
I recently bought a new 500GB internal hard drive, on which I have copied (not migrated) my files and applications to. I have used Time Machine on the old 120GB drive with a 1TB external hard drive. I have this drive partitioned such that only 320GB was dedicated to Time Machine and because I spent the last 6 months downloading files (mainly itunes music) onto my old internal drive, and copying it onto another part of the partition on the 1TB external, then updating Time Machine
Do you mean you copied files into the TM partition, or a different partition on the same disk as your TM backups?
I mean I copied the files from my old internal drive onto my new drive - I haven't done anything with Time Machine yet.
I only have 135GB left in the Time Machine part of the partition.
How much of the 320 gb is used by TM backups and how much by the other files?
As far as I know all of the used space is TM backups, so 185 GB
Will a new back-up add all the files I have copied for a second time (they are now on different locations on the hard disk)?
Yes.
Can I copy the folders of Time Machine back ups to another partition to free up space in order to use Time Machine from scratch with the new internal drive?
As khassani noted, you can't just copy them. SuperDuper! will do it, but so will the Restore tab of Disk Utility. But you must copy an entire partition to another entire partition, and select Erase Destination.
Roughly how much data have you put on the new drive?
How old is the oldest backup in TM?
I have put 140 GB on the new drive so far (60GB from the old drive, 45GB with files for Logic Studio, which I would be happy not to back up, and the rest with system files, library files, other new files and applications)
The oldest back up is October '08. I have been backing up manually about once a week if that makes a difference.
You may be able to let TM back-up the new drive, then manually delete the old backups of the items you moved, via the TM interface. See item 12 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
Thanks very much for all of your help. Please let me know if you can offer further advice based on my extra information here.

How do I retrieve data from time machine from an old mac (which was running 10.5) on my new iMac running mavericks?

How do I retrieve data from time machine from an old mac (which was running 10.5) on my new iMac running mavericks?

See B 5/6.
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Just moved CS4 Web from old mac to new using time machine. Apps won't launch. Help?

Just moved CS4 Web from old mac to new using time machine. I get an error when I try to launch a program on the new computer (150:30). After contacting live chat about the issue and providing all serial numbers etc. I was directed to a download. The download was a .dmg file that my computer did not recognize. It was suggested that I ask the experts on the forum how to resolve the issue. I have all the discs and serial numbers but the new macbook pro doesn't take discs (I guess they think all apps are downloadable now). Any ideas?

Hmm... I don't know why they sent you here... CS4 is not part of the Cloud
I have some download links for earlier versions of Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements, but not CS4 Web
My best idea is to take a LARGE USB memory stick to a friend with a DVD drive and copy your DVD over to the USB memory stick
Or, ask in the forum for your program(s) to find out if anyone has CS4 download links
If you start at the Forums Index https://forums.adobe.com/welcome
You will be able to select a forum for the specific Adobe product(s) you use
Click the "down arrow" symbol on the right (where it says All communities) to open the drop down list and scroll

Time Machine from old Mac to new Mac

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