Time Machine migration problems

Hello!
I've just bought a new 15" MacBook Pro, to replace my 13" MacBook Pro as I needed a bigger screen.
However, I'm having a lot of difficulty transferring my files across from a Time Machine backup I have of my old computer (and now it's the only copy of my data that I have).
About halfway through the transfer (during the initial computer setup, on the migration page), it seems to freeze up, then when you put your fingers on the trackpad it restarts into the 'Welcome' video again. So it takes me throughall of the steps, and I try to create a username - which I shouldn't have to do - but it won't let me create my usual name because it already exists. I create a different account and login and it looks like a fresh Mac installation - but half of the 500GB drive is used up and in 'Users', my original username exists with about half of its files and an 'incomplete migration' file.
So I reinstalled Snow Leopard and tried again, and I had the exact same result. Now I've created another duplicate account, deleted the half-migrated user account, and I'm using the migration wizard from within OS X.
Failing that, any other ideas as to what it could be?
The drive my backup is on is an external 500GB drive, but I have no others big enough that I could copy the files to to try. It is possible the drive is falling asleep halfway through? I've done exactly the same procedure before though with another MacBook, and it all went through smoothly...

It sounds like there's something corrupted on your backups.
From the Install disk, after selecting your language, select Utilities from the menubar, then +Disk Utility.+ Use it to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your TM drive. That may fix whatever's causing the Migration to hang.
Then us it to Erase your internal HD and try again.
If the migration fails again, about your only option will be to move the rest of your data from the backups manually -- use the normal "Star Wars" display to restore what Migration Assistant didn't. It sounds like you got at least part of your home folder, so try to restore one sub-folder at a time. One of them may well fail (when it hits whatever's corrupted), so try smaller and smaller pieces of it until you get all you can.

Similar Messages

Error "The Connection Failed" in Time Machine, Migration Assistant and Restore From DVD

I am receiving this error when trying to connect to my Time Machine Backup in my Time capsule. I input the proper password to access my Time Capsule and It returns me to the screen with the caption "The connection failed" under the Time Capsule name in the "Select your Disk" screen. What would cause this error. I am connecting via WIFI (AirPort) and have full signal. I am using Mac OSX 10.6.8
I recently had my 1TB hard drive replaced and I am attempting to restore using Time Machine, migration assistant or from the startup dvd (tried multiple ways, no success). The initial setup of mac OSX 10.6 would not let me connect or other attempts after erasing hard drive and reinstalling OSX from disk.
Worked on it all weekend and don't have enough beer to drown the frustration, any help is appreciated.

You are correct TM is not at all easy to do a full restore.
To answer your question: Yes TM disk does show up in finder.
After my initial startup setup I was able to start TM and access all my previous backups. I migrated some files and was able grab the data from finder. Not satisfied with that I tried to do a restore to that previous date, to no success. I then erased the HD and reinstalled OSx and tried again from the setup screen. That didn't work, sulked over some beers. I then tired with Migration assistant...same result (more beer).
In starting TM after trying MA, only one backup was showing in the Star screen (today). None of my previous backups were showing. Since exiting TM it has been "Making Backup Disk Available" ( xGB of 6.29GB). Considering the size, I can only assume that these are my previous backups.
I have reviewed Pondini's posts, FAQs, and tutorials. I am a little scared to try and locate the drives through Terminal as in Pondini's TS #6 guide. If I can get my previous backups to show up, I will be happy with dragging files from Finder to restore my data and slowly work at restoring my settings/applications.

Uninstall problem in cc applications after time machine migration to new mac

Newbie to cc. Having problems with cc programs that were migrated across to new iMac via Time Machine back up when setting up new mac.
Attempting to open PS cc results in error message 86. I have now uninstalled Creative Cloud program and a PS cc program in Utilities via Adobe Installer in Ulilities however, (other copies?) of the programs PS cc and Bridge cc, the only 2 cc programs I have so far, are listed in my Applications folder.
I think I need to remove them both from the Applications folder but am unsure how to do this safely. There is no Abobe Uninstaller now in Utilities as it was empty after uninstall removal of duplicate? programs noted earlier so I deleted that too.
Should I send them to trash? And then perhaps I can start afresh with new installs of Creative Cloud and required cc programs.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thank, Barry

Hi Jakekira14,
We never suggest our customer's to move Adobe softwares using Timemachine because it causes launch/Licensing issues. I would request you to kindly delete all the Adobe folders and then install everything from scratch. To remove the left over's, please delete the following folders from your machine.
Click on Go>Go to
/Library/Application Support/Adobe
/Library/Preferences/Com.adobe.....
~/Library/Application Support/Adobe
~/Library/Preferences
Cheers,
Kartikay Sharma

Snow Leopard Time machine migration to Lion problem?

I have a time machine backup of a mac with snow leopard that I made back in June. I want to put it on my new mac with Lion but it won't have this update - http://www.cultofmac.com/105225/if-you-want-to-migrate-from-snow-leopard-to-lion -tomorrow-you-need-this-update/ -
I don't have the old mac to install this update on and update my time machine backup so what can I do??
any suggestions please?

Thanks Pondini, I was concerned that my Snow Leopard backups may not be compatible with Time Machine on Lion and I was going to use the Migration Assistant instead of the Setup Assistant. I have the WD NAS which I'm aware currently has AFP issues like many other NAS drives. I'm holding thumbs that by the time I get my new iMac WD would have released the firmware update so I don't have any issues.
WD NAS users can setup a notification at the following link for when the new firmware becomes available:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7081
Failing which you can always try this workaround from Alexander Wilde - http://www.alexanderwilde.com/2011/04/os-x-lion-connection-error-with-afp-and-wo rkaround/
Cheers,
Nelis

ITunes 12.0.1 on Yosemite cannot locate my music after Time Machine migration

Hi hi
On my old 2008 iMac, my iTunes consists of music media on the internal iMac hdd and on an external HDD.
The option "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" was left unchecked on my iTunes.
My 2008 iMac froze and stopped working thereafter a few days ago and I bought a new iMac.
After updating my new iMac to Yosemite, I transferred my old iMac settings and data from the most recent Time Machine backup via Migration Assistant.
Loaded iTunes on my new iMac and noticed that certain playlist are not working, i.e. cannot locate the media file.
I narrowed those unplayable playlists to the music located on my external HDD.
For those that were working, when I get info on the music files, they were located in my new iMac's internal HDD that were transferred over from my Time Machine backup, i.e. ~/Downloads/MP3s/etc.
Those that were unplayable and located in my external HDD points to ' ~/user/xxx/Music/iTunes/iTunes media', roughly along this line despite my old external HDD being plugged into my new iMac.
May get some help as to how to get the unplayable media on my external HDD working on my new iMac?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

actually i have same problem with yours. Finally i get iTunes update from apple website, not thru app store.
but so far i still have no idea to make those iTunes update(8 times) disappear.
it's really ugly in that page.
maybe some one have idea to solve it , please advise it. it will be appreciated much ~

Missing a month's emails after time machine migration

I backed up my MacBook Pro before migrating all the data to a new iMac. Opening Mail on the iMac I discover I am missing the last month's emails. What might be the problem? Has TIme Machine lost them or not recognised them? How can I now get the missing email datga from the Macbook Pro into the new iMac Mail package? Advice, please.

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data. That means you know you can restore the Mail database, no matter what happens.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens (command-V), then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
Envelope Index
ExternalUpdates.storedata
Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Log out and log back in. Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Warning: The process may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. For reasonable-sized mailboxes, it should only take a few minutes.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

What to miss out in partial Time Machine migration?

I have a Mac Book early 2009 machine, running 10.7.5 which had become increasingly slow, with endless spining wheel syndrome, finder windows taking ages to respond etc. Sometimes it will not restart - getting as far as a blank desktop, then giving a spinning wheel instead of loading the desktop icons.
Anyway, I have bought a new Mac Book Pro as my old machine is going to be passed along for less onerous tasks.
Going through the initialisation process, I first opted to restore the new machine from my Time Machine backup. This completed fine, but the new machine is then as sluggish as the old one. Clearly something is locking things up. I tried investigating the old machine for a software problem, used spring cleaning etc and never solved it.
Given the problem, I thought I would initialise the new Mac Book Pro with a clean system install - it loaded Mountain Lion 10.8 (not Maverick) from the initialisation menu.
Now I have a window that will allow me to migrate data from my Time Machine backup.
I was hoping I would have the option of choosing which applications to bring over, rather than having to find installation discs, enter license keys etc. but it does not allow me to select individual packages.
I can select all applications or none.
There is the option of importing system settings and content (where it is possible to define which top level folders are imported).
So what is the best approach?
I'm thinking to bring over the files and system settings, then install programmes piece meal as I need them.
But could issues such as the slow running be due to system settings?
Suggestions welcome.

Time Machine will (should) restore your old accounts. If you used a different user and password to set up your new MBP, try using one of your old accounts to log in. If that doesn't work, call back. You might also want to research your problem on Pondoni's Time Machine FAQ pages - http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
Good luck,
Clinton

Mail 5.3 crash after Time Machine migration

All,
I'm facing a problem with Mail 5.3 while trying to recover my email db from Time Machine after an update of MacOS.
Here the following steps I made to perform this update:
Update my iMac from SL to Lion 10.7.1 using the clean install way.
Install last 10.7.5 combo update.
Perform migration of content and system preferences from my last Time Machine backup before the upgrade (using the Migration wizard)
Finally, run Mail.
After having performed the email db conversion (without any error message), Mail seems to crash since no main window appears in the application.
I need to force the application to show the main window with the dedicated command of the Window menu.
But the result is not what we should expect !
Please check the snapshot herein attached.
While looking at the console, it seems that an error occurs during the execution of Mail, with the following error message and code :
29/10/12 08:30:37,835 Mail: An exception occurred during invocation of -[MailboxesController _writeSmartMailboxesToDisk]
29/10/12 08:30:37,836 Mail: *** -[NSSet initWithArray:range:copyItems:]: array argument is not an NSArray
Is there any member of this community who could have an idea what's wrong with this ?
Thanks,
Michel

Some progress on this issue to share with you.
First, Mail.app on the others user account was fine and I managed to successfully perform the migration from Time Machine.
This led to the point that the problem was relying on the Mail DB rather on the Mail.app itself.
I have reinitialised the Mail.app on the user account where the problem occured using the following guidelines:
- access to the Library folder using the [Alt]+[Goto Menu] of the Finder
- rename Mail and Mail Downloads folders into Mail.old and Mail Downloads.old
- delete com.apple.mail.plist and all com.apple.mail... files in the Preferences folder
Then, start the Mail.app again
Mail.app has been reinitialised completely !

Can't log in after time machine migration.

I just bought the latest model running Lion today, used time machine to migrate my data from my old MBP running 10.5. After the migration done I couldn't log in and stuck at the start up page. Is there any way to solve this problem (I'm pretty sure that's not the password issue)?
=_= Please help.

Time Machine will (should) restore your old accounts. If you used a different user and password to set up your new MBP, try using one of your old accounts to log in. If that doesn't work, call back. You might also want to research your problem on Pondoni's Time Machine FAQ pages - http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
Good luck,
Clinton

Trouble Accessing Virtual Machine After Time Machine Migration

I am hoping that someone else has run up against this problem and is able to help.
I recently purchased a new iMac. I upgraded to 8 GB of ram specifically because I have VMware Fusion and want to use it on my new machine.
I chose to migrate my entire old iMac to the new machine using my Time Machine backup.
VMware appears to have migrated successfully. I do not have any trouble accessing the application, but when I try to resume my only virtual machine, which is for Windows XP I get the following message:
VMware Fusion cannont connect to the virtual machine. Make sure you have rights to run the program and to access all directories it used and rights to access all directories for temporary files.
How do I resolve this problem?
Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to offer me a clue on how to overcome this.
If I can't access this machine it appears as if I will be able to create a new one. I would like to avoid having to do that if it is possible.
Terri Schurter

Captfred,
In that folder there is a virtual machine. It is called Windows XP Professional. So it is there. When I am in VMware Fusion I can see Windows Media Player, which is what I was probably accessing the last time I was in the machine, so it does appear to have backed up the virtual machine. I would expect it to because it is a part of a Mac application, VMware Fusion.
It appears to be an issue with permissions that I don't know how to solve.
I know there is a VMware forum, but I can't even figure out how to sign up for it the darned thing is so confusing. I can't seem to post to it no matter what I do.
Terri

Restore Conundrum, Time machine & migration assistant

Hi All
I have got myself in a bit of a pickle and would really appreciate some advice.
My HD crashed and after trying to repair it I got an "Invalid Node Structure" message. Disk Warrior wasn't able to repair it but at least allowed me to copy the drive folders to my external firewire drive. I wasn't able to do an 'Archive & Restore' as the disk wasn't accessible and the only option was to erase the disk. I then re-installed from my Leopard startup disk and currently have 10.5.2 on my machine.
when my machine crashed I was running 10.5.7
My last Time Machine backup was 2 months ago and is 10.5.6 (and the partition map scheme was unfortunately MBR on the external drive!!!)
What I would like to do is to restore my system from the TM backup and then update my data from the copied folders on my external FW drive that I copied with Disk Warrior. The problem is that migration assistant doesn't recognise the copied folders as the disk is not a start up disk. I am therefore in the process of using disk utility to create an image of the folders on the FW drive on another partition on that drive that has a GUID partition map scheme.
Am I doing the right thing? what else should I do or to get back up and running with the most up to date data and system settings?
This is my proposed sequence of activities:
1. Restore system using my time machine back-up
2. Use migration assistant to update data from the copied files disk image
Many thanks

I'm not sure how well the current version of Spotlight works with external drives, but you might try a Spotlight search of your backups, using the "Last Modified Date" criterion to help find files & folders you want to copy over to the startup drive. However, I think you will have to copy the files from the mounted disk image back onto some drive to do this because I don't think Spotlight works with disk images.
For Mail, iCal, & some other apps, you can probably just replace the appropriate folders (like your ~/Library/Mail/ folder) on your startup drive with the corresponding backup ones. To be safe, I would use the backup options provided with these apps (like those mentioned in How to back up and restore your important Mac OS X 10.4 files) and/or make copies of the startup drive versions in case something goes wrong or you find that there are items in one folder that aren't in the other.
Other possibly useful links:
iCal, Mac OS X 10.5: Empty "Home" and "Work" calendars may appear after installing Leopard
Mac OS X 10.5 Help: About application data and preferences
I'm fairly sure some other user will have a more detailed answer for you....

Split Time Machine migration over 2 volumes?

Hi,
I've just bought a shiny new MBP with 128GB SSD, which I am migrating to from an iMac. I have my Time Machine backup of the iMac (which I've sold). The iMac had just under 1TB used all-in. My intention is to keep the OS and apps on SSD and keep my photo, music and video libraries onHDD. My question is how do I split out my apps and settings vs the user data in my time machine backup and migrate them to the right volumes? I have an external Firewire hard drive and also an optibay HDD kit on its way. If I need to temporarily restore the whole thing to one volume and manually move things around I have the scope to do that also.
Thanks.
EQLZR

Found this on MacWorld which looks pretty straight forward. I'll give this a go:
A brief tutorial on symbolic links
Nov 06, '01 10:29:06AM • Contributed by: jmil
OS X's file structure mounts all partitions under the "/Volumes" directory at the root level of the filesystem. However, when navigating the filesystem with "cd" and other commands, it can be annoying to type "/Volumes/volume_name" each time you want to access a different partition. To learn about symbolic links and use them to add shortcuts at the root level of your filesystem, read the rest of this article. This assumes you are moderately comfortable in the Terminal, and that you have administrative privileges.
What is a Symbolic Link?
If you've ever made an "Alias" to a file in classic Mac OS, or a "Shortcut" to a file in Windows, you will easily be able to understand the UNIX equivalent (where "aliases" and "shortcuts" came from in the first place!), called a "Symbolic Link". The easiest definition to understand is directly from the man page, "[A Link] is useful for maintaining multiple copies of a file in many places at once without using up storage for the 'copies'; instead, a link 'points' to the original copy." (If you want to read more about it, type man ln in the Terminal.)
Let's say you have two partitions or drives - "X" containing OS X and "Classic" containing OS 9. To navigate to "X", you simply type
cd /
To navigate to "Classic", though, you'd have to type
cd /Volumes/Classic
If you have many partitions and/or drives, and you are trying to manage many files across them, it can get annoying to type "/Volumes" every time. Moreover, you cannot simply create an Alias to the drive/partition to accomplish this because the command line utility "cd" does not handle Mac OS aliases properly. However, a symbolic link will solve the problem.
To create the link, simply type the following:
cd /
ln -s /Volumes/Classic/ Classic
That's it. ln -s makes a new file called Classic which points to /Volumes/Classic/. To see that this worked, you can simply type
ls -la | more
(note the "|" character is called "pipe" and is found above the "Return" key). You should see a line with the following text:
Classic -> /Volumes/Classic/
The arrow shows you exactly what you did... A file named Classic points to /Volumes/Classic.
Links have many possibilities around the filesystem, and I encourage you to read more about them in the man page. While command line utilities cannot recognize Mac OS aliases, the Mac OS Finder will recognize symbolic links you construct in the terminal, or via Third-Party Utilities such as SNAX so you can use links just like aliases in the Finder.
Jordan

Time Machine Migration Assistant - Calculating ...

Hey,
I've got a little problem - I recently got my iMac back from repair (the hard rive was failing).
Now I am trying to put all may stuff from my time machine backup back on this machine...
It came with 10.6. preloaded...However, when I start the migration assistiant and try to get the data from my external HD with the time machine backup, it quickly finds all settings and applications but it when it comes to my home folder, it just says "... calculating".
This has now been the case for more than 72h. The full backup is about 750GB...how long should that normally take?
Another strange thing, I can easily acces all the data from the "Latest"-link/folder on the time machine HD.
Any tips besides waiting ?
Cheers,
Tim

Hey Eric,
thanks for you answer...I actually already made another account (with another name that is different from the name on my time machine). Or should I just call it admin?
I am really stumped at the moment...I should have just used Carbon Copy Cleaner as it seems...

Time Machine Migration Assistant HELP!

My MacBook Air has a whole lot of storage that is being used for who knows what.
I am going to back up my mac, erase it, and reinstall the backup because that seems to work. But, I have no idea what the differences and similarities in Time Machine and Migration Assistant is. Can I use migration assistant to back it up and reinstall on the same computer? If not, how do I install a time machine backup on a compeletely erased mac? (I'm on OS X Mavericks)

Before you do anything else, I strongly suggest you figure out what's taking up the space.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take a few minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Time machine migration when apps on new computer are later versions

I have a time machine backup of my old macbook, just got a new one and it comes with iLife 11 preinstalled. I don't want these apps to be overwritten with my older (iLife 09) apps.
Should I rename them first, or delete the older apps off of time machine or is there any other way to make sure I don't get these overwritten.
(I imagine the iLife apps must be on the install disk in case I do have to reinstall iLife 11), but I don't have that currently, it was all installed at the university - hence I just want to know the quickest way to do this
Thanks!

Pete Thomas wrote:
My problem was that I asked a specific question and was directed to an FAQ that was a different, much more general question:
Take a look at your first post -- there's no mention there that you'd done any research at all, or whether you'd already started up the new Mac. And it ends: "I just want to know the quickest way to do this."
"How do I set up a new Mac from my old Mac or its backups?" - not what I asked. FAQ 19 is mostly about how to use set up assistant which I already know and is irrelevant in this case as the installation had already taken place and therefore I cannot access Set Up assistant
You didn't mention any of that.
so the FAQ was telling me to reinstall or create a temporary account, time consuming and not very helpful when all I needed to be told was "you can run migration assistant and it will be fine", which was the very helpful and speedy advice I got elsewhere.
Again, that was far from clear in your first post. And the next sentence starts "After your Mac is up and running, you can use the similar Migration Assistant ..." with a link to that page. Many, many people start up their new Mac, skip +Setup Assistant,+ and create a new user account, and use it for a while. Then they run Migration Assistant and wonder where all their data is, and once they find the migrated account, want to consolidate the two. We see those roughly once a day.
After reading all the way to the bottom, there is a sort of answer to my question:
"Note that Setup Assistant is smart enough not to replace newer Apple apps that came with the new Mac with older versions from the old Mac or backups."
But then a caveat that confuses the whole issue for me:
"In some cases, there may be a few exceptions:" followed by lots of links to follow.
Should I have just ignored the fact that some apps aren't compatible with Snow Leopard? Or that in some cases you may have to re-enter serial numbers?
It would have saved us a lot of time, if you know the direct answer to the very specific question to say what the answer is rather than "read the FAQs". I'd already done a search to see if my question was frequently asked, and it wasn't.
Again, had you indicated that . . .

Time Machine migration problems

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