Time machine restore after reformat, Leopard reinstall

I'd like to completely wipe my machine and reformat it, but not do a complete restore from Time Machine. If I were to plug in a Time Machine backup on a fresh system, would I be able to explore this now "foreign" backup and selectively restore the items I want? Or will the new system not read the backup as it was not configured for this particular Time Machine backup?

Yes, you can. Connect your external drive, and then double-click to open it. The first folder you see will be the Backup DB folder. Open that, and you will see dates. Click on any date, then your HD should be in the next folder. You can look around it just like your own HD.
You can also use the MIgration Assistant, and you can select your own account items, settings, Applications, or other items.

Similar Messages

Time machine restore after crashed internal drive

The internal drive on my daughter's MacBook crashed. She had been using Time Machine during the school year, so we have backups that are a little over a month old. I am a bit confused by the different Time Machine restore methods. When I originally set up Time Machine, I first set up 2 partitions on the external drive. The first was an image of the system at that date created by Restore. The second partition was used by Time Machine. I installed a new hard drive in the MacBook. I then did a Restore from the external drive of the System Image. What is the best way to restore to her last Time Machine backup? I want to make sure she has all of her class notes and papers in the restored system. It appears from reading some of the discussions, I could have just done an installation from the install DVD and then used the Migration Assistant to restore from time Machine. Is this preferred. As her system was originally a Tiger that we upgraded to Leopard. I have been considering doing a clean install of Leopard and then a restore from Migration Assistant. If I do that, is it better to do the clean install of Leopard, then Migration Assistant, and then install Ilife 08? Will that bring over the programs she has downloaded? Is there software or anything we would loose from the by doing a clean install from Leopard and iLife08 that is bundled only in the factory install disks? I would like to do this the best way possible and am looking for suggestions.

moretoexplore wrote:
I'm getting ready to install a new 1TB internal drive for my iMac and trying to determine the best way to do my system restore. I have two questions...
Question #1: Should I use Time Machine to restore my data, etc, to my new internal hard drive? Is this the best way to accomplish this or should I start fresh and restore everything manually?
that's up to you. the easiest is to restore from TM. if you are having problems with your current system you can do a manual restore but it's a lot more work.
Question #2: I have two external drives. One is used only for iMovie Events (1TB) and the other is used for Time Machine backups (2TB). I use Time Machine to back up both the internal drive (soon to be 1TB) and the 1TB external drive (once again, my iMovie Events). If I use Time Machine to restore, can I restore only those files that were associated with the internal drive?
yes. the easiest option is to do a full system restore which will restore your system drive. to do that boot from the leopard install DVD and choose 'restore system from backup" from the Utilities menu at the top. you don't need to install leopard on the new drive first. the drive can be blank.

Mac will not log in after time machine restore. Snow leopard

I managed to delete 6000 photos by accident on my mac (it can be done), luckily iv kept up to date back ups with time machine, so I bottled off the snow leopard cd, followed utilities and did a system restore. Everything sempt to have worked well till I got to the log in screen, I typed in my password and it just keeps saying 'you are unable to log into the file vault user account "Alex" at this time, Logging in failed because an error occurred'. I know for a 100% fact my password is correct and I went through the reset options and it still wouldn't work after completing it. Iv googled a few fixes but nothing seems to have worked correctly, I'm not exactly the biggest wiz with macs so I'm not 100% sure if iv done any of them correctly. Please if anyone else has had the same problem and found and fix can you help this is a huge inconvenience
Thank you
Alex

something may be wrong with the backup you used to restore. something can also be wrong with the file system. i suggest you boot from the SL install DVD (make sure it's snow leopard, not leopard one btw). then start disk utility and reformat (not just erase) the whole drive using the partition tab. then quit disk utility and do a restore from an earlier time point. see if it works then.

Missing iPhoto files after time machine restore from Snow Leopard

My Snow Leopard machine HD failed the day after my new MacBook Air (Lion) arrived. Migration assistant allowed me to use Time Machine to restore my iPhoto files from my external HD. However, many of the photos are apparently gone, although the thumbnails remain (selecting the thumbnail results in a big exclamation point in a triangle). I've tried repairing the iPhoto Library and updating the thumbnails, but still many photos can't be found. I think I may have to fix the old machine, then try to restore that way, but would like to access the photos now. Any suggestions?

Back up no matter what, then
either way with time machine and restore or
Target disc mode. You should be able to move the entire iPhoto Library

Help! Time Machine Restore Problem From Leopard Server

Hi All,
I just did something dumb with my iMac running 10.6.4 and need to restore all data from my time machine backup.
I have a mac mini running Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 which has a time machine volume on an external USB drive.
I have reinstalled 10.6.4 on the iMac and tried running Migration Assistant to transfer information from a Time Machine backup. I am able to log in to the Time Machine volume successfully but I immediately get an error:
"The Connection Failed"
I have also tried booting into and restoring from the Snow Leopard DVD and get the same results.
I am reluctant to attempt to configure Time Machine for fear that it'll somehow overwrite the backup I have. I do not want to mess with the permissions on the TM backup in order to clone the backup in advance of configuring TM before I get some advice.
Please help! Lost a lot of sleep last night and my wife is very upset.
Below are some console log errors that indicate something is wrong, but google does not turn up anything concrete on the keywords:
11/4/10 7:54:23 AM [0x0-0x14014].com.apple.MigrateAssistant[182] objc[182]: Class MigrationAssistantPane is implemented in both /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Migration Assistant and /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/MigrationAssistantUI.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Mig rationAssistantUI. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
11/4/10 7:54:23 AM [0x0-0x14014].com.apple.MigrateAssistant[182] objc[182]: Class Process is implemented in both /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Migration Assistant and /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/MigrationAssistantUI.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Mig rationAssistantUI. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
11/4/10 7:54:27 AM Migration Assistant[182] Couldn't get a connection to the migrateTool after 1 attempt.
11/4/10 7:54:32 AM Migration Assistant[182] (SYS) We've received count = 2 systems
11/4/10 7:54:32 AM Migration Assistant[182] + (SYS) Adding SMSystem : file://localhost/Volumes/Mac%20OS%20X%20Install%20DVD/
11/4/10 7:54:36 AM Migration Assistant[182] (SYS) We've received count = 3 systems
11/4/10 7:54:36 AM Migration Assistant[182] = (SYS) Updating SMSystem : afp://server.local./Time%20Machine
11/4/10 7:54:36 AM Migration Assistant[182] = (SYS) Updating SMSystem : file://localhost/Volumes/Mac%20OS%20X%20Install%20DVD/
11/4/10 7:54:45 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[85] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist) Throttling respawn: Will start in 373 seconds
11/4/10 7:57:21 AM Migration Assistant[182] (SYS) We've received count = 3 systems
11/4/10 7:57:21 AM Migration Assistant[182] = (SYS) Updating SMSystem : afp://server.local./Time%20Machine
11/4/10 7:57:21 AM Migration Assistant[182] = (SYS) Updating SMSystem : file://localhost/Volumes/Mac%20OS%20X%20Install%20DVD/
11/4/10 8:00:58 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[85] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[214]) Exited with exit code: 1

I do have an extra external drive that I can copy this file to, by assigning permissions, but am not sure about how TM hides and secures the files needed. I'm worried about messing up the only copy I have of this data.
Don't change anything in the backups. Ever.
Your best bet may be to do a full system restore of the desired backup from the server to the USB drive; then you should be able to boot the iMac from that.
But if you want to copy the backups, you'll have to be logged-on to the server with an account that has permission to copy the sparse bundle.
If you copy just the desired backup, instead of the whole sparse bundle, it won't be recognized as a Time Machine backup, but might work with either +Setup Assistant+ or +Migration Assistant.+

Time Machine "resets" after Snow Leopard install.

This may be answered in other threads, if so I'd appreciate a pointer to them. I couldn't find an appropriate one in my searches.
I have a MBA and recently installed Snow plus the 10.6.1 update. I was having various issues and reinstalled Snow, leaving me at 10.6.0.
I had deleted some applications to free up some space, and decided to restore them with Time Machine (TM). The first time I opened TM, it seemed normal and I restored one of the applications.
Then my external drive where TM backs up to began to backup. Later I tried to open up TM and my desktop froze. After several reboots still had the same issue, I did a Safe Boot. Then rebooted as normal.
Now TM asks if I want to start backing up, net new. It doesn't appear to see the old backups anymore.

Try the Snow Leopard forums. You are now in the Leopard forums. Wrong place for a SL question.
TM questions should be posed in the Time Machine topic area of the Leopard forums. At the top of the TM forum are three User Contributed Tips that you should read to see if you are able to find a solution for your problem.

Time machine restore after clean install

I use a WD My Cloud drive 4 TB to make time machine backups of my Macbook Pro. I never partitioned this external drive but simply connected it as the backup disk for my time machine backups. I am on the latest software version of the Mac OS.
As the disk on my Macbook pro was running out and my machine was becoming slow, I chose to wipe the disk clean by reformatting it. I did not want my entire time machine back up to be restored, I figured I will be picking and choosing the files I desired from the time machine and pulling them on my local disk as and when required
I noticed recently that my newly formatted machine was also utilizing the same external disk as backup and it had started creating time machine backups - there isn't much data on my new machine as this has been only a few weeks old.
When I click to enter the time machine, the last back up I can go back to is dated Dec 2014 which feels like it is the newly formatted disk's first back up and I cannot figure out how to get to my old backups. I see purely from the utilized capacity of my external disk that it has about 500 GB sitting on it which corresponds to the size of my original backup but I am not sure how to get to it.
I don't recall ever selecting an option on overwriting the existing backup, so confused as to what I might be doing wrong
I see some other posts on this topic but these people at least see their folders - I havent changed a version on my OS or my login id so this does not seem like a permission issue
Appreciate your help on this issue

You would use Migration Assistant to migrate the old "you" from your backup.
If your issue was user specific all along, you may reintroduce the issue by migrating. If you fear it was user specific, you should log into Root and manually navigate into your backups.backupdb folder and find the desired apps, docs, music, movies, and pictures, and then copy them to the desired and respective locations of the volume, but you will have to address the permissions using "Apply to Enclosed Items" to make sure they will open, edit, and save correctly, depending on the contents that you bring over. Permissions can be a pain sometimes.

Time Machine Restore After New Logic Board

Older iMac (2009) had hard drive and logic board replaced. Running latest system (10.10.2) before and after logic board replacement.
When attempting to restore from a Time Machine backup made prior to the new logic board, although the iMac sees the Time Capsule and the "Data" file, attempts to proceed with the restore are met with error message "There was a problem connecting to the server [name of Time Capsule] - contact your administrator."
Any experience with this issue? Anybody successfully perform a restore following a new logic board?
Thanks very much.

I would refer you to visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with Time Machine and full system restore. It also provides instruction on how to restore a backup from another system or Time Machine backup drive.

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

Time machine- restore after erasing disk

I did a clean install (Lion) and then, wanted to restore from my backup disk. But restore was greyed out! So, I did a lot of drag and drop which worked. But one folder won't let me put new files in there. I get "This operation can't be completed because backup items can't be modified". OK, Any way to get past that? I can't believe that RESTORE is greyed out.. Thanks

I suggest you start over. You can't restore from Time Machine by dragging files in the Finder. After a clean installation, when you reboot you'll be given various options for setting up the Mac. Choose Time Machine, then choose the snapshot you want to restore from.

Missing apps after Time Machine restore after internal HD crash.

2 TB internal HD on 2011 iMac crashed. Apple store replaced hard drive. It took 25 hours to restore from the Time Machine backup. Immediately I noticed that many of the desktop icons were missing and were replaced by large question marks. These include App Store, Mail, Firefox, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, Safari, Quicktime Player, Photo Booth, Garageband, and Facetime. When I select Software Update... I get no response. I have no install media as it all came installed on the iMac I bought last year. I am on Mountain Lion. I turned off Time Machine to not confuse matters more. thx

Was able to get Firefox from a locally networked old Powerbook. Connected to internet and downloaded iTunes 10.6.3. Bookmarks and all music seems to be ok. Now I just need a was to find which app is missing for "Software update..." and "App store...".

TS1338 time machine restore after clean install

My MacPro 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual core Intel Xeon with 8 Gb RAM was having trouble booting and the drive was unable to be repaired 2x in 30 days, so I wiped the drive and did a clean install of Snow Leopard and brought everything back to date (10.6.8) cleanly.
How do I get all my apps, preferences, keychain etc back from my most recent Time Machine backup? My user now is different, so Time Machine is giving me a hard time now that I am a new "me."
Thanks!
Artboard

You would use Migration Assistant to migrate the old "you" from your backup.
If your issue was user specific all along, you may reintroduce the issue by migrating. If you fear it was user specific, you should log into Root and manually navigate into your backups.backupdb folder and find the desired apps, docs, music, movies, and pictures, and then copy them to the desired and respective locations of the volume, but you will have to address the permissions using "Apply to Enclosed Items" to make sure they will open, edit, and save correctly, depending on the contents that you bring over. Permissions can be a pain sometimes.

Time Machine restore after a new HD

Hello
I am thinking of replacing my 17" macbook pro internal hard drive with a SSD. The process seems strait forward but I am a bit put off by all the talk and expense of cloning my current disc. Is the following suggestion possible?
1.Back the current drive up with time machine
2. Remove the old HD and replace with a new SSD. I gather it can fit into the same space.
3. Do a repair boot of the Macbook from the internet
4. Format the new SSD
5. Restore to the new drive from Time Machine
6. Voila !!!
7....I bet its not that simple
Thank you for any response
Stephen

Thanks Andy
Good news. No, Command-R definately is functional. Its helped me out before!
Stephen

External Drive locked after time machine restore. Please help

I've restored my Mac OS x (10.6.8) from a time machine backup after reformatting the iMac's hard drive.
After restoring all my files the external drive that time machine uses is locked and I cannot seem to get it to unlock itself.
I've tried resetting the permissions on the "get info" panel without any success (Did a restart after every change- it just seems to go back to custom priviledges). I've also toggled the "Ignore Ownership" toggle on and off- again followed by a restart each time.
I have no idea as to what else I can do.
The external drive is connected by Firewire 800 and is a RAID 1 configuration using two 2Tb drives.
I don't want to lose my existing time machine files on that external disc- hense formatting it is out of the question..
Any ideas or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks for the reply guys.
Unfortunately none of what you said was helpful ds store. **** of a lot of effort and risk to go through just to get the drive unlocked. It might work though.
baltwo, thanks for the link. Those computer lingo sentances scare me big time. I'm a photographer, not some IT junkie! Thanks for the link as that got me reading some other posts and I then came accross other variations of " a+rx" that work for some but not for others. Sounded a bid dubios to me, especially since I'll have absolutely no clue as to what to do if things do go pear shape.
Nevertheless, I found the best sullution: a small app called BatChmod. (http://www.lagentesoft.com/)
Yeah, just what I needed!

Lost "Last Import" after Time Machine restore

I recently had a hard drive fail on me but was up to date on Time Machine backups. So after a rebuild of 10.6.2, I restored my system from Time Machine. But now, I noticed that the last batch of pictures I imported before the hard drive went, are gone. They are still listed in iPhoto under Last Imported. And their Events Descriptions are showing up but all pictures are just empty grey squares, leading me to believe the links were lost. So I opened up the contents of the iPhoto Library and sure enough those file folders were gone also.
Any ideas what could have happened? Maybe ways to get them back?
I'm assuming the pictures are gone at this point - about 215 including my son's 3rd Birthday. Fortunately though, I have lo-rez versions on my iPhone.

Experienced this myself today with the latest iPhoto on a Time Machine restore after a failed hard drive.
I would guess the cause is that iPhoto writes the 'last import' into a cache file, and not to the Originals folder on the hard drive until the next import. Since Time-Machine excludes many cache files from its backup to save time and space from meaningless change (caches should always be able to be rebuilt), the photos were never copied to the backup drive.
However, this is merely a guess, and is the only reason I could fathom as to why Time Machine did not back up photos that have been on the disk for over a month. Quick testing with local files wrote directly to the disk, which makes me think it may be only from a camera or some other device, but I am not sure exactly.
If someone happens to find a way to get back the photos, let us know. Exploring the iPhoto library in Time Machine yielded me nothing, neither did rebuilding the cache database or looking for orphaned photos.

Time machine restore after reformat, Leopard reinstall

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