Time machine restore breaks file vault

Running Lion GM for the last few weeks on 2011 MBP w/500 GB drive. Decided to upgrade my drive to 750 GB and used TimeMachine to restore.
Had to boot SL (since Lion update isn't bootable by default and the dmg isn't on my local laptop) to launch the full TM restore.
TM had no problem restoring and everything worked fine until I tried to encrypt using File Vault. This was working on my 500GB drive.
When I try to enable, I get the following error:
FileVault can’t be turned on for the disk “Macintosh HD”.
Some disk formats don’t support the recovery partition required by encryption. To use encryption, reinstall this version of Mac OS X on a reformatted disk.
The format I used when I created the disk was Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
After realizing I couldn't encrypt, I tried the command-R to boot the recovery partition and its gone.
So how do we do a TM restore for Lion to a clean disk?

This is how I fixed it on a Macbook Air 2011 (MBA). I couldn't use the MickeyPhelps procedure here, because for the the MBA there is no way to create an installer image.
The procedure assumes you have a WiFi or Ethernet connection to the internet.
1. Restore your Time Machine backup. This will invalidate recovery HD, FileVault is gone and cannot be enabled (see original post).
2. Boot to recovery mode using CMD-R. The MBA will load the recovery partition data from the network.
3. Use the Disk Utility to create an image backup of the system partition (Macintosh HD) on an external drive
4. Boot using Option-CMD-P-R to reset PRAM. Not sure if this is always required, but for me it was. Otherwise I got an error that OSX could not be installed because recovery HD could not be created by the installer.
5. Boot to recovery mode using CMD-R. The MBA will load the recovery partition data from the network.
6. Using Disk Utility, first delete the "Macintosh HD" partition, then re-create it. Not sure if this is really necessary, but I did it this way.
7. Re-Install Mac OSX Lion. (takes a couple of hours depending on your network)
8. Omit the OSX configuration and boot using CMD-R. Should be fast because recovery HD has already been recreated.
9. Use the Disk Utility to restore the subsequently created image backup to the system partition (Macintosh HD) from the external drive.
10. Boot. That's it. You can now turn on FileVault.

Similar Messages

Time Machine restore of File Vault encrypted user failed: Login failed due to an error.

Hello everyone,
I did regular time machine backups of a File Vault (version one) encrypted user folder. Now I needed to restore a few files that have been deleted unintentionally. Since single files can't be restored from a File Vault encrypted backup time machine told me that I must restore a complete backup from a certain time. I did that. Time machine quited to copy at about 25 percent and rebooted. Everything was looking good until I entered my password for the recovered user. Then I got the answer:
"Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred"
And now?
I tried to restore some other backups, none was working. I copied the relevant .sparsebundle file out of the backup folders and tried to mount it. Didn't work. It says "not recognized". Then changed it's owner to root and tried again, the same answer. I tried to repair it by using hdiutil but it also says "attach failed - not recognized".
Apple, I am asking you: Are my data lost?
Anyone, please provide help.
(Apple, it's more than a shame what you are providing for the safety of a user's data!)

Try Repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If/when you get this sorted out, strongly consider switching to File Vault 2. It works much better, especially with Time Machine.
Or, if possible, only encrypting a few sensitive items, per Protecting confidential documents in a secure disk image.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time-Machine Backup of File-Vaulted Account - Problem?

This is the situation:
I have to install the last good backup from Time-Machine. I did this but my drive was encrypted using File-Vault.
Now I cannot get past the login to my account at startup!!!!
My password is CORRECT.
I am the only user.
The login will take my password but will not progress any further past the following error message:
"Unable to log into the File-Vault Account "....." at this time. An error has occurred."
Has anybody out there heard of this happening? Does anybody see a picture of what is going on - or what could be done?
Can I ever get back my old account (complete with emails/apps/keychain/doc etc?????!!)
Regards
Greg.

O.K - So I'm now up and running again with a new installation. The Factory default installation disk has been installed.
I still have my Time-machine backup on my portable drive. The applications folder is accesible. All of my old apps are still there even though it was an encrypted HD. However, everything else is missing! iPhoto's !!!! Work documents! movies! itunes downloads etc etc...nothing in my old home folder and personal libraries are there - just the encrypted files.
Any ideas from here?

Time Machine Restore individual files after reformatting

Is it possible to restore individual files to my G5 iMac after i reinstall/reformat OSX on it?......i dont want a full restore
The time machine is currently backing up this G5 iMac

Do you really need to erase and start over?
It's rarely required on OSX, and rarely accomplishes much.
If you're having performance problems, it's almost always better to address them directly. As Kiraly, a frequent poster here says, if your kitchen faucet is leaking, start by replacing the washer, not tearing out the entire kitchen!
If you reinstall OSX and don't transfer your user accounts from your backups when it first starts up, via +Setup Assistant,+ (per #19 in but instead set up a user account "from scratch", that account may not be recognized as the one on your backups, so won't have permission to view or restore much, if anything, from them.
Even if it is, see the pink box in #11 of [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for a rough outline of what you'll be looking at doing.
See #19 there for info on +Setup Assistant.+

Time machine restoring empty files

Hey guys
I'm sure i'm not the only one having this problem but i can't find any fixes for it.
After a clean install from the snow leopard cd i go to my time machine to restore just the basic folders i.e. itunes / iphoto etc but it's not working correctly, i'm getting half of the contents if any at all, it seems to be just a folder with nothing inside.
Does anyone know a fix for this or is anyone else having the same problem?
I'm thinking of going back to leopard because so far i've had nothing but problems with it, in fact they should have called it Leopard Vista

Thanks for the reply guys
I found a fix to my problem.
I copied the files from time machine to another external drive and the installed everything again from the snow leopard disk, i then just copied over the files i wanted from that drive onto my mac with no problems, everything is speedy again, it's all organised how i want it, it was a pain to do but i'm happy now.
The reason why i did not use the back up or migration assistant was because i'm sure i had a conflict somewhere slowing down the mac and it's nice to know you have a nice clean machine the way you want it.

Time Machine restore leads to strange file permission issues

I've had three Mac laptops over the last 8 years. It all started with an iBook. When I bought my first MBP I used the "migration assistant" to move my files over. I started using Time Machine when it was released. I then upgraded the hard drive on the MBP and used Time Machine to restore the data. Later, I bought another MBP and used Time Machine to transition all of my files.
Each Time Machine restore was flawless.
The problem comes from my most recent hard drive upgrade (details are below). After upgrading the hard drive on the second MBP I did a Time Machine restore, which appeared to complete without incident. However a couple of problems, which are probably related, have cropped up.
After clicking on Firefox.app I get "Profile Missing Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."
The following message is printed to the console: [0x0-0x31031].org.mozilla.firefox[493]: Error: Access was denied while trying to open files in your profile directory. com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[275] ([0x0-0x31031].org.mozilla.firefox[493]): Exited with exit code: 1
I tried to delete my old profile from ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox and the problem persists. Running /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager results in the same error.
The file permissions on the ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox directory are:
drwxrwxr-x 2 my_name staff 68B Feb 20 08:31 Firefox
I'm at a loss here because the permissions look correct. When I run the ProfileManager as "sudo" it starts correctly and let's me edit/create a profile for "root".
I've repaired permissions several times, and the disk utility (and Onyx) don't report any problems. A very similar problem occurs for MS Office problems. When I launch Excel (or any other office app) I get an error message saying that the MS Office Database can't be used. Also interesting is that it builds the font cache every time. If I'm not mistaken the font cache and Office database are also stored in profiles, but not under ~/Library
Short story long, after a Time Machine restore some apps can't seem to write profile information, but the file permissions look correct and Disk Utility can't find any problems with my new disk.
Any help or pointers would be great.
Here are the details on the new hard drive:
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Model: WDC WD10TPVT-00HT5T1
Revision: 01.01A01
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 5200
Medium Type: Rotational
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
Writable: Yes
BSD Name: disk0s1
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 999.86 GB (999,860,912,128 bytes)
Available: 668.89 GB (668,892,172,288 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

You might try the following to repair permissions in your Home folder. Disk Utility does not repair permissions in the Home folder.
To fix Home folder permissions
Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder. At the command line prompt enter or paste the following command line:
sudo chown -R `id -un`:`id -gn` ~
Press RETURN. You will be prompted to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.

Time machine restore selective intonation vs full installation compromised system

I have some questions regarding the above mentioned issue
I have reviewed notes regarding selective app restore method and am aware that there are issues assossiated with failed apps since the original app installer installs files in various libraries and system settings
My backed up Mac contains rogue programs such as the programming app python 3 and various rogue bugs and system settings.
1 Does a full restore reset all backed up system settings or does it keep the fresh installation and include all your apps and settings such as mail accounts mail folders documents pictures movies podcasts etc without the bugs
2 Should the answer to 1 be a yes all compromised settings will be restored, then will I have issues with installing VMware fusion as its an encripted integrated app that I keep all my master business applications but store documents in the Mac documents area.
Other factors
1 My accounting tax business has been hacked over and over again for the last 7 months from start of tax season
2 I have lost 50% of my clients due to the interruptions and been hospitalized twice from sitting on the computer for extended hours and days reinstalling fresh system and restoring Mac documents only, 3 times over, as well as trying to learn everything about best practice, hacks etc
3 I'm using fire vault 2 however the time machine backup is not encripted are there any potential problems with either of the two methods?
4 I will be using a proxy server when I next build the Mac will this be enough to mitigate potential security breach using the full time machine restore method?
5 I have many apps that I have not purchased through the app center and have not kept the keys and will be a headache to get all my details
6 what implications are there as far as the prior keychain access is consurned? How does that get restored?
What is the most effective and efficient method to restore from time machine given above scenario?
Thanking you in advance
Peter

Thank you for your advice
I tried consulting Telstra premium services and other third party security consultants. I explained my steps and procedures upon each fresh installation and the extent of the hacking and they refused to service me. Additionally Telstra security center replied on the issue of using a proxy server that they only support windows operating systems. Last night an apple consultant told me to obtain the proxy server address and he will guide me through to setting it up. I hope this will resolve the security issue. However I'm not entirely sure. My iPhone was also hacked and 8 GB of data used in 1 day untill I caught on. Freaked me out since I had disconnected from the wifi.
I'm currently installing from flash drive and transferring my information from time machine. I think it's a full restore.
I am investing in a website in a couple of weeks however I'm not currently hosting one on my laptop.
Cheers
Peter

Update from 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 blown - Time Machine Restore blown

Hello,
summary of events:
Update form 10.7.02 to 10.7.3 went wrong
After Time Machine Restore no more Recovery Partion
Lost about what to do
On Saturday, I startet to update 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 on my MB Pro 15" (2007) Apples Software Update showed the combo update, and so I started download and installation. Just before that, I had run Time Machine on an external USB drive, so I was relaxed.
After about 2 hours, the update was still running with no progress. After another hour, I forced a restart. Not very suprisingly, after the login, the wheel beneath the Apple logo kept on running.
So I restarted from the Recovery Partition, selected my Time Machine-Backup from the external USB drive, selected my internal HD as target and clicked on "go".
While the progress bar showed progress, I waited. Then it seemed to be complete and the MBP restarted. Now I got a folder with a question mark. My heart rate did not yet accelerate, since I had a back up, right?
So I restarted again trying to boot from Recovery Partition - BUT, there was no longer a Recovery Partition. Or at least, nothing I could boot from.
What options do I have? I could get my hands on a DVD that contains an Lion installation from the app store, but that is not the most recent version, as far as I can tell. If I would go that way:
Does the version of the Lion-app matter?
Will it create a Recovery Partition?
If not, how else could I restore a complete Time-Machine backup?
Any help and suggestions are very welcome :-)
Regards
Jimbo
Naturally, I a am mad as **** at Apple. First, that they abandoned physical media for Mac OS distribution, and secondly that some not so bright lad thought it not necessary to secure the availability of the Recovery Partition under any circumstances short of phyical damage. This really *****, guys!

Ok... I'm not sure if the following suggestions will work with Filevault 2 enabled. I guess you can try after you create a backup for safety.
You can recreate the Recovery HD two ways. One is to reinstall Lion using a bootable USB thumb drive of the Recovery HD created with the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Or from a bootable USB thumb drive with the Lion installer restored to it.
A second way, which I have used many times, is to follow the instuctions at this site using Terminal commands. Step 3 is what you want to follow. The instructions use the RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg file downloaded from Apple to recreate the Recovery HD. It works great!

How do I safely stop a Time Machine Restore midway through?

I started a Time Machine restore from backup at about 1pm this afternoon.
After about 15 minutes of estimating the size of the files to be transferred, it gave me a 19hr estimate for transfer time. I had heard that it could take awhile, so I wasn't totally blown away by the number.
I'm backing up about 200 GB. Well, I'm about 2 hours into it, and the time remaining has been fluctuating from 19+ hours to 14 hours. I'm at about 18 hours right now.
I'm beginning to question the ethernet cable I'm using to transfer the data, and wishing I used a USB 2.0. I've also read up on a bunch of other threads about how painfully slow Time Machine can be, and there seems to be little rhyme or reason as to when it's slow vs when it's somewhat reasonable.
So, I guess there are two questions.
Question 1) Can I safely power down, swap cables, and retry? What happens to the data that's already been pulled over?
Question 2) Should I just let it run for the next 18 hrs? I've also read other horror stories where people return to their machines after the time estimated, and it's hardly budged.
Any help would be AWESOME! If i could give you a billion help points, i would!

majmanMac wrote:
Was doing a full restore from scratch - I lost a hard drive on Monday, and just got a new one put in. Turns out the estimate was about right, as I'm now writing this from my restored machine.
Yay!
I was restoring from a Time Capsule. For some reason I just assumed it had a USB port.
Ah, yes, it does, but it's for connecting a printer or USB drive, not a Mac.
My concern that i would come back to it this morning and find it still updating has been put to rest. Phew!
Glad it's sorted out, but it does seem like there may be a problem -- that's awfully slow. See #D2 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
And be forewarned: since you have a new drive, Time Machine's next backup will almost certainly be a full one, so remain connected via Ethernet. If there isn't enough free space for that, it will take an extremely long time for Time Machine to delete a lot of old backups to make room. You might consider manually deleting a lot of them, per #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Lots of permission errors after a full time machine restore.

So I replaced my hard drive in my MacBook Pro with a 500GB and when in reinstalled leopard i jest did a time machine restore, now if I check the permission i have this long list that it jest can not seam to fix. Here is the list. What should i do about it?
Reading permissions database.
Reading the permissions database can take several minutes.
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/DVD.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/FRSettings.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/FRSources.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Movies.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Music.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Photos.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/Podcasts.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/TV.frappliance/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/InternetUtilities.bundle/Contents/ CodeResources", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Permissions differ on "Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunesHelper.app/Contents/CodeResou rces", should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are lrw-rw-r-- .
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Filesystems/AppleShare/afpLoad" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "usr/bin/setregion" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework/Versions/A/Resources/runner " has been modified and will not be repaired.
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/Printers/IOMs/LPRIOM.plugin/Contents/MacOS/LPRIOMHelper" has been modified and will not be repaired.
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iLifeMediaBrowser.framework/Versions/A/CodeRe sources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/CodeResourc es", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/BlackAndWhiteEffect.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/CubeTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/DissolveTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/DropletTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/FadeThroughBlackTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/FlipTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/MosaicFlipTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/MosaicFlipTransitionSmall.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/PageFlipTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/PushTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/RevealTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/SepiaEffect.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/TwirlTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework/Versions/A/Resources/P lugins/WipeTransition.IAPlugin/Contents/CodeResources", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r-- .
ACL found but not expected on "Applications".
Permissions repair complete

This has been reported elsewhere in these forums.
They are not errors, they are warnings and informative statements, but not real errors and they can be ignored as you will find when you search
for the other posts about this exact same topic.
If you uncheck the Show Details" box in DU, you will only see real errors and these will not show up.
Yes they are annoying, and if you read my other post you get more information.

How do I know which id to delete and insure time machine restore?

I had a glitch on my computer of the screen going black at random. I also had a recall on my imac for the segate drive which was replaced once. I brought it to the apple store after a week then determined there was no recall on my new drive and reinstalled Mt Lion to get rid of the black screen issue. Now here is the problem i got home and plugged in my ext drive for a time machine restore. I restored everthing using migrate assitant except the applications and desktop. I was asked to create another user name for the transfer. I don't understand why i had to do this so just slightly changed my id name. I now need to find the desktop data and can't find it under either names. I searched the drive direct and found the info is there but migrate assitant doesn't show it. I tryed to restore back some other files but it was me to changed the name of the restore using migrate assitant again. How many ids do I need? How do I blow way the 2nd id without gettting rid of my backup on the ext drive. I am so confussed now and can't figure out which admin id has the info and which doesn't . I don't even know if the info made it to the imac hard drive. help!!!

I had a glitch on my computer of the screen going black at random. I also had a recall on my imac for the segate drive which was replaced once. I brought it to the apple store after a week then determined there was no recall on my new drive and reinstalled Mt Lion to get rid of the black screen issue. Now here is the problem i got home and plugged in my ext drive for a time machine restore. I restored everthing using migrate assitant except the applications and desktop. I was asked to create another user name for the transfer. I don't understand why i had to do this so just slightly changed my id name. I now need to find the desktop data and can't find it under either names. I searched the drive direct and found the info is there but migrate assitant doesn't show it. I tryed to restore back some other files but it was me to changed the name of the restore using migrate assitant again. How many ids do I need? How do I blow way the 2nd id without gettting rid of my backup on the ext drive. I am so confussed now and can't figure out which admin id has the info and which doesn't . I don't even know if the info made it to the imac hard drive. help!!!

Can't Boot After New HD + Time Machine Restore

So a couple days ago my 27" iMac running Snow Leopard started making some weird noises and stalling out. Annoyed, I talked for a couple hours with apple tech support which eventually lead me to run an Apple Hardware Test. This test returned the error
"Alert! Apple Hardware Test has detected an error.
4HDD/11/40000000 SATA(0,0)"
I scheduled an appointment at the Genius Bar, and they replaced the hard drive.
After that I got it home and did a System restore from my time machine backup. It finished fine, but when I restarted it got stuck on the grey apple screen with the spinning dial thing.
I called apple back and they had me do a couple things like repair disk, verify disk, and one person had me reboot into this command line mode and type some stuff in. Nothing worked. After that They had me try to reinstall the OS first from archive, and next by erasing the hard drive and doing it. Both times the install fails with a big yellow exclamation point saying that it couldn't install support files and the OS couldn't be installed.
Any ideas how to fix this?
I'm currently trying to restore from my time machine backup again, but I'm not hopeful.

Here's what I got - apologies for any formatting peculiarities.
The problem: 10.6.6 mac won't boot after time machine restore to disk.
Further symptoms: Booting with Command-v shows several errors: usually blued and loginwindow collapse with errors from launchd. Errors will be of the style "dyld: Symbol not found: CSSMOID_APPLE_TP_MACAPPSTORERECEIPT" and other CommerceKit / CommerceCore framework errors.
A solution: Your Framework Security library may be an older version (possible cause with Time Machine below). The easiest way to fix this is to find another, working 10.6.6 Mac, and update the Security library on the broken machine.
Identifying if you're affected:
1) Boot the broken machine into "target" mode - hold "Command-t" during boot until the [Firewire|http://itunesu.utah.edu/terms/images/Firewire_Icon.png] icon appears.
2) Connect the broken machine to the working 10.6.6 machine with a firewire cable.
3) On the working machine, the disk of the broken machine should mount.
4) Open Terminal
5) Run "ls /Volumes" - the name of disk you mounted should be there (in this example, we'll use "Macintosh HD".)
6) Typing in the path of the broken machine, run:
<pre>
nm /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
</pre>
(this does a dump of the library, looking for the version value)
If this comes back with the value 22457 (or less?), your Mac is not booting because it does not have the updated version of the Security library, which is required in 10.6.6 since Snow Leopard added the Appstore / Commerce framework.
Fixing if you're affected:
1) First, make sure the working 10.6.6 Mac has a correct version of the framework:
<pre>
nm /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
</pre>
For 10.6.6, this should be at least "22458"
2) *Be extremely careful at this point* - Make sure on the mounted disk (not the machine you are working on!) run the following
<pre></pre>
2a) Make a backup of the broken library
<pre>
mkdir /Volumes/Macintosh HD/savedLibrary
cp /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security /Volumes/Macintosh HD/savedLibrary
</pre>
2b) Copy the working version over the non-working version:
<pre>
cp /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
</pre>
3) Eject the mounted disk from the working Mac, disconnect the firewire cable, and reboot the "broken" Mac. It should come up.
If it doesn't, you have problem(s) that are probably outside the scope of this. I'd also suggest restoring your original security library that you saved off.
Suspected cause:
It appears that Time Machine never recorded the change to the Security library after the update. If the library hadn't changed, the machine should have failed to boot like it did after restore the moment a 10.6.6 update was applied.
Inspecting the contents of my Time Machine backups before and after updating shows that Time Machine never updated the Security Framework library - why is still not 100% determined, but restoring from it is definitely broken. Combing through the backup databases on my Time Machine disk:
(I upgraded to 10.6.6 on January 6)
<pre>
for name in 2010-12-30-093337 2011*
do
echo -n "In backup on ${name}, version of Security library is: "
nm "${name}/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security" | grep random_fd | cut -d. -f2
done
</pre>
In backup on 2010-12-30-093337, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-04-100707, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-05-082402, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-06-092846, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-07-094827, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-10-093559, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-11-110542, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-12-094137, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-13-103238, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-14-113145, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-18-112856, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-20-114953, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-21-103642, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-24-102321, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-002508, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-011931, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-104406, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-114322, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-123928, version of Security library is: 22457
In backup on 2011-01-27-134523, version of Security library is: 22457

Time Machine Restore Mangles Permissions and Groups

Circumstance:
My Macbook Pro running 10.5.5 gave a gray spinner after a restart last week. The restart was to clear out a couple of system processes eating up CPU when I had left it alone for a few hours.
Action:
After Disk Utility, zapping PRAM, and the probably some other standard trouble-shooting actions didn't fix the stuck start-up problem, I decided to try a full system restore from my Time Machine backups. I had previously successfully restored individual folders and files. Time Machine backs up wireless to a USB hard drive connected to my AirPort Extreme. To speed up the restore, I ran an Ethernet cable to the MBP from the Airport. The restore completed successfully. All the folders & files are correct, looks the same, etc. I restarted using the restored boot drive.
Problem:
The MBP is like a museum now--I can look but I can't touch. I first noticed something was wrong after logging in the first time because I couldn't move a file into a folder via drag-n-drop. Then Terminal went into a spinning beach ball when I opened it. Spotlight was not running. Then I noticed that my entire boot disk was read-only. I got info on the boot disk, and the Users & Groups list was strange--everyone was read-only, "wheel" had read-write and was the owner, and staff had read-write. Basically, it's like me, the Finder, an all applications have lost all their write/execute permissions on the entire drive.
*Unsuccessful Steps Taken:*
Ran Disk Utilities' Repair Permissions from Leopard dvd. Ran fsck -fy after mount / -uw from Leopard dvd Terminal and from single-user boot mode. Time Machine restore direct from TM disk via USB. Joined my user to wheel group. Changed my user password from Leopard dvd (which repairs home folder permissions). Played with chown to make all wheel-owned items staff-owned.
*Open Theories:*
Airport Time Machine restores strips ACLs and Permissions. I have to restore over wireless, not ethernet or usb. My TM backup is screwed up somehow.
Whew. This has been going on for a while, so I'm ready to give up and do an Archive & Install and begin manual migration from the backups, but my MPB is a fine-tuned machine and I hate to lose that, especially since it taunts me by being so close to normal (I can see everything! My desktop background and apps are there!).
Any help much appreciated!

The "full restore" from Time Machine is only for OSX drives.
For data-only drives, use the Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display). See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #15.
Depending on your setup, you may also want to review Transferring Home Folders not on a Startup volume.

Can Time Machine restore to a new internal HDD?

hi all, i've got a 1tb external drive that's exclusively used by Time Machine. the 1tb drive is connected to my 500gb mac mini. i've been running time machine for 6 months now daily, i just wanted to know if it was backing up everything on my 500gb drive or not. how can i check that it's working properly?
also, does anyone know how i'd go about restoring my mac mini in case i had to replace the 500gb hdd? can time machine restore everything if i needed it to? if i bought a new HDD tomorrow for example, how could i get my system running back to where it was running today with all of the current settings and files etc? is there any way for me to check that Time Machine will actually restore OS X, all my videos, music and my work should the HDD actually die?
is there an apple link i can read?
thanks for any help.

To answer your question about replacing a hard drive and recovering what was on your old one ...
Yes, Time Machine was designed for that. You may have one of two scenarios:
(1) Your hard drive is replaced by the Apple Store or another Apple repair shop, in which case they usually restore it with the operating system you had before and configure it so it has a new system with no users set up; the first time it starts up it runs Setup Assistant. When Setup Assistant runs, you select the option to restore from a Time Machine backup. It will then automatically restore your entire hard drive to the newly installed one. Everything will be just as it was with the old drive. Exceptions: you MAY have to enter user keys for software like MS-Office and Adobe Photoshop. and you MAY have to reinstall your printers and scanners.
(2) If the hard drive is replaced but no operating system or anything is put on it, you need to boot from your Install-OS-DVD and install a new operating system on the new drive. Then, on the first reboot, Setup Assistant runs and you can follow the instructions from (1) above.
A good informational site about Time Machine is here: http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
How do you know that your Time Machine backup is a good one? You can peruse through all the backups by running Time Machine and manually inspect that the files in those key folders (photos, music etc.) are all there and have the right sizes. You can "test recover" selected folders to a scratch location just to check that it works. I suggest you obtain another external drive and use it to make a "clone" of your internal drive using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. This is like a second backup, a failsafe in case, say, your Time Machine drive were to fail. This is not unheard of, since a power failure could cause both your internal drive and Time Machine drives to crash at the same time. The "clone" should be unplugged and stored separately to avoid this issue. You can update the clone, say once a week or once a month.

Time machine restore not complete

I had to get a new hard drive for my iMac. Time Machine restored all the files and programs, but not the settings, so my desktop, my dock, all the pointers in software like Apature, etc are wrong. Why didnèt all this come back with the restoreÉ Or how do I get it back without manually setting everything up again.
Thanks
Jeff

There is a bug for some users.. but not in Snow Leopard if you are using that as per your profile. It is Mountain Lion that is the issue.
See http://pondini.org/TM/D10.html
Did you Migrate or did you do system restore?
They are different. Settings will mostly not migrate.
See Q14 and start over to do a full system restore.
More info on migration here.
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrationProblems.html
Go back to the main directory of Pondini and read through his information..
Q14-17 here on how to restore from Time Machine is most important.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Time machine restore breaks file vault

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