Time Machine restore from Network Drive

Hi,
I have a Time Machine backup of my Mountain Lion system on a GoGlex Home wireless network drive. Location is as follows:
/Volumes/GoFlex Home Backup/TimeMachineBackup/AlexHarris.sparsebundle
My problem is, when I try and restore this sparsebundle by either using the recovery menu or migration assistant, the only thing that shows up is Go Flex Home and neither of these can find the sparsebundle.
The root of my GoFlex Home HD contains four folders (one of which is the GoFlex Home Backup). These are created automatically by the preinstalled OS on the HD. I can't move the sparsebundle to the root as this area is read only.
Any ideas? I want to restore my entire system and not just go in and drag and drop documents etc.
Thanks in advance.

This worked fine.

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Time machine restore from network drive kernel panic

I had a late 2013 macbook pro 15" retina, I was backing up with time machine to a network drive (western digital my cloud). All of my backups are there and the data looks valid. In April I ended up selling the macbook pro, then recently I bought another one and attempted to restore from the network drive.
I chose the option to restore on boot from network device, it properly detects and lets me browse my previous backups. I choose restore, the restore will run for a few hours and then reboot with a kernel panic.
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff00184c0ac1): "Unable to find driver for this platform: \"ACPI\".\n"0/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-2422.90.20/iokit/Kernel/IOPlatformExpert.cpp: 1541"
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Time Machine full system restores only work if the backup disk doesn't need drivers separate from Mac OS X to mount. To make a long story short, you CAN'T do a full system restore with the disk your backups are on.

Time Machine Restore from Networked external hard drive - not working??

recap: hard drive failure on iMac. Took it to Genius folks, they installed a new hard drive with updated Leopard OSx on it.
I came home turned it on, selected "restore from time machine" feature. It finds my external hard drive (which is connected to an airport extreme via USB 2.0) My computer is connected via ethernet to the airport extreme.
I select the imac backup and up pops the login screen. I log in. Then I get the "Checking Time Machine Backup...." And it just keeps checking and checking. The external hard drive is making all sorts of noises, like it is working away, but it just keeps checking. Also have the spinning beach ball....
How long does this go on before we get on with it?

LOL.. didn't see your answer until now. I feel pretty good as I did exactly what you recommended. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.
Here's the rundown on what I did.
LOL. I see y'all didn't know what to do either!!
Well after puzzling for a bit I finally aborted the process. I tried connecting my hard drive directly to the computer - but then it would not recognize the backup on the external drive.
So finally, I rebooted using the install disk and selected utilities and restore and voila, we were in business.
Restore said it would take 16 hours and went to bed - 11am. Got up at 5 and it was complete (guess it really didn't take that long) So far, everything looks great!!!!!
Hope this helps someone out there.

Time Machine Restore from eSATA drive - Help!!

Hello, I have an eSATA drive that I have used for my Time Machine backup. It worked great for partial restores of files etc. But my boot HD went down so now I have to do a complete restore. When I put in the Leopard DVD it does not recognize my eSATA drive RAID. I had to install a driver to use the RAID. Is there any way that I can get the Leopard DVD to install that driver and then restore everything from my eSATA drive? I have the driver on a USB thumb drive but other than the disk utility it is not recognized. Could I do this through the Terminal? I hope that someone can help me. I have Applecare but the information again it was on the original drive. Yes I could take it to an Apple store but that is four hours drive one way from here. Don't have a day to do that! Please help me!!

Time Machine full system restores only work if the backup disk doesn't need drivers separate from Mac OS X to mount. To make a long story short, you CAN'T do a full system restore with the disk your backups are on.

Is it possible to boot or Time Machine restore from an external Thunderbolt disk drive?

(There are several questions - search for "?".)
I purchased a Seagate Backup Plus for Mac Desktop Drive 3 TByte with default USB 3.0 interface, and also acquired the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Desktop Drives and Thunderbolt cable.
I do a redundant backup to the Seagate Drive using both Carbon Copy Cloner (nightly) and Time Machine (hourly) using its Thunderbolt adapter. BTW: One never knows when Time Machine will choke - see discussion titled, "UPDATED: Serious Time Machine bug on Mountain Lion", which I had; Rest In Peace Pondini (James Lewis Pond).
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from System Preferences -> Startup Disk:
I select the Time Machine OS X, 10.8.5 Startup Disk (Thunderbolt attached drive), click Restart, confirm my choice, the computer reboots, however, it reboots from the internal Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5, NOT the selected external Thunderbolt drive. The SSD drive was used as the Startup Drive, not the selected external Time Machine volume as indicated by the display free disk space command (df(1)) and seeing that the Macintosh HD OS X, 10.8.5 volume is mounted as root. That is very deceptive in that both the internal and external drives will appear in the same manner from a GUI point of view! OS X doesn't even inform me that it did not boot off the selected volume. This is the first half of the problem, that is, Is it possible to boot from an external Thunderbolt disk drive? In my case, the answer is deceptively No. Can anybody else boot off a Thuderbolt attached disk drive? Note that if I remove the Thunderbolt adapter, and attach the drive via its USB 3.0 cable, the MBP boots off the external Seagate Backup Plus just fine, as is expected.
Booting from the external Seagate Backup Plus via Thunderbolt inteface from boot-time "Option - Select startup disk" method:
When I restart the MBP using the startup Option key to select the startup volume, the externally connected Seagate drive ONLY SHOWS UP if it is attached with the USB 3.0 cable, not when it is attached with via the Thunderbolt interface. Can anyone else boot off a Thunderbolt drive with the startup Option key sequence? At least the MBP doesn't deceive me in this case - I know right away that the external Thunderbolt drive is not an option when connected as such.
Time Machine restore from the external Seagate Backup plus via Thunderbolt interface from the "command-R - Recovery Parition" method:
After booting from the recovery partition, I attempt to perform a Time Machine restore from the Thunderbolt connected Seagate Backup drive. When Time Machine attempts to present me with a viable backup Time Machine volume, the external Thunderbolt drive is never offered as an option. So I switch the Time Machine volume to use its USB 3.0 interface, and then Time Machine displays that drive as an option, and the MBP proceeds with the restoration as expected. The interesting thing to note is that while booted in the recovery partition via the Thuderbolt cable, the MBP Disk Utility may be selected, and the Thunderbolt attached drive may be operated on just fine. Can anybody else restore their MBP using Time Machine and the Recovery Partition via the Thunderbolt interface?
This is also a big problem for me in that I am forced to restore my MBP via Carbon Copy Cloner using the USB 3.0 interface, because I cannot even boot off that volume's Thunderbolt interface. Of course, the option may be that I could use yet another eternal USB 3.0 drive, boot from it, and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the Macintosh HD via the aforementioned drive connected by a Thunderbolt cable, but that is less than ideal and not elegant, so I'm not going there.
Another side issue is that the commercially available program, TechTool Pro 7's eDrive, which I installed on the Time Machine volume, will not boot off that eDrive as advertised, but I won't got through those steps here, because that would be beyond the scope of this issue, however, I must say, It does not work either when the Time Machine volume is connected via the Thunderbolt interface, but works just fine when connected via the USB 3.0 interface.

If this helps anybody else make a decision about whether to consider Apple because of Apple's superior customer service:
Apple sells this entire line of drives right in their store, from 1TB to 4TB. I spent 1 and 1/2 hours, yesterday, confirming that the 3TB model IS NOT 100% Thunderbolt compliant. A MBP cannot boot, nor can it Time Machine restore from this drive, though EVERYTHING about the drive is normal.
Apple's South Coast Plaza store management had at least two responses to me personally about how to proceed:
1. Buy a different drive from another drive manufacturer, and to attempt to return the drive to COSTCO. A lead genius suggested going with GTech drives, for instance.
2. Wait for Seagate to fix their problem.
I told Apple management in the store that the drive is advertised as Mac Compatible (see picture) and that it is advertised as being a Thunderbolt drive (see picture). I pressed management that my purchasing decsion to get the best possible MBP Retina was based on the availablity of Inexpensive Devises (raID), and that not having this complete compatibility is a show-stopper for my needs, and that I wanted a refund. Their response? They needed to talk with "Merchendising" to see if they are on or off the hook for these kind of 3rd party assertions, and would get back to me.
I am not holding my breath.
Note: I do not hold this against the Geniuses that helped me, nor against the management I've dealt with, nor the upper level engineers that I've corresponded with through Apple Care - their problem solving skills were helpful - although I could have arrived at similar conclusions given enough $$$. (For instance, try a Lacie TB drive and see if that works - we did, and it did not work. Or, we have a different TB cable and a different TB adapter, let's try those - we did, and it did not work.) I blame myself for not doing enough homework before going with Apple's solutions.

Time Machine and a network drive combined

I figured out how to connect Time Machine with a network drive (like LaCie Mini). It works great, the only thing is, everytime I restart the mac I need to re-connect manually to the server in order TM can run.
I wondered why OS X gives not the option to connect to certain servers AUTOMATICALLY when starting up?
thanks for help

Well,
PLEASE can you tell us how you figured out how to backup to a network drive because Apple tech told me you could not do that!
To your question though, on those LaCie drives, you have to log in with a password, right? On the drives I have used with clients, although the password was filled in for me, we had to press OK every single time to actually connect to the drive... I could not bypass the login procedure on the drive, it had nothing to do with OSX. You might serve yourself well to see if LaCie can offer you a way to connect to the drive automatically?
Although I know nothing about scripts, could you just get a script to run automatically at startup to connect you to that drive?
I'm interested in this topic so please feel free to share what you know and your experience with it. Thanks in advance.
I was also frustrated to find out that I couldn't even back up via Time Machine to a drive connected via USB to my Airport Extreme... I mean come on!

External Drive with Time Machine, booting from external drive with utilitie

I'm using Time Machine now with
a LaCie 1TB external hard drive.
Everything works fine.
But, I've been wondering:
Can I place a program like TechTool
on the external drive (that Time Machine uses)
and boot from that external drive.
I would like to be able to do that,
because diagnostics and repair programs
only works properly and fully when they run from
external drives. Anything on the internal drive can be repaired
and examine. Impossible to do if Techtool is on the same
drive that's been examined.
Any thoughts as to what I should do?
Thanks
iMac, Leopard, Time Machine, Lacie Quadra 1TB drive.
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?

pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
(from the external drive) how does the computer know which backup to take ?!?
Isn't there many versions of the OS on the Time Machine backup taken at different times?
As V.K. says, you can't boot from TM backups.
But you can restore your entire system from any one of them, per the procedure in #14 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
You can also selectively restore from them, while running normally. See #15 in the FAQ Tip.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

Move Time Machine backup from hard drive to Time Capsule

I have a new Time Capsule. Can I move my existing Time Machine backup from a hard drive to the TC? The tips given back in 2010 in this forum are no longer available.

It is extremely difficult if the disk you are talking about is plugged into your computer.. TM does different kind of file for network drives.. so you need to trick it.
See Q18 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Time Machine restore from WD my book live duo

Dear all and especially anyone out there who may be able to help me.
I have a MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion, a WD mybook live duo 3/6tb on the LAN, all wired.
It has been backing up through Time Machine fine until my MacBook crashed earlier this week so I have a fairly
recent snapshot of my MacBook before the crash.
I wanted to restore, after a Hard Disk erase which seemed necessary, from Time Machine but I couldn't make it work
as it kept asking me for user names and passwords of the NAS (which I entered of course) only
to result in error meesages saying the 'share' didn't exist. (Despite the fact that it does immediately
recognise the backup and location on the NAS.)
WD support advised me to first reinstall OSX ML and then use the regular Time Machine
functionality to restore my Mac.
- there is no option to fully restore your Mac through the wonderful TimeMachine time travel
functionality. I tried to restore my Macintosh HD back to a recent time point but that resulted in
nothing much (or nothing at all, I don't know). I don't see my old stuff, I still see a kind of vanilla
OSX ML installation.
- using the restore functionality (CMD-R during startup) and the time machine restore option,
results in the same nagging for names and passwords and error messages that the share
doesn't exist.
WD support couldn't tell me what the share name (and possibly password) would be for where it stores Time Machine backup
files (it doesn't show up in the list of shares when you look in the WD dashboard) and that makes sense to me as when you
tell Time Machine to use the NAS, it doesn't ask you for anything in terms of shares or passwords either.
So here I am: with probably a very good and recent complete backup at my disposal but no way of restoring it to my Mac.
So all I had and trusted to Time Machine is lost.
Is anyone out here who can help me? Anyone with a similar experience and hopefully solution? (That I can understand....I am a Mac user! :-) )
I would be enormously grateful!
Greetings from Amsterdam,
Eric

Hello Eric, not sure if this helps or is exactly what you are looking for as I am unfamiliar with the NAS issue you have. However, I recently restored my computer from Mavericks back to Snow Leopard using my WD mybook. At first I was unable to use the WD mybook for restore, as is was not recognized by the computer after the menu came up from pressing "command R" during start up. I attributed this to the WD software requiring a password to access the drive. This is the same password that you (anyone who owns a WD mybook) have to supply each time you want to use time machine to back up files. There is a simple remedy I found. You need to go to your applcations and select "WD SmartWare," type in your password, then select the "Settings" tab at the upper right hand conner. Then select "Set up drive." On the right side of the window there is the "Set Security Options," sign in using your password in the box displayed under "password," then select "Remove Security." The last step would be to save the security setting, and you are all set to use your WD mybook without a password for full system restoration. So when you restart your computer and hold (or as I found press many times) the "command R" to access the restore window at start up, you can select restore from time machine, and have your WD mybook now appear in the timemachine device window, as the device is not password protected anymore. Once your computer is restored you can follow the same steps outlined above to reinstate your password for your WD mybook. Best of luck,
Marc

Time machine on a network drive

The situation:
We have a Mac Pro with a Time Machine volume on an external drive that is attached to a networked Mac. I don't think this is a very common scenario, but it works just fine over a gigabit network. We do not automount any drives on the networked machine but mount (or connect to) this remote machine manually whenever the Mac Pro in question is restarted (which is not often).
The question:
Due to some renovation, we'd like to temporarily connect this external drive to the Mac Pro and mount the Time Machine Volume. Will Time Machine find the correct sparse bundle on the external drive, recognize it as an existing Time Machine backup and update that as long as needed. In other words, the external drive will have a different unix path name, but the sparse bundle will have the correct name. And when the renovation is done, we will resume running Time Machine over the network, and I hope that Time Machine will again do the right thing.
I want to avoid having Time Machine's creating a new backup when the unix path changes.
Thanks.

In the past Apple was not holding you hostage by requiring you to use a Time Capsule for network Time Machine backups. Search on Google for Time machine NAS OS X (or something like that) You will find a number of drives that were working with SL.
Now, they did change the file protocol in Lion, so some of the NAS servers won't work with Lion, at the moment. So long as it is a decent company that makes the NAS they should be releasing a firmware update to get their NAS working with Lion.
One of the companies that put out a press release was Western Digital. They said they would be working on an updated firmware so that you could use it as a Time Machine drive.
Just look around the interwebs and I am sure you will find several that will work.

Can I use a Time Machine restore from an older OS to Mavericks?

I ask because I tried about 2 years ago and had no luck. Here's a little back-story so my situation isn't confusing...
My iMac (2010) has been having tons of issues lately. More specifically, when I attempted to upgrade to Mavericks last week, it came back with S.M.A.R.T. errors after a scan, so it wouldn't allow me to update. So, in preparation for the HDD to crap out on me, I did frequent back-ups using Time Machine. Well, the day finally came and my iMac won't "turn on" anymore. When I turn it on, it sits at the Mac loading screen for several minutes and then just goes to a blank white screen. (NOTE: This isn't part of my question but if anyone has any suggestions on fixing this, please let me know, thanks!)
So, back to my question. If I buy a new iMac or a new macbook or whatever, will it be possible to use my Time Machine back-ups to restore everything on it or will it not allow me to because the operating systems are different? As mentioned, I attempted to make a restore on my friend's macbook that I purchased as a spare but when I tried, it came back saying "Different operating systems, cannot restore" or something to that degree. Is there a way around this? Do I have to somehow downgrade the OS on my new machine?
Luckily, I use iTunes for all my movies/music & Adobe Creative cloud so I can easily restore those on any machine but my desktop personal data, photos, etc are on the Time Machine restore. Help me if you can, thanks in advance!

If you live near an Apple Store, make a Genius Bar appointment to have the computer tested. Supposedly there is no charge for testing. They can also give you an estimate.
Genius Bar Reservation US

Time Machine restore from Intel Macbook to G5 PPC 2.0ghz not working?

Not sure if it has to do with the fact that I'm going from Intel to PPC or if my MacBook had all the latest Apple updates and the PPC does not (no network connect at the moment.) It can see all the backups in my Time Machine drive when running the Time Machine app, but when I go to Restore From Time Machine Backup in the Utilities menu on the Leopard boot, or when I tried to create my user account for the first time in Leopard, it would not see my Time Machine backups on the other drive.
So am I thinking it's becuse I'm going from Intel to PPC or do I need the latest updates from Apple on my PPC or could it be something else?
I could just manually copy all the files over, but I'd like to avoid that, as I liked all my settings &tc. Thoughts?
Message was edited by: Feedmittens

Welcome to Apple Discussions:
AFAIK, you can only restore a TM backup onto an identical (or nearly so) computer. I don't think the Intel backup will work at all on a PPC. The drive partitions schemes are incompatible - GUID vs APM and none of the drivers or other hardware-related software components will work, not to mention many of the Intel-only apps.
The best you can do in install Leopard on the PPC and see if you can migrate from the TM backup.

Problems setting up Time Machine using a network drive

I am having problems setting up TimeMachine on my Mac Mini to work with a WD MyBookLive network drive. The network drive came with a TimeMachineBackup shared folder preconfigured. When I first connected the drive to the router and turned on TimeMachine, the TimeMachineBackups appeared as an option when I did "Select Backup Disk" from TimeMachine Preferences.
I managed to successfully connect to the drive and start a backup running. However the backup hit a problem and I started getting an error that the "disk was already in use". I therefore tried to remove the disk to try and start again. Hoever when I now do go into "Select Backup Disk" from TimeMachine Preferences the shared folder on the drive no longer apperas and I only get the option to serach for an Time Capsule.
If I go into Finder, the MyBookLive shows up as a connected Device with all its shared folders showing (including the TimeMachineBackup folder) and my Mac is definitely connected to the drive. How do I get the Drive & TimeCapsuleBackup shared folder to reappear in TimeMachine Preferences so that I can select it as the destination for my backups?

Check around the forum, you are one of very very many. It doesn't matter what WD say, do you see a Certified by Apple notice on it?
Go here, most authoritative site about Time Machine you can find. http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Specific info on Network Drives are here http://pondini.org/TM/2.html
Post back here and ask for Pondini if you need more.
You can also read some tales of woe here

Time Machine-restoring from a backup that is not the most recent

My hard drive was failing so I backed it up to Time Machine and had it replaced. It failed again and I replaced it again. The trouble is that the backup seems to also have become corrupt. The Genius Bar told me to try restoring from an earlier backup, but it doesn't want to do that. Migration Assistant doesn't let me choose the earlier date and Time Machine won't replace the entire drive, refusing to replace the Applications and Library folders. If I boot from a different disk I can't choose the destination.
Even though the earlier backups are probably fine, I have no way of recovering them without some guidance.

I found the answer. The way to access the earlier backups is to boot from the 10.6 install DVD while the Time Machine drive is attached. Choose the primary language, but then instead of proceeding with an install and using the transfer near the end, go immediately to the Utility menu and choose Restore From Time Machine. It will display the Time Machine Drive and allow you to choose a backup by date.

Time machine backup from USB drive connected and backing up to Time Capsule

Hi all forum virgin here, so be gentle.
I'll get straight to it. Much net trawling hasn't resulted in a definitive answer on this which surely I'm not alone in
I have: MBP networked to TC (where TM resides) and USB drive connected.
A- I simply want to TM backup not only MBP but USB drive on network as well?
As far as I can see there is no way of selecting this and after TM back has finished the only way I can check is
to enter TM (fancy space screen view) and obviously idrive doesn't appear in finder view.
I have tried connecting to MBP and obviously TM backs it up too and I can see in Enter TM. But I need this
drive on network so a further 2 things here:-
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
C- will it keep in previous backups if I cycle back to that particular one?
Andy help here would be most welcome

Slymon2000 wrote:
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
Sooner or later, yes, as LaPastnague says. It depends on when the backups are done. The first backup of each day is kept for a month; all others are deleted after 24 hours. After a month, the first backup of the week is kept as long as there's room, and the others deleted.
Obviously not a reliable solution.
A better method might be to use a different app to back it up to the TC's internal HD, but that presents another problem. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for an explanation and some possible workarounds.
The 3rd-party apps CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSynch can do network backups (others probably can, too).
So you might be able to "reserve" some space on the TC's HD and use one of those apps. As LaPastnague says, though, that will be relatively slow.
If there isn't enough room on the TC's internal HD, you could get another USB drive and connect it to the TC also (via a powered USB hub) and back up to it. That will be even slower, though.

Time Machine restore from Network Drive

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