Time machine : restoring data partition

Greetings,
I am running 10.8.5 on my Macbook pro. I have two hard drives in it - SSD that runs OSX and apps and HDD with data, sound banks, music etc. I am using Time machine to backup both drives on regular basis. Now, I have problem with my HDD, it cannot be repaired by disc utility, which suggests me to format and restore the data. I hear grinding and clicking from HDD, so it is probably failing. When I insert new HDD and format it, how do I set Time machine to restore only that partition? I try to restore it, but it is automatically restoring it into folder "Volumes" on my SSD. How do I set Time machine to restore on new HDD?
I appreciate your input!

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine. You will find several items relevant to your query.

Similar Messages

Time machine restore data from an earlier OS

I have Macbook Air that is now configured with Mountain Lion. I am trying to restore data from a time machine backup taken from the same machine when it was running Snow Leopard, prior to a complete factory reinstall. I choose the files that I want to restore and then restore them. It looks like the files are restoring, but upon completion I cannot find the restored files. I have selected the "Replace" and "Keep Both" options. The kicker is that the SSD on the MBA is showing the available space decrimenting, as if the files are copying.
Can anyone offer any reasons for what I am seeing, or tell me how I can get at the restored files, which are taking up space on the drive but do not appear to be visible anywhere.
Thanks.

Yup: See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Taking hours to calculate time machine restore data

Can anyone help! My hard drive on my Mac Book Pro failed. Luckily it was under warranty so Apple came to rescue and fixed it with a new hard drive. I now have to restore 300 gig worth back onto the new hard drive from time machine. I have gone through the beginnings of this process and now the machine is sitting there and has been for 2 hours now, calculating the size of the Users folder. Does anyone know if this is normal and I should wait for this to finish or should I abandon and start again? Once it has calculated does anyone know how long it will take to restore?
Any help would be appreciated!

How are you connected to your backups?
I'm guessing they're on a Time Capsule? If so, connect to it via Ethernet -- it will be at least 2-3 times faster than WIFI. If you're connected via WIFI, cancel and start over.
Once it begins restoring, there will be a progress bar and a (very rough) estimate.
Are you doing a full restore, starting up from your Install disc? If so, you should be using a Snow Leopard disc. See #14 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 the +Time Machine+ forum).
If not, are you using +Setup Assistant,+ just after starting up, or the +Migration Assistant+ app in your Applications/Utilities folder? If +Migration Assistant,+ that may not be a good idea. See #19 in the FAQ.

Can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

If you want to and it is so large that it has room (350% is a good estimate for TimeMachine), then use a partition(s) to hold system restore images or bootable clones. Or VM images.
Using SSDs most Mac Pro models can easily hold 6 or more storage devices inside, except the nMP cylinder 6,1's; which do need external Thunderbolt and USB3.
System drive / data / scratch / backup data / backups of system / ....
I recommend a couple system backups, especially when faced with dual boot situations as well as an OS that is still undergoing updates and changes.

I used a partitioned HDD for time machine, using a partition already containing other data files. I am now no longer able to view that partition in Finder. Disk Utility shows it in grey and "not mounted". Any suggestions of how to access the files?

I used a partitioned HDD for time machine, using a partition already containing other data files. I am now no longer able to view that partition in Finder. Disk Utility shows it in grey and "not mounted". Any suggestions of how to access the files? Does using time machine mean that that partition is no longer able to be used as it used to be?
HDD is a Toshiba 1TB, partitioned into two 500GB partitions.
OS X version 10.9.2

Yes, sharing a TM disk is a bad idea, and disks are cheap enough so that you don't need to.
Now
Have you tried to repair the disk yet

Will Time Machine restore software problems as well as data?

Hi all -
I've got a 20" aluminum (2007) iMac with Leopard (all updates installed) and Time Machine. I'm having a shutdown problem that I'm trying to resolve. Yesterday, the computer started powering itself off randomly, as if someone pulled the power plug. I ran both the quick and extended Apple Hardware Tests, and both came up clean (no errors). I'm thinking this may be a software problem.
I'd like to reload Leopard to clean up the software. However, I already tried doing a Restore via Time Machine yesterday, and the problem did not go away. I restored to the previous day - prior to when the shut downs started happening.
My question is - If I reload Leopard using the "Restore" feature of Time Machine, does that also copy any problems I had backed up in software to the reloaded system? My guess is yes, since all of my applications remain intact after the Time Machine Restore.
That said, I find Time Machine to be absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and functionality, and think it should be in every single computer user's hands.
At any rate, I'm fearing that I'm going to have to do a clean install and then reinstall all of my software manually to get a truly clean system, then restore data manually via my Time Machine backup. I hope I'm wrong.
Can anybody shed some light? Thanks,
Shelly

it really does back up almost everything, even broken files. Go back to the initial backup and restore from that. If that doesn't fix it, you've got hardware problems.
Crashes are one thing, hangs another, but actual shutdowns where the computer just goes completely off really indicate hardware problems. Software by itself won't do that, even if it's broken.
- gws

Time machine restore destroys the recovery partition

Hi
I wanted to restore my Lion installation with a Time Machine backup. So I restarted the computer with cmd+r and choose Time Machine restore.
After the restore everything works except FileVault. I can't enable it and when I try I get the error message "Can't enable because recovery partition is not available.".
How can I fix this? The restore from Time Machine works perfect and all files are at my computer but I can't use FileVault. And when I try to reboot with cmd+r so will it get the rescue information from the internet instead of the disk. So I'm thinking that the fault is that Time Machine deletes the rescue partition or disables it in the restore.
How can I restore from Time Machine and later use FileVault?

Reinstalling Lion worked. First restore and later reinstall... maybe not as good as advertised but it works.
Pondini I'm evaluating TM as backup software so there was nothing wrong with the installation just I wanted to test to make a restore so the day when it doesn't work I know what can be done.
Sadly I'm not that impressed about Apples Time Machine at the moment.

Time machine restore help

I've recently been having issues with my early 2008 black Macbook. I ran the apple HW diagnostics and determined it is a bad hard drive. I went out and bought a new 500GB SATA HD, and attempted to restore my system using a Time Machine backup. I booted into the Leopard Disc that came with my computer, formatted the drive, and ran the Time machine restore. Everything appeared to go fine (took about 2 hours, no error messages). However, after the machine rebooted and attempted to boot into OSX an error similar to this popped up. http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7792/pict0017lo8.jpg
Any thoughts as to why this is happening? I don't really want to start over with a clean install, that's why I have Time Machine!
Other information:
My computer originally had Leopard, and was upgraded to Snow Leopard.
I have boot camp setup on my mac for Win 7. (I know this isn't backed up or restored as part of a time machine backup, which I'm O.K. with.)
Thanks in advance for all your help.

Any number of possibilities. First, did you prep the drive properly:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Any brand new drive should be setup per the above because they usually are configured for use on PCs rather than Macs.
Second, depends on how you went about the process of restoring your system. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine." Look for an article specifically about performing a full system restore. Also, see User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
What you saw was a kernel panic screen. Panics at startup may be indicative of a hardware problem. You might give this a try:
How to run hardware diagnostics for an Intel Mac
Boot from your original OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. After the chime press and hold down the "D" key until the diagnostic screen appears. Run the extended tests for a minimum of two or three hours. If any error messages appear note them down as you will need to report them to the service tech when you take the computer in for repair.
Some "common" error indicators:
SNS - sensor error
MEM - memory error
HDD - hard disk drive error
MOT - fan error
To assure the problem isn't with your backup you might consider installing OS X by itself. If all is OK, then you can complete the TM restore using Migration Assistant.

Time Machine restore fails to solve airport issue

I have a had a nightmare trying to reconnect my airport to our wireless network. I completed the usual sets (like buying a new Netgear router and creating a new network!) and all the usual PRAM zapping, plist trashing etc. All this in 10.5.6. I then read that there were tonnes of others with the same issues and so i decided to a complete restore using Time Machine to 10.5.5 (prior to my upgrade). I had had no problems at all connecting to the network under the old OS.
On rebooting in 10.5.5, the problem seemed to be resolved only for the connection to drop again. This leads me to the conclusion that I must have a faulty airport card. I spoke top Apple and they put me on to a tech at the local repair shop. This guy said that all they would do is a complete re-install of clean OS as "Time Machine does not restore all the files when it restores you drive. True or false?
My understanding is that my drive would be wiped and my old system would be restored to it. Has Time machine just restore some parts of the systems and left others in place???
I can do a clean install and I assume that I can re-install my apps using migration assistant, but before I do this, I'd like to know why a "time machine restore" (done using the Leopard Install disc) has not fixed my problem....shoudl I just go back and restore from an even older backup...?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Andy

This is most strange, as when I was restoring my old system from TM (to 10.5.5 where I had no problems), TM & the OSX installer was telling me that all the info on my HD would be wiped - clearly not. Since my wireless problem still persists, I can only assume that you are right and that a TM system restore, does not fix all and that I am going to have to do a clean install of system software and then hope that migration assistant will allow me to reinstall all my software...
The other alternative is "archive and Install". Is this better? My drive is partitioned (a system drive and an archive drive) - can I do an "archive and install" on my system drive partition and retain all my software without affecting the data on the other partition (it is backed up on TM of course...).
A

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 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.

Time Machine restore password problem

I had my HDD replaced by Apple. Was running latest Lion OS version before the fault, and had fully backed up with Time Machine. Booting up the iMac with the restored Lion was going well. Had selected restore from time machine. Then i was asked for my password. I know 100% that the password i entered (several times) is correct. There isn't any possibility at all that it is wrong but my iMac will not proceed further saying the password is wrong.
As I can't get past this stage I cannot access anything including the operating system - I can't get to the desktop even without any data. So I cannot get to any Lion recovery partition either. Have tried Lion interent recovery but that simply hasn't worked. Apparently I didn't purchase Lion through my Apple ID - utter rubbish. I've tried every Apple ID that I have used and no records of Lion purchase in any of them - how the **** did I download it and use it for ages then?!!
I bought the iMac originally with Snow Leopard so have that install disk but it seems I can't go back to that.
Going back to the apple store is a real pain the proverbial.
I am happy to wipe the HDD completely and start over, with Snow Leopard then pay (again) for Lion and then copy across the data I need from Time Machine manually and/or thru migration assistant. So here's the main question: How should I do that - wipe the HDD when I have no access to the desktop? I guess I'm going to have to boot up using Cmd C or similar and then type in some code. I have no experience/knowledge of that code so any help will need to be idiot proof please!.

As I had a brand new HDD installed by the Apple store this was the sequence of events (slightly different from the original post due some new info):
1     The external HDD which was the original Time Machine back up was plugged into the firewire port.
2     Booted up (as normal) for the very first time to be met with a fresh installation process just the same as when you buy an entirely new iMac - setting up language etc.
3     During that set up sequence I was asked if I wanted to restore from Time Machine, I selected that option.
4     About 3 hours later, c450GB of data is seemingly successfully loaded from the Time Machine external HDD to the internal, new HDD
5     The only option I now have available on screen is to log in using the same password as had on my original set up (before the internal HDD replacement). The forgot password hint is available, and clearly indicates that I should be able to enter my password to move, but no matter how many times I input the correct password (and, just in case, all other possible password options each with all conceivable varieties of CAPS on and off etc.). Nothing is accepted. No option to go backwards (eg uninstall the restore or anything else), and no ability to get to the desktop.
6     Several expletives later....I decide the only option is cmd+R reboot, internet recovery....and this is the udpate from the original post....
7     I'm in the UK and I try doing internet Lion recovery at about 11pm UK time. Indications are this will take 4+ hours. The trick is, I have now discovered, instead, if based in the UK at least, is to try this at 6am (when most people in the US will be asleep) and it takes about 10 minutes!
8     That brings up a chance to recover the "OS X". Great I think, just enter my Apple ID....error: "This Apple ID did not buy Mountain Lion"...cannot proceed. Mountain Lion? Where was the Lion only option? Doesn't exist seemingly. (Q: has Lion internet recovery been withdrawn? If not how on earth does one get to it?) BTW, I cannot see any partition on the internal HDD with the Lion recovery.
9     However, with the failed internet recovery (inviting me to install Mountain Lion, if only I'd actuall bought that before, but no option to select Lion or buy Mountain Lion there an then!), what I do get is a menu option to "Choose Startup Disk". "Choose the the system disk you want to use to start up your computer". One icon is there...my internal HDD...BUT I see that says "Mac HD OS X 10.6.8" - what? That's Snow Leopard, not Lion. I bought my iMac (from new) with Snow Leopard then upgrade to Lion when that came out. On the original set up (step 2 above) there's nothing to indicate what OS is running. I just assumed that as I had Lion the Apple store would have reinstalled Lion when the swapped by HDD. Likely then this is not the case. V annoying Apple Store (Brent Cross, London!). Idiots.
I guess there's a possibility that my Time Machine restore won't work because it is a Lion based backup.
Not had time to do this next step yet but likely to be my only option before admitting defeat and driving to the store again...internet recovery, get to disk utility from there, wipe the internal HDD and load Snow Leopard from the installation CD I still have (phew). BTW have tried to cmd+C and boot from the Snow Leopard CD. No joy..just ejects. Doesn't want to know!
If you've got this far..thanks for your patience. Thanks even more if you've got any ideas.

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).

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 : restoring data partition

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