Time Machine - Unable to restore/migrate

Hi all,
I have a PowerBook G4 (Titanium 1.0 GHz) running 10.5.x. The time has come to move on... I have been faithfully using Time Machine to back up the PB to my PowerMac G5 which is running OS X 10.5 Server.
I have booted up a brand new MacBook Pro 13" and in the setup screens, I have told it that I want to restore using my TIme Machine backup. I select the drive on the network, provide the credentials and click continue.
In gray under the drive name it says "Connecting..." for like... ever.
The OS X server says the user is connected to the share, and that it is idle.
What gives?? How do I get this to work?
I am only trying to restore data files... Time Machine was not backing up system files or applications.
Need Help.

did you log into the server using the same credentials the backup was made with? Have you verified the credentials used have read access to the backup?
is the new computer connected to the server via ethernet? is it possible to move the ethernet connection closer to the server? Possibly even to the same switch?
If you still have the old computer, you could do a direct migration, but I take it your trying to resolve the issues with the server.

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Time machine unable to restore

After weeks of coping with a 1 1/2 year old hard drive (too soon!) crash, I've decided to do a complete re-install of Mac OS (upgraded from Mt Lion to Mav).
I have two Western Digital My Book Essential external hard drives I back up to. One at work, one at home. I originally formatted them to mac journaled, Case-sensitive, then backed up with Time Machine.
All backups show clearly through Finder.
Post HD crash, I tried to restore via time machine, as well as via migration assistant to my most recent point. The only point that would work was a one year old back-up. After painfully trying everything, I just decided to use this older back up point, and then pull all my newest data (docs, photos, music, etc) over to the old folder.
After a week or so, I just decided to wipe my HD, and upgrade to Mavericks, format my external HDs to non-case sesitive, so just mac journaled format to see if I could get a working system with backed up data.
After testing out my new OS with newly created TM backup, I still can not restore to a previous point.
Perhaps this has to do with my Western Digital HDs? I don't know.
But it is ridiculous!!! There is no reason to use time machine if it does not work. I think mac products are sort of nice, but I've lost all faith in them. I'm no longer going to pay a premium price for a system that is not functional.
If anyone has a fix, would be grateful for your advice.

An update. I never resolved this issue, having gone to the apple store and extensively explained and provide examples of my issue. They said they would refer my issue to their software engineers, but I never heard anything. I was able to dig into my backed up folders and retrieve important data, but I was not able to restore to a previous backup.
I did purchase carbon copy cloner and have stopped using time machine.
Next laptop I buy will likely not be an apple.

Time Machine unable to Restore to internal Hard Drive

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I've formatted my internal drive, and verified it (and it seems to be working perfectly). But I can't get it to show up.
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Reseting the computer fixed the problem. Happily restoring computer now.

Time Machine - Unable to Restore File

Just tried to replace a document using Time Machine and received the following error 'The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access “Client”.' In other words I am unable to retrieve the archived document and replace the 'damaged' document.
I have run 'Repair Disc Permissions' - is there anything else I should try?
This has never happened before.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
PR

It's just started working again after I updated Mavericks.

Unable to boot after Time Machine full system restore!!

I was having some serious slowdowns with my computer. I did multiple RAM and HD hardware tests, everything seemed to be working fine. I had recently deleted a bunch of files in order to free up some HD space, so I thought that may be the culprit. So I did a Time Machine backup and restored the Powerbook to it's original 10.3 software. All was fine. Then I upgraded back to 10.5 and all was fine. Then I did a Time Machine full system restore overnight and got the message "Your restore was successful, you must now restart your computer" (or something to that effect). Now I get the start-up chime and startup screen (apple logo) but then the computer shuts itself down. I have reset the PMU and PRAM to no effect. I have tried booting up in safe made, also no dice. I have tried starting it up with the time machine HD attached - doesn't help. I guess I'll need to hit the genius bar but wanted to ask the friendly discussion forum folks first. thanks in advance.

Hi coldengray
Did you try to start from your System-CD? Hold down C-key during startup, start DiskUtility from the menu and verify/repair disk and permissions there.
If the CD is not available you can also connect your TimeMachine-Disk, select it as startup volume in System Preferences/StartupDisk, restart and then run DiskUtility from folder Applications/Utilities
Good luck P

Time Machine on Mavericks: restore file doesn't work

I've successfully located a file I need to restore from Time Machine backup by doing a Finder search for the filename (something.graffle, an OmniGraffle document), and when 0 items are found, I "Enter Time Machine..." and use the back arrow or click on a date some months ago. This process finds two copies of something.graffle, and I can select these and Copy them, or I can select them and click Restore. Neither, however, works. When I try Copy, then Cancel out of Time Machine, there is nothing to Paste. When I try Restore, the image of the item glides to the present-day folder and is present for a moment in the present-day Finder window after Time Machine closes, but it instantly disappears, and Find once again cannot find it.
My Time Machine backup is on an external disk connected by Firewire.
I found some other threads mentioning a bug with dual displays, so I already tried disconnecting my external displays--it didn't help. Seems to be a different problem.
Any ideas?

I solved this problem, which also appears on this thread: time machine can't restore files
The solution, for me, was to open the folder that I thought probably had the file. I knew it was probably in one of my two ~/Documents/OmniPresence folders, and in fact it was in a sub-sub-folder of OmniPresence, i.e. ~/Documents/OmniPresence/workfiles/stencils/something.graffle. This time doing the search produced 0 items, I entered Time Machine, went back to the earlier date where I'd seen it before but been unable to restore, and again Time Machine showed me two copies of the file. But this time, the files had their proper OmniGraffle document icons, and the context menus showed Restore options that hadn't been present earlier. I used Restore this file to… and successfully brought it into my presentday OmniPresence folder. From there I moved it into the workfiles/ subfolder where it belonged.
I hope this helps others.

Hello I bought my wife a new MacBook Pro, in setting it up for her, I took her Time Machine external drive to migrate onto the new machine but her old MBP not only was on 10.6, it was my old machine which I was still Administrator for. i plugged in the

Hello
I bought my wife a new MacBook Pro, in setting it up for her, I took her Time Machine external drive to migrate onto the new machine but her old MBP not only was on 10.6, it was my old machine which I was still Administrator for.
i plugged in the external drive to start the migration process after entering her name and username from the old machine which gave me the options on transferring the old data over.
I also unchecked the Administrative end that had my info hoping that ONLY her data, files, etc., would be the ones sent over to her new machine which I wanted her to be the ONLY Administrator for. All went like clockwork until the restart.
Normally the screen should show the username and only need the password but both entries were blank, as in ‘Other’ sign in option available only. I entered her name and password, nothing….used her username and password, nothing. Used my old Administrator name and password, NOTHING!
I tried defaulting to factory settings from the Restore feature but it directs me to notify Apple. I tried in Terminal to change the password, nothing. I tried to boot from MY external drive and it doesn’t recognize it. I tried to even use my external drive which actually has the Mavericks upgrade, nothing!
Basically I can only get the startup screen which isn’t accepting the username/password or the Restore feature which doesn’t offer any options helpful!
Please, how do I start from scratch and start over here? Or simply change the Administrator name and password so I can proceed with everything thats already on there? I wish I could even boot from another drive but no luck on anything!

First, on the old machine, make your wife's account an admin one. Log into it and delete yours. Then, update the TM backup. Finally, use Internet recovery mode, ⌘⌥R, erase the HD, and restore the OS. One first boot, follow the steps outlined in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide.

Time Machine won't restore a critical backup - disk space not sufficient error

Using Time Machine Restore Backup says my Macintosh HD has 55 GB available. I need to restore a 50GB Time Machine Backup from an external disk to the Macintosh HD device as the transfer destination of the restore copy it it gives me a message 'This Disk does not have enough space to restore your system'. In fact trying to restore all my many time backups over the past months give the same error even though the backup size is less then my Macintosh HD destination.
So I used the Time Machine software to delete many of my documents in the backup that I want to restore, now it is 30 GB through the Time machine finder, but restoring still gives me the same error. However, time machine made a new backup of my system today of 30 GB but when I go through the backup process using this, there is no error about there not being enough space.
It seems although the finder in Time Machine recognises that file is just 30 GB, in the restore process it doesn't recognise that file has been reduced to 30GB

If you're trying to add a large amount of data all at once, and you get an alert of insufficient space, then from the menu bar, select
 ▹ System Preferences... ▹ Time Machine
If the padlock icon is closed, click it to unlock the settings and authenticate. Turn Time Machine OFF, then back ON and close the preference pane. Restart the computer. Test.

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

Janet.b wrote:
About 3 years old...pretty dated now I guess. Am thinking I may just need to have it upgraded by a Mac tech.
For what the Apple Store's charge you can buy almost buy a new computer.
Just for giggles I brought my old laptop in for a drive upgrade and asked, they wanted $600 for a drive that only cost $120 at the time and it was a slow 5,400 RPM drive. The new Mac's of a similar make were going for $1000.
I did the drive replacement myself, got a faster drive of better quality for $300 instead.
Then another time I asked for a RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, they wanted to charge $400 + $35 for the labor.
The same RAM is on Crucial.com for $90 and all I need is a 00 micro phillips screwdriver.
So you see what's going on here.
I think what you should do, if your out of warranty/AppleCare, is to call up the local PC tech guy who also does Mac's and have them fix you right up.
They can offer more personalized care which you need. Clone your old drive to the new and everything.
With Apple they are overworked at the Genius Bar and just place roadblocks so you buy a new machine instead.
For instance, all new iMac's now have proprietary drive software installed on the hard drives for heat monitoring. So now the only choice a user has is to bring their iMac into a Apple Store for a very expensive drive upgrade, which a person then decides the money is better spent buying a new machine.

How to access root apps folder again in Time Machine after a restore?

I just did a Time Machine full system restore which worked, but now it doesn't look like Time Machine is backing up my root level apps folder. All of my root apps were indeed restored, but if I try to go into Time Machine with my (root) Apps folder open, it switches the folder contents to my user apps instead so I don't have access to the root apps in TM. It doesn't appear to be backing them up at the root level anymore either (nothing in the exclusions that would cause this). Any ideas on what happened here? I have just one admin level account on this machine.

cubytus wrote:
Hi everyone,
I just reformated the MacBook hard drive using Extended HFS+, journaled partition to get rid of the case-sensitiveness, which is incompatible with just ONE of my softwares. As such, TM partition is formatted as Extended HFS+, journaled and case-sensitive.
This mis-match is likely to cause trouble in the future. If you have, for example, two files named "FileA" and "filea" in the same folder on the TM drive, and try to restore them to your case-ignorant HD, TM is going to have a problem. I've never tried it, so I can't tell you whether it will overlay the first one it restores with the second, or crash, or what, but it can't be done.
And you may have some of these without realizing it -- if you ever changed a capital to lower-case, or vice-versa, after a file's initial backup, it's a possibility.
Indeed, I checked directly in the Time Machine tree on the external hard drive with Apple+I keys, and 'cubytus' was not listed in the permissions.
No, TM automatically denies everything to everybody, among other things, in it's backups, to keep us mere mortals from messing with them. The original file permissions are kept separately, and TM should restore them along with the files, as they were.
What you're probably seeing is, the user that you're signed-on as won't have those permissions, once TM restores the files. I'd suggest trying the same procedure as your other, or original user -- see if you get the same message.

HT4889 Apple Store changed hard disc - created user account ("User"). I ran migration assistant / time machine. All files migrated but on "User" I can't open them. Help!

I changed my Seagate 1 Tb hard disc under the Apple Exchange Program.I received the iMac and the Apple Store created a new account on my iMac ("User"). I connected the Time Machine and ran the migration assistant. All files etc. have migrated. I can see the Macintosh HD and my old user account but am not allowed to open them. How can I get back to my old settings etc.?

what is the message that you get when you try to open a file?
1. You can try to change the permissions to see if they will allow you to write to the file(s).
2. Naviagte to your Home folder Macintosh HD-->Users-->Username and press command+i to get info and on the bottom of the screen click on the lock and unlock the security check, remove your current username and then re-add it and next to the minus symbol click and select apply to enclosed folders

My Final Cut Projects folder were missing some files, I went to my time machine backup to restore and it said I don't have permission to access the time machine folder "Final Cut Projects". Why?

My Final Cut Projects folder were missing some files, I went to my time machine backup to restore and it said I don't have permission to access the time machine folder "Final Cut Projects". Why?

Yes, I've done all "the ususal suspects.." repaired permissions, zapped pram, "reintroduced Time Machine to the backup drive by turning it off and on... etc

Time Machine backups do not migrate from iMac to MacBook Pro

I just moved from a iMac G5 to a MacBook Pro. I love Apple's migration tool, but it seems that Time Machine backups do not migrate.
I checked with support, and did a basic amount of searching, and it seems that I need to erase and reformat the backup drive, losing all of my backups.
Can this be true? That's a pretty screwy backup solution.
Is it possible to rename the backup folder from "iMac G5" to "MacBook Pro"?
Is it possible to add a MacBook Pro backup folder to the one already there?
Any help is appreciated.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. It sounds like you successfully migrated, and got everything set up properly on the new Mac.
Now you want TM to just continue backing-up the new Mac to the old Mac's backups?
If so, then no, that's not going to work. TM keeps the backups for each Mac completely separate. This is usually an advantage, so you can back up two or Macs to the same drive without any conflicts.
Plus, the version of OS on your new Intel laptop is very different from the one from your old PPC desktop; a whole different set of drivers, and of course code for Intel vs. PPC.
So TM on the new Mac cannot treat the old backups as if they were from the new Mac. It must start a whole new "sequence" of backups for the new Mac. If there's room on the disk, you can leave the old backups there until you're sure you don't need them, but that presents another problem: when you want to delete them, you can do it only one at a time, via TM, using the procedure in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum. That's rather tedious and time-consuming, so most folks just erase the TM drive and let it start fresh.
If I've misunderstood, please clarify the situation.

Time machine won't restore back to lion

Mountain Lion is causing me big problems. My external firewire 800 hard drives will not stay mounted and my fans are running at full speed after waking from sleep. Restarting fixes these problems until it sleeps again. Sometimes it takes several restarts.
So I am trying to revert back to Lion the day before I foolishly upgraded to ML and Time Machine will not allow me to restore any of my old backup prior to ML. How can I get rid of ML without loosing data and taking up tons of my time?

Time Machine will not allow you to go back to a previous OS version, unless you are running that version. So if you are running Mountain Lion, it will only restore to ML back ups.
Others have done what you want to, if you have a OS X LION install disc/usb. You will have to manually copy over data as you should always back up your system regardless.
Source; Derek Currie https://discussions.apple.com/message/19105493#19105493
"Time Machine does not provide bootable backups. Therefore, this is not the solution.
If you bought Lion, you should be able to re-download it from the Mac App Store. (Sadly, Apple pulled the ability to actually buy Lion off the store). You should be booted to another volume other than the one you will be installing to. You may have to disable the installation on the disk you wish to move back to Lion. I'm not certain, but suspect that trashing the ML System folder would do the job. The Installer will probably notice the missing OS and allow the Lion install. If not, then you'd have to go to the root directory of that volume, make invisible files visible and trash the 'Kernel' files and try again to install Lion.
Ideally you can use the Time Machine backup to restore just about everything else. But you may find everything works fine after the install.
I beta tested 10.8 Mountain Lion and know that it had a couple remaining bugs upon release. That's what updates are for. I expect there will be a rapid release of 10.8.1 update via the Mac App Store. It may well be worth hanging in there with 10.8. It is most definitely an IMPROVEMENT over Lion, whose Finder bugs I absolutely hate. (But that problem may soon be solved with the 10.7.5 update coming soon).
If you look around the net you'll find there are instructions for creating a bootable Lion installer DVD or USB thumb drive as long as you have the Lion Installer on a hard drive. Here are a couple with illustrations:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/21/mac-os-x-lion-clean-install-explained/
http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/lion-clean-install-guide/"

I am getting this error message on my iMac. Time Machine unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the back up folder. Any ideas on how to fix???

i am getting this error message on my iMac. Time Machine unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the back up folder. Any ideas on how to fix???

See Pondini's TM FAQs

Time Machine - Unable to restore/migrate

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