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/"

Similar Messages

Time Machine won't restore file in lion - don't have permission

I can't restore files in my document folder now that I upgraded to Lion. I get an error message to the effect you don't have write permission. I'm god **** admin for god sake.

Well I kept on tring to figure out what was going on and I got further.
The problem is on the TM side. The error is saying I (actually my wife because I was loged in in her accout) doesn't have permission to copy the file from the TM drive. When I did a Get Info she had RW and everyone had Read permissions.
The file is the data file for Quicken Essentials. Now this gets crazy to me. She's the one who does Quicken so it was created by her and placed in her Documents folder where TM backed it up. So if anyone should have access it should be her and she is and Admin.
I loged into my account and traversed the TM drive looking for the file. Once found I could drag n drop it to my desktop once I gave my Admin password. I tried doing the same on her account and I still got the same error message.
There are other files my wife can restore from TM just fine. This has got me very nervous about TM. If it can happen to my wife on some file I'm sure it's happening with me on other files that I just don't know about until the time comes.

After Full System Restore, Time Machine Won't Complete Back Up

I successfully did a full system restore using Time Machine. The Restore worked but Time Machine has not worked since I completed the Restore.
It says "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.." Please help. I don't know what to do. The TM Widget Activity Log is posted below:
Starting standard backup
BStarting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 529.6 MB requested (including padding), 30.58 GB available
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to (null)
Copied 5546 files (34.6 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 526.8 MB requested (including padding), 30.54 GB available
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Akili Nickson’s iMac/2011-03-17-080109.inProgress/25E02D47-EB07-4E59-B2D8-0A9CF26A0042/Macintos h HD/private/var/CheckUpAgent
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Akili Nickson’s iMac/2011-03-17-080109.inProgress/25E02D47-EB07-4E59-B2D8-0A9CF26A0042/Macintos h HD/private/var/CheckUpAgent
Copied 57 files (23.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11

Akili wrote:
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history
There seems to be a problem with that file. See the blue box in #C3 of [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).
Note that the /private folder is normally hidden, so you'll need to click the +Show inisible items+ box.

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.

Time machine won't restore to my new MacBook Pro

Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro is now needing its fourth new keyboard/logic board in one year.
So I bought a new 15" MacBook expecting to easily migrate to it. Migration Assistant did well moving the applications over but failed with my Documents.
I concluded that I would restore my documents using Time Machine backups.
Except that Time Machine won't allow me to see the documents that need to be restored. I did the "Inherit older backups" thing, and there IS a pink time line showing the older machine backups - I just can't access them.
Any thoughts on how to resolve this?

Since you have both machines connected why don't you use Migration Assistant to transfer your Home folder? Or you can simply drag your documents from the old computer's connected hard drive.
I hope you realize that Migration Assistant will not transfer your Home folder if you have a new Home folder with the same name. Instead it will create a whole new Home folder with a different name. Have you checked to see if you have two user folders located in your /Users/ folder?

Time Machine won't recognize back up after I move external drive to Airport

I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?

Adam1076 wrote:
I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?
that's not possible. remote backups are stored differently. directly attached backups are stored directly in a folder on the drive. remote ones are stored inside a sparse bundle. you'll have to start a new backup sequence if you want to do remote backups.

Time Machine won't restore: don't have permission

I am trying to restore a project folder containing website files. It was backed up originally when I was using Leopard and then again after the Snow Leopard upgrade. I need access to the pre-snow leopard files, which are visible in time machine. When I click "restore", however, time machine creates a blank folder and gives me the message: "the operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access [name of file]."
Nothing has changed besides the operating system. The computer and the backup disk are as they have always been. The computer has only one user, so it's not a user conflict. I've reset permissions and restarted. I have tried restoring to several different locations, including the file's original position and the desktop, as well as replacing and keeping both.

Cheryl, How was that Snow Leopard installation performed?
a. Did you simply install SL over Leopard, thus preserving your user data?
b. Did you install SL and create a new user account
c. Did you erase the Macs' HD, install SL, and then Migrate your legacy user account from a Time Machine backup?
Depending on how you perform the upgrade will determine whether you can get at your old data or not. Was there a point after the SL installation that you recall Time Machine popping up a message that the existing backups originated somewhere else but offering you the opportunity to resume current backups to the same set? If so, your legacy user account may ow be inaccessible?
I and others have discovered that once an account has been migrated, both Time Machine and Migration Assistant won't let you recover further data from the old backup set (I intend on filing a Bug Report on this by the way).
However, there is a way around this.
CTRL-Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock and select "Browse Other Time Machine Disks…".
Select your Time Machine backup drive and the 'star field' interface will launch. This approach will allow you to navigate back to the user folder or item you wish to Restore. You will likely be prompted for the username and password of the old account, but you will be able to move the data.
Once the Restore is complete You should be able to now go into this restored folder and change the permissions of the folder or item you are trying to access.
Highlight the file/folder and select Get Info from the File menu.
Click the tiny gold lock icon at the bottom. You will be asked for your current admin username and password. Now click the tiny "+" button on the left. In the resulting window select your current user account and click "Select".
This should have added your current username to the list under Sharing & Permission. Under "Privilege" change "Read only" to "Read & Write". Now, if the item you are dealing with is a folder, then click the tiny Gear icon at the bottom and select "Apply to enclosed items...".
You will be warned that you can't undo this but click OK anyways. When finished close Get Info and you should now have full access to the item in question.
(Make sure that, if it is iLife data you are moving (iPhoto, iTunes, etc), that you have run Software Update and updated your applications. Otherwise, any attempt to import the old data may result in alerts telling that it was created with a newer version.)
Let us know if this resolves your issue. Cheers!

Time Machine won't automatically back up

A little while ago I had a problem with my audio plug ins preventing some of my music programs functioning properly. I couldn't trace the exact file in the library so decided to overwrite my library with a previous version from my time machine disk. This proved to be a big mistake. All that actually happened was that it deleted my library and then would not replace it with my old library.
Anyway, with a bit of playing about I managed to reinstate my library and re-installed any programs that were still causing a problem.
Everything now seems to be ok except time machine. This will not automatically backup any more. I've tried a few things - my computer name had been lost so I renamed that, re-formatted my time machine disc, renamed time machine disk etc. It will back up the internal drive if I manually do it (although seems to be a lot smaller backup than the size of my internal drive used space?) but ignores all scheduled backups. It also will not backup my other external drive which worked fine before. This is not in the exclude list.
Any ideas?

alanhess wrote:
Everything now seems to be ok except time machine. This will not automatically backup any more. I've tried a few things - my computer name had been lost so I renamed that, re-formatted my time machine disc, renamed time machine disk etc. It will back up the internal drive if I manually do it (although seems to be a lot smaller backup than the size of my internal drive used space?) but ignores all scheduled backups. It also will not backup my other external drive which worked fine before. This is not in the exclude list.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
The first backup after erasing the TM disk should be smaller than the data on your internal HD ), because Time Machine omits some items that aren't needed to restore your system. These include most caches, system workfiles, and trash. Usually the difference is very small, but can be fairly large.
As for not backing-up your external disk, and perhaps not doing automatic backups as well, it sounds like the preferences file may be corrupted.
Go to TM Preferences > Change Disk and de-select your TM drive (select "none"), note any exclusions you want in Options, then quit System Preferences.
Delete the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist (in your top-level Library folder, not your home folder.)
Go back to TM Preferences, re-select your TM disk, re-enter any exclusions you want, and try again.

HT201250 Why won't Time Machine won't restore my iphoto library [says there is not enough room on my hard drive.] Any ideas?

I've got 20,000 plus photos on my HD [yes, I know, way tooo many]. I'm trying to clean up by storing them on an external HD, but for several months I've not been able to export iphoto [even geniuses can't figure out why]. So as a work around, I'm trying to export events and albums to external. However, I realized that I didn't export in the original format making the files too small. Now, I just want to restore my iphoto library to the date before I started this process and when I try to restore from Time Machine, it comes up with an error message that I don't have enough room on my HD. Any ideas out there? [The reason I want to restore is because I started to delete some of the iphoto files from my HD to clean it up and I want to get back to the original format for export].

In the simplest sense, archiving a file means making a copy that you never change and never discard. You already know how to do that.
iPhoto has built-in archival features, in the sense that it saves all versions of an image that you've modified. As long as you have adequate backups, you don't necessarily have any reason to archive an iPhoto library. If you want to delete images from the working library but still have access to them in case you change your mind, then you do need to archive those images. I don't have a specific suggestion as to how you should do that. You might post a question in the iPhoto forum.

Time Machine won't work with mountain lion

Since upgrading my MacBook to Mountain Lion the Time Machine back up does not work
The MacBook sees the TM and if I ask it to back up it "prepares the backup" but then after a while nothing happens. The last recorded back up is before the update.
We have an Apple Time Machine on our network and it's network cable enabbled and still works with our MacMini which has also been upgraded.
I have tried to create a new back up and that hasn't worked either.
My MacBook has been rebooted etc but still no success.
How can I get this to work again?

@Brian:
I think I have the same issue
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19083821#19083821
What's your MBP version?
Could you check if you still have a drop in your transmission speed? (as I shown in my thread)
thx

Time Machine Won't Restore

I have a case open with Apple support about this, and it's been escalated to engineering, but it will take til at least Monday before they get back to me.
Running Leopard 10.5.1 on a Macbook Pro 17 Core Duo 2.16ghz
Using a Seagate USB 500G FreeAgent as the backup drive.
Time Machine sees the drive and backs up with no problems.
Something blew up in networking subsystem yesterday (got couldn't allocate buffer size domain:55 errors in Safari and Mail. Had network connectivity, but no networking application would function. Parallels and IChat crash on startup. Entourage and Mail can't connect to servers. Safari wouldn't load any sites, gave me the domain:55 error above. IP address assigned, could renew IP address, could ping any address)
Disk repair revealed mismatch in file and directory counts (off by 2.) Repaired. Problem not fixed. Permissions repaired. No help. Reinstalled Leopard. Network problem solved.
But the real problem is that I can't restore from the Time Machine Backup. Using restore from backup during installation: finds external drive, says Max OS X System Not Found. Using Migration Assistant, doesn't find external drive at all.
Time Machine shows all two weeks of backups, include all system subdirectories, applications, user files, etc. Showing hidden files reveals all UNIX directories seem to be intact.
I can restore individual files or directories from the Time Machine interface. Can't do any type of system restore or migration. I would prefer not having to reinstall all apps and coaxing parallels to work with the restored virtual machines, as I've had problems with that in the past.
Any help would be apprecated.

Well, after more work exploring the backups, it appears that what I thought were complete backups were not. About half my applications, including Stickies, Quicktime and Spaces all were backed up as zero byte files. Also, all the photos in my IPhoto library disappeared. So I can only assume that some core OS files were also corrupted or backed up as zero byte files.
I have to say that Time Machine is a bust. I just plugged in my external drive and let Time Machine do its thing; I didn't make any configuration changes.
I have to look into a third party solution for the time being. ***** to lose some really great photos.

Mac Crash, Time Machine won't restore different osx?

Hey All,
Yesterday my beloved Mac decided to die in the *** after an OSX update, it was running fine before I put in the dreaded update.
I tired everything possible to get the Mac going again to no avail, so ended up having to put in the origional disk (osx 10.5.6), this worked a treat and got the old girl going again, however when I instructed it to use the time machine to restore, it ran for probably about 5hrs then said it couldn't be performed as the time machine was running a different OSX.
Iv tired to restore it going into the desktop, opening time cap and trying to restore from there - I get the same issue.
Also tired to go into the finder, time machine, data, imac_0023dfa.sparse and selected that and got the same issue - OSX
I have no idea what to do next?
Can I update to 10.6.3 without doing all of the inbetween updates (this is what time was running on)
Driving to an apple store, is a 5 day drive or a 6hr flight... so not really an option.
Please help
Thanks in advance for any advice

Since you have both machines connected why don't you use Migration Assistant to transfer your Home folder? Or you can simply drag your documents from the old computer's connected hard drive.
I hope you realize that Migration Assistant will not transfer your Home folder if you have a new Home folder with the same name. Instead it will create a whole new Home folder with a different name. Have you checked to see if you have two user folders located in your /Users/ folder?

Time Machine Won't Open on Mountain Lion

Hi all,
I am currently using time machine to back up a MacBook Air to an external 1TB hard drive.
The drive is partioned into 2 halfs as it backs up my iMac as well.
When I click on the Time Machine app or 'enter time machine', I am not greeted by the 'star wars' page, it just does nothing.
The back ups say 'last back up' and shows the latest back up being only recently, so it appears to have backed up correctly.
When I unplug the hard drive then click on time machine it says cannot find drive, as would be expected.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Stuart.

Please try each of the steps below that you haven't already taken.
Step 1
From the menu bar, select  ▹ System Preferences ▹ Time Machine and make sure TM is ON.
Step 2
If you're backing up to an external hard drive attached to your Mac, open the backup volume in the Finder. You should see a folder with the name "Backups.backupdb". You should not see a file with a name ending in "sparsebundle". If you do see that, the backup was created over a network and can only be used that way.
Step 3
In the Finder, select Go ▹ Go to Folder from the menu bar, copy the text on the line below into the box that opens, and press return:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
Move the selected file to the Desktop, leaving the Finder window open for now.
Relaunch the Finder by selecting  ▹ Force Quit from the menu bar, then selecting Finder and pressing return. Your Finder settings will be lost.
Try again to enter Time Machine. If you still can't, put back the file you moved to the Desktop, replacing the newer one that will have been created in its place.
Otherwise, close the Finder window you opened and delete the file you moved to the Desktop. Recreate your Finder preferences.
Step 4
Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the backup drive in the pane on the left (not any of the volume icons below it.) At the bottom of the window, you should see this:
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
If the partition scheme is anything else, the drive has to be repartitioned (with the loss of all data.)
Step 5
Boot in safe mode by holding down the shift key at the startup chime. Try again to enter Time Machine.
Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Step 6
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Try again to enter Time Machine. Post any messages that appear in the Console window – the text, please, not a screenshot.

Time Machine won't restore a file

I am able to enter Time Machine and navigate (albeit very slowly) to find the file I want to restore.
I am able to select the file and click "restore." It seems to be dragging the file forward on the screen and then it returns me to the desktop, but the file is nowhere to be found.
OSX 10.9.1
Any ideas on how to get a restore to work?

The file should go to its original directory.. have you done a search?
Try restoring manually.. See Q15 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
There are a whole series of specific instructions for specific types of files.
But sometimes the only way to do it is a full restore to a USB drive as alternative location and then pick the file from there..
You can assume what was easy on previous version of OS will be much harder on Mavericks.. The TM changes have not been for the better.

Time Machine won't back up after system restore

I just restored my system after a failure, and now Time Machine won't back up my hard drive. It gets about 40 out of 90 Gigabytes done, and then gives me an error message that just says that there was an error while backing up, and doesn't give any other information. I ran a Verify Disk with Disk Utility, and there is nothing wrong with the backup drive, and there is more than 200 Gigabytes of space left on that drive.
Thank You.

zhoffmanster wrote:
Ok, so here's the thing: I tried backing up again today, and it worked just fine. Before, what would happen is a message would pop saying "an error has occurred during backup" (or something close to that). The point is, the message didn't give any detail.
No, the point is, you seem to have ignored this:
See the Time Machine - Troubleshooting post at the top of this forum.

Time machine won't restore back to lion

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