Upgrade leopard to snow leopard with preexisiting snow leopard time machine backup

I was using an old desktop Mac that had been upgraded to snow leopard from leopard a few years ago. Disk utility said I needed to repair my hard drive using the installation discs. I didn't have the snow leopard installation disc but still had the leopard installation disc which I used. When the computer re-installed leopard onto my hard drive, it created a partition: one with my hard drive running snow leopard, and then a new one with the space left over, running leopard. I got my replacement snow leopard installation discs and would like to delete the leopard partition, and go back to what I had before with the snow leopard drive. I do have a time machine backup (somewhat incomplete) and am making a copy of the physical snow leopard drive. I cannot access the most recent time machine backup since I'm back to running leopard and the time machine backup was made under snow leopard. I'm not sure how to proceed from here to upgrade to snow leopard. When I try to upgrade to snow leopard, I'm asked which destination drive to use. I don't want to use the snow leopard drive, since it would get deleted. So, would the leopard drive be the answer in this case? And what would happen to the contents of my old snow leopard drive? Would I end up with two partitions, both with snow leopard, but one being current (nothing on it) and the other being my old drive? Would I be able to get rid of the current drive and then use only my old drive? Thanks in advance for any help.

First of all, it's unclear to me why you cannot select the old Snow Leopard partition.
I also think you should have been able to repair hard disk using the leopard CD disk without actually installing leopard OSX by using the Utilities only.
Also, Why is your Time Machine backup incomplete? Is that under Leopard or Snow Leopard?
Now you have two partitions with two different OSX (Leopard and Snow Leopard). Your goal is to get back to Snow Leopard.
I going to assume that the original Snow Leopard partition is inoperable (this is also question?) I would upgrade the Leopard partition to Snow Leopard. Afetrwards, use the Migration Assistant to bring in your data, documents, app, and settings. Once complete, you should be able to see your Time Machine backups. If all is ok then you can delete the original Snow Leopard partition.
This is a somewhat complicated situation, so I am issuing a caveat that is my opinion only. Wait until another expert provides input regarding your situation to determine the best course of action.

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Will upgrading to Mountain Lion from Lion make my Lion Time Machine Backups unusable?

I had a situation where when I upraded to Lion from Snow Leopard, my Time Machine Backups became unusable. It says that the Backups were not compatible and it was really frustrating because I had to delete my backups from Snow Leopard and re-backup from my Mac with the newly installed Lion.
Will this happen if I upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion? Has anyone had trouble from this upgrade to Mountain Lion. Has your Time Machine backups been working fine with the new operating system?
Thanks!!

Will upgrading to Mountain Lion erase all my files? And can't I only backup my home folder from Time Machine anyways? As long as I don't use Migration Assistant to restore the System files.
But yeah, will upgrading to Mountain Lion from Lion erase all my files and accounts?
Thanks!!

Restore with install DVD and Time machine backup that excludes system

Hi, I need restore my PB G4.
I backed up my data using TM but excluding all system files. Is there a possibillity to reinstall the system with the DVD and then rebuild the individual accounts using Time machine?

Yes, you have several options: (In all cases Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is required as previous OS X versions can not work with Time Machine backups.)
*Full Restore Via Migration Assistant & Time Machine*
You can use the installation DVDs that came with your Mac and reinstall Leopard (Mac OS 10.5). During the installation process you will be asked if you would like to Migrate data over from your Time Machine backups. The advantage here is that you start with fresh system software. The disadvantage is that you may lose many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. But this may be only a minor inconvenience to reestablish these. Depending on whether you choose to migrate your applications over as well, you may be required to reinstall any 3rd-party software or standalone Apple programs. Don’t forget to run Software Update once the initial installation is complete to bring your system up to date. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Restore Via Time Machine Only*
Alternatively, you can use the installation DVDs to do a full system restore. Insert the installation DVD. When the welcome window appears, go to the Utilities menu and select “Restore System From Backup…” and choose the drive that your Time Machine backups are on. Then select the date of the backup you would like to restore from. This will completely erase your internal drive and restore your system to a relatively same condition it was in on the date of the backup you choose. (See this article for a list of files that TM does not restore, http://shiftedbits.org/2007/10/31/time-machine-exclusions/) The advantage here is that you retain many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. Additionally, no further installation of 3rd-party software is required. The disadvantage is that BECAUSE you retain many of the personal preferences, settings, and system files that had been present with the previous system, you run the risk of reintroducing problems you experienced with the previous installation, including any issues that necessitated the OS reinstall in the first place. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338)
Hope this helps.

Help! Macbook Air lost association with USB Airport hosted Time Machine Backup

Okay, so my wife's Macbook Air was doing Time Machine backup to USB drive attached to previous generation Airport Extreme...
We bought a brand new Airport router a couple of weeks ago, I plugged it in and everything went smoothly. Plugged in USN drive that attached to older APE router, and it's still visible on the network. However, ever since we got the new router, the existing backups are not associated with the Macbook Air anymore.
Yes, I can start over with a new backup file, but I was hoping to use the existing backup (it takes a while to backup wirelessly, and we lose the whole history if we wanted to recover previous versions of files that were backed up—I can't think of anything we'd need right now, but Murphy's Law will probably apply if I go ahead and erase the old and start new).
I was hoping all I would have to do was drag the old backup file onto the Time Machine icon to re-associate it with this computer, but I can't see any way to tell Time Machine, "hey, here's the backup file you are looking for... it's right here on the same USB drive attached to the new router."
(Also, before anyone says to make sure I have a backup of the backup, I do. The computer is backed up offsite with Backblaze, too.)
Perhaps it will be best to just start from scratch with a new Time Machine backup, that just seems like overkill, since there was nothing wrong or corrupt with the existing Time Machine file, I just switched what router it was attached to. Thanks for any advice/enlightenment.

I guess I have a few comments.
Apple has an opt out.. they do not support Time Machine backups on older Airport Extreme. Apple have always stated it is unreliable and so refused to support it.. only with Gen6 of the AE have they changed to supporting TM backups.
From your point of view it should have worked.. it may indeed still work. But the change of network is significant and it will take some work on your part.
1. I need to know what OS is the MBA running??
2. Moving a disk from one network location to another, I would strongly recommend a full reset of Time Machine on the computer.
See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
3. Pondini in the same reference has some info about inheriting old backups .. slightly different context but it also could help.
see B5 and B6
4. It is also possible to move old backups into a new backup.. but this is then going too far.
I would simply buy a new USB drive.. and keep the old backup drive for a few months until your new one builds up sufficient history to be sure you will not need the old ones.. at that point you can use the old backup drive again after a reformat.
5. To do the new backup, since wireless is indeed a long and burdensome chore to make that crucial first backup, buy a thunderbolt to ethernet adapter.. assuming your MBA is recent enough. Ethernet is so worthwhile having it is required not optional extra. The cost at $35 is one of the cheapest adapters for a very expensive interface..

Error using Seagate Central with Mavericks as a Time Machine backup drive.

I am trying to use a Seagate Central as a backup drive with Mavericks. After a while, I started getting a sparsebundle in use error. Time Machine does not backup to the drive as it keeps asking me to eject the drive, but I can't see it connected. How do I get the drive to start backing up again?

Thanks for the reply, I had done all of the above but that did not help solve the issue.
I finally deleted the sparsebundle using this: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120709152257934
After this, I reconnected the Seagate Central Drive to time machine and the wireless backup worked!
Shrinath

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work. Help?

I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work.
^^ that's the main problem. Here's the full history.
I bought a new 13" i5 MBP, early 2011 edition. I had an old white Macbook 2.14 ghz core2duo on Snow Leopard. I attempted to port over my time machine backup, but encountered problems in that my User was inaccessible from the new computer after the import finished, and I had to go in and change the root password, etc, and for some reason or another, I couldn't install any programs at all from that administrator's account. By "couldn't" I mean I could install them, but upon installation they would never boot. So, I took it to the apple store and did a clean install from the most up to date Lion OSX. Then, I created a brand new admin account, instead of trying to import the old one, and things seemed great. Then, I just imported my old files from the TM backup, but not any system settings, permissions, or user data. Just my Docs, pics, vids, apps, and itunes stuff.
Here's where things get weird again. I imported this stuff under the name "old", but all of these folders have a red negative sign on them, marking them as restricted. So, from my main admin account, I cannot even peruse these folders. Since I didn't import user data, I can't sign in to the "old" account to change permissions. I already tried to change the permissions from system preferences, but that didn't change anything. And now, for whatever reason, of all the apps that were imported then, MS Office is the only set of apps that does not work. When I click on it, it just says there was a problem and asks if I'd like to send a report to apple. I tried reinstalling it to no avail. I'm an English student, so i really need access to Word. Can anyone help? The Apple store is a major detour for me and would like to fix this issue myself.

Most likely you have Office 2004 which are PPC-only applications and will not work in Lion. Upgrade to Office 2011. Other alternatives are:
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.)
Open Office (Office 2007-like suite compatible with OS X.)
NeoOffice (similar to Open Office.)
LibreOffice (a new direction for the Open Office suite.)

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac that was previously running Snow Leopard. Bugt I found that some key applications no longer work, so I would like to go back to snow Leopard. I can't use time machine backups for this. what can I do?

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac. But In was dismayed to find that my Canon scanner software (Canoscan LIDE500F)no longer works. Nor do any of my MS offce applications. I tried to use time machine to reinstall Snow Leopard (my previous operating system), but unfortunately my time machine backups did not include system software. Also, the original system install disk that came with my iMac would not allow me to install Snow Leopard in place of Mountain Lion. I would appreciate it if somebody could tell me how to solve this problem.

The reason your Office doesn't work is because it is PowerPC code. If you will upgrade the 2004 Office to 2011 Office then that will work.
I don't understand how you managed to get your Time Machine backup to not backup the system.
Now if you still what to downgrade you will have to erase the disk and reinstall Snow Leopard. Most likely all of your application and then restore your data from Time Machine.
To me it sounds like it would be easier to upgrade your software and stay with Mountain Lion instead.
Allan

Restore Time Machine backup on fresh Leopard install without disc.

I just got my iMac back from the Apple Store where they fitted a new hard drive with a fresh installation of Leopard. I've got an external drive with a Time Machine backup of my old HD, but don't know how to restore it. Unfortunately I forgot to ask them about it at the store and now realise that I don't have the Leopard install DVD with me, only the Tiger ones that came with the iMac (which obviously don't have the time machine option).
Is there any way to restore my data without the disc? It seems odd that they would install leopard after asking me if I had a time machine backup if I would just have to install it again.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'd love to get my Mac back to normal without having to have my Leopard disc sent to me.

You can use Migration Assistant, or re-create your user accounts from scratch and then selectively retrieve just what you need from your backups.

Can't start with Snow Leopard Time Machine backup in Lion

Hi,
I have seen coverage in MacWorld (http://www.macworld.com/article/161421/2011/07/migrate_time_machine_backup_to_ne w_mac_in_lion.html) of using my Snow Leopard Time Machine backup as the starting point for my Lion TM backup. This saves all my revision history of all my documents and makes them available in Lion. However, when I follow the steps given in the MacWorld article, I don't get the same set of dialog boxes and am never given the option to use a previous disk.
Any hints to getting this to work would be much appreciated.
-Eric

A whole lot about 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.
Pondini's Time Machine FAQ

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Mach

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Machine)?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2986

When attempting to upgrade my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I receive the message "This disk is used for Time Machine Backups" when I try to select the lone available hard drive.

When attempting to upgrade my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I receive the message "This disk is used for Time Machine Backups" when I try to select the lone available hard drive. I have ensured that Time Machine is turned off. Upon some Google research, some who reported this problem were told to delete the folder backup.backupdb, but I do not have this folder on my Mac. Any suggestions?

The folder would be at the root of your hard drive. Double-click Macintosh HD and look there.
If it isn’t there, I’m not sure what it is seeing.

Can I restore my system after replacing my hard drive with the original leopard discs, then use my time machine backup (with Snow Leopard) to finish the restore?

I am replacing my original 100gb hard drive for a 500gb. I am currently running OS X.6.7. I understand the process of how to install the new drive and restore the system from the disc. What I am unsure of is whether I need the Snow Leopard disc or can I use the original Leopard discs and then plug in my time machine backup to complete the restore?

How do I restore my entire system?.
or, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your current system to an external HD, replace the HD, then clone the clone back to the new drive.

I want to use my time machine backup to go back to Snow Leopard

I can't live without having my great old golf game (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003) readily available, and playable, which I always had on my iMac with Snow Leopard. Since upgrading to Mavericks - and using Parallels with Mac OS X 10.6 Server - I am told there's a color/display problem (something about 16-bit color) and I can't get the game to play even though it's the same computer, only upgraded to Mavericks. Parallels says it's an Apple (Mac OS X Server 10.6) problem but from what I can see the server version of this OS is exactly the same as the non-server version - at least insofar as the display/color/graphics is concerned - and Parallels either doesn't want to help (with an appropriate graphics controller) or can't.... so I'm left with having to go back to Snow Leopard from Mavericks. What a huge disappointment! Can I use - and how do I do it - my Time Machine backup of my Snow Leopard OS, apps, documents, iTunes, etc. to wipe out Mavericks?

Yes, the machine came with Snow Leopard but not sure where the install disc(s) are. Perhaps they got lost in the shuffle as we moved a few months ago. I do have a Snow Leopard install disc - can I use that and if so, is there a different way to do the install than if I was using the original install discs that came with the computer? Maybe I will jsut have to try it and see what comes up....
But for the computer's inability to play the game, I would have stayed with Mavericks. Now I'm installing a trial version of VMware Fusion but probably the results will be the same as for Parallels. I'll report back in a few minutes!

How do I reinstall Lion after having to revert to previous Time Machine Backup of Snow Leopard?

After upgrading to Lion, had to revert to a Snow Leopard Time Machine backup in order to transition my Quicken data to a newer version of Quicken compatible with Lion. Now not sure how to get back my upgrade. Command-R during restart does not work, I'm sure because system is now running Snow Leopard. App Store does not show my purchase. Don't want to pay for Lion again. Don't want to restore Lion Time Machine Backup as I will lose my new Quicken Essentials version and data file.

If you are running Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later open App Store and sign in with the same Apple ID you used to purchase Lion. Click on Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should see an active Install button to the right of your original Lion purchase entry.

Issue installing Snow Leopard thru the Time Machine backup.

Might be a beginners Q, but I will ask because it's not being solved somehow.
I've tried installing the 10.6 Snow Leopard a few times but am confused. First time I installed without restoring the whole Mac HD from a backup few days ago (which I want to do because it is having trouble with my current Mac HD settings. I did this for the 2nd attempt)
When I did this, though I probably had every file there, I had major problems with my permissions(some files don't let me access says I have no permission) Also it was like the whole setting I had in 10.5.8 was gone.... What I thought is if I did a upgrade, everything will stay the same and all that will happen is it will become 10.6 snow leopard.
So next I restarted with inserting SL disk, and restarted the computer to install the SL and also restore my system from few days ago from time machine backup. This started and it did the restoration, and when everything is done, it is back to my 10.5.8 setting I want....but no 10.6 upgrade done(ie still 10.5.8) I am so confused. I did all this with my snow leopard disk but no upgrade happened!!
Am I missing some step? If someone can point out something that will be great.
Thank you,
n

Glenn Carter wrote:
First, what OS version were you running before you attempted the first restore? Approximately, what was the date and time of the last Time Machine backup before you attempted the first restore? That is the backup snapshot you want to aim for if you attempt another restore. However...
...have you permitted Time Machine to resume backups since the first restore attempt? If "No", then good. Do the following:
a. Wipe the drive again.
b. Install SL from the DVD (Do Not perform a "Restore..."), just a simple install of SL.
c. At the end, when given the opportunity to migrate your user accounts & apps from your Time Machine backup do it. If the most recent TM backups contained your most up-to-date user account, then it should migrate the most recent data & apps.
d. Then use Software Update to bring the system up-to-date.
If, however, you have permitted Time Machine to resume backups since your first restore attempt (described in your original post) then the user account you are after is no longer available for migration. You will need to do the following:
a. Using the SL DVD, perform a "Restore System form Backup...". Make sure you go back and pick the correct date and time that represented your user account before you performed the first restore (described in your original post). It should bring your system back to what it was before but only if you choose the correct date and time.
Any further questions?
Glenn Carter wrote:
First, what OS version were you running before you attempted the first restore? Approximately, what was the date and time of the last Time Machine backup before you attempted the first restore? That is the backup snapshot you want to aim for if you attempt another restore. However...
...have you permitted Time Machine to resume backups since the first restore attempt? If "No", then good. Do the following:
a. Wipe the drive again.
b. Install SL from the DVD (Do Not perform a "Restore..."), just a simple install of SL.
c. At the end, when given the opportunity to migrate your user accounts & apps from your Time Machine backup do it. If the most recent TM backups contained your most up-to-date user account, then it should migrate the most recent data & apps.
d. Then use Software Update to bring the system up-to-date.
If, however, you have permitted Time Machine to resume backups since your first restore attempt (described in your original post) then the user account you are after is no longer available for migration. You will need to do the following:
a. Using the SL DVD, perform a "Restore System form Backup...". Make sure you go back and pick the correct date and time that represented your user account before you performed the first restore (described in your original post). It should bring your system back to what it was before but only if you choose the correct date and time.
Any further questions?
<<<<First, what OS version were you running before you attempted the first restore?
It was 10.5.8
And the rest it was confusing and before I read your post I have gone to the apple store late afternoon today.
I explained the above and I was suspecting the permissions deal was causing the problem. What the mac guy did was went to some option to repair my user account permissions and everything worked out!!
When the guy did this I had the 10.6 system with lotta files having permission problems and also lotta small settings gone. But when repairing the user account permissions, all the settings came back and the os was 10.6!
Bottom line I think I screwed up account settings bad, and that was causing the problem.
thanks again glenn for all your help. If all goes wrong again, I will definitely follow some of the advice you mentioned here(^^)
cheers,
n

Upgrade leopard to snow leopard with preexisiting snow leopard time machine backup

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