Using backups on another computer

I had my MacBook Pro fixed and they replaced the logic board. Unfortunately, it seems that time machine thinks of my computer as a different one. When I go into Time Machine there's nothing there, but on my external drive it still has all the backups from before I had it sent in.
Any way to have my computer use the backups that are already on the drive?

Pico wrote:
I had my MacBook Pro fixed and they replaced the logic board. Unfortunately, it seems that time machine thinks of my computer as a different one. When I go into Time Machine there's nothing there, but on my external drive it still has all the backups from before I had it sent in.
Yes, to TM, it is a different computer. The logic board includes your Ethernet "Mac Address", which is a unique number that TM uses to be sure it knows which Mac is which.
There is a fairly elaborate way to attempt to persuade TM that the existing backups really are for your "new" Mac: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101
It is very easy for the inexperienced user of Terminal (and the not-so-inexperienced as well) to make an error with Terminal, get no error message, and have it not work, so try it at your own risk.
But there is an alternative: hold down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar. The +Enter Time Machine+ option changes to +Browse Other Time Machine Disks.+ That's a bit misleading, but it will take you into the normal TM interface where you can see and restore from the old set of backups.
Your first backup with the new logic board may be a full one -- every file and folder on your system. If TM decides to do that, you cannot prevent it.
So if your TM disk/partition isn't at least 2.5 times the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet may be to just erase it with Disk Utility and let TM start over.

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