Using Setup Assistant to Restore Time Machine backup

I have a Time Machine backup in a LaCie portable hard drive and I'm trying to use the Setup Assistant (after the purple flying welcome screen in space) to restore my user account, applications, settings etc.
After I select language, keyboard option, and to transfer information 'From a Time Machine backup', it asks me to select the device, which I do. And while it is on the screen that lets me check off what I want to transfer (Applications, Settings, etc.), on the right hand side it says 'Calculating' beside all the items except for 'Network and Settings'. And it says 'Calculating' for a long time.
When I try to click transfer, nothing happens.
When I just let it calculate....it eventually goes gray and then starts the whole purple flying welcome screen AGAIN! I've tried many times, and it ALWAYS bring me back to the flying welcome screen.
Does anyone know what I should do?

schn wrote:
When I just let it calculate....it eventually goes gray and then starts the whole purple flying welcome screen AGAIN! I've tried many times, and it ALWAYS bring me back to the flying welcome screen.
That sounds like the backups are corrupted.
Why are you doing this? Are you moving to a new Mac? If so, what kind and age of Mac is each?
Or were you having trouble with your system or internal HD? If so, what?

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Mac Mini late 2012 Failed to Restore Time Machine Backup

Try to restore time machine backup to my mac mini. I have made backup right after I got the machine from apple. Now due to some reason I am trying to restore it but failing again and again. Error is something like this:
I have erase disk as default which is required for intel based model but still it didn't work. Please help me out.
Further I have also tried installing fresh 10.8 OSX by making bootable usb. It also didn't work. A question mark appears right after I select USB Bootable Drive at start.
Thanks

Yes same. When I try booting MBP with same usb it goes to recovery menu, (one which comes when you press Cmd+R) I think my MBP is running mavricks thats why it dont go to 10.8 setup. Further when I select same usb in mac mini it shows following screen.
Content of USB are:

Restoring Time Machine backup to a drive in a "Voyager Dock"

Restoring Time Machine backup to a drive in a "Voyager Dock"
I would like to restore a Time Machine volume to a hard drive not installed in the computer it has backed up.
I have an iMac 24” with a failing drive. It will eventually need to be replaced.
I have my Time Machine back up for this computer in a Voyager Docking station.
I would like to have Time Machine “restore” the iMac’s data to a drive in another Voyager Dock running from a computer other than the iMac involved.
What I hope to do is bring the “restored” drive and the iMac to my Mac service provider and just have them swap the old drive for the new.
How do I get Time Machine to do this?

So, You're saying I can do this from a different computer with its own Time Machine?
In other words, I have my Time Machinedrive from the dead iMac and a fresh, formatted drive both hooked up to an unrelated computer with its own Time Machine.
If I enter Time Machine on that computer won't it show me the data it backs up for that computer only?
Will Time Machine know that there are two Time Machine backups (the one from the iMac and the one from the new host machine), and allow me to select the one from the iMac?

Can I still use my "old" Mac after restoring Time Machine backup to a new Mac?

Hi guys.
Will I still be able to use my old Macbook Pro 2008 (Leopard) after restoring his latest Time Machine backup on a new Macbook Pro 2012 (Lion)?
Using Setup Assistant and transfering data using Time Machine creats the same Account on the new machine that was on the old one. I just don't know how the old machine will react towards his clone. I don't want to make a mess...
Please let me know.
Thanks

It should work if the drive is connected directly to your Mac. That is not the same as saying that it will work.
Since Mountain Lion was just released, it might make sense to hold on a few weeks and watch the forums for new and unforeseen issues before you dive in.

Migration assistant crashes when restoring time machine backup from mountain lion

Hi
I installed a new HDD in my MacBook Pro Mid 2009, installed the original OS again and tried to import using the Setup/Migration Assistant. It told me that since the time machine backup is newer, this can't be done. So I first upgraded to Mountain Lion (suspecting that I can install my SnowLeopard TM-backup there) and tried the same. The migration assistant started, found the image (on Tiime Capsule) and started to calculate the items that need to be transferred. After 17hours, I interrupted it.
Next thing was to upgrade the old HDD with mountain lion, create a fresh TM backup of this on an external USB drive and try the same. It finds the image, identifies the files (about 420GB), I can see the users, all fine. When I hit Next, it starts to calculatate of locate the files. I assumed that my drives were not the fastest ones so I did expect it to take a while. This time I interrupted it after 34hours as it was still giving me the "progress" bar.
For all I know, I have a TM-Backup of Mountaion Lion and a freshly installed Mountain Lion and I am using the Apple software for transfer - perfect world, no?
Any ideas?
Thanks
patPfe

The migration assistant or the original backup?
I tried WiFi, Ethernet and on the second attempt with a fresh backup on a USB drive.

Restoring Time Machine Backup on new SSD

Using STOCK HDD 500GB 5400RPM, Have a Time Machine backup on an external Seagate USB 3.0 drive, about 140GB used on my disk, if I restore to a 240GB SSD will it work smoothly or will there be problems due to the lower capacity on the 240GB SSD?

Andyl1980 wrote:
I am wondering if restoring the time machine backup that i currently have on to the new SSD after i have installed it by holding down the OPTION key at restart and selecting RESTORE FROM TIME MACHINE....
This is the best option if you want to keep everything you had on your old hard drive.
Another option you have is to reinstall OS X through OS X Recovery (hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up) and then, restore the backup during Setup Assistant, so you can choose what you want to restore. This may give you better performance, as OS X will be cleaner

Migration Assistant from a Time Machine backup

I have a 2009 MacBook Pro. I recently had the hard drive replaced, and now I want to use Migration Assistant to restore settings and files from a Time Machine backup. The backup was done to a hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme. I am attempting to restore with the drive directly connected via USB. Migration Assistant does not recognize the backup as a source for the migration.
This is what the backup disk looks like:
If I mount the backup I see this:
I have the drive connected and the backup mounted, so neither is recognized for the migration.
MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.1

Try using Setup Assistant.
Setup Assistant – How to re-run

Restoring Time Machine backup from Time Capsule. Very slow times solved

For me at least . .
Like many people it seems, I have had enormous problems trying to restore data using Time Machine on a Time Capsule. The data had been backed up fine. The problem was the time for restore which initially was projected at 125 hours for 235GB. Reality suggested that (after 24 hours) this estimate was going to be about right and clearly unacceptable.
I cancelled the backup and read as much as I could across bulleting boards.
The main impression was of a howl of frustration from the many people who had experienced the same problem.
The collected actions below were assembled from many threads and ultimately ended in success. I hope they help.
My initial setup was as follows:
PowerMac G5 Power PC (2005) with 8GB DDR SDRAM (1000BaseT Ethernet connector). Mac OSX 10.5.8
1TB Time Capsule on Ethernet network via a 100BaseT Hub.
I was restoring to a 1TB USB 2.0 Seagate External Desktop Drive (ST3100005EXD101-RK) attached via a USB Hub to the G5.
Having read some threads, I did all of the following:
• I brought the TC into my home office and connected it directly to the Ethernet Port of the G5 to allow the most direct connection from TC to G5
• As suggested in one thread, I replaced the Cat5 ethernet cable I was using with a Cat5e cable (Cat6 is better) to allow 1000BaseT connection to the G5.
• I turned off Time Machine backups and MobileMe Sync.
• I terminated all unnecessary applications the computer
I restarted the restore and the result was the same.
I read more widely and then did the following:
• I reformatted the Seagate target drive using GUID and Mac OS Extended (Journaled). (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility>choose top level of target drive>Partition>choose number of partitions under Volume Scheme (1 for me)>Options (button under partition window)>GUID Partition Table>Apply and wait quite a while. I had originally had it as Apple Partition Map and GUID was recommended on one particular thread.
• I plugged the target USB drive directly into the USB port on the front of the G5 to eliminate the hub as a potential cause of the slow data transfer.
• Readings suggested that Spotlight might be trying to index one or both of the TC and the target drive. To prevent this the author suggested adding the TC unit and the target drive to the Privacy tab of Spotlight (System Preferences>Spotlight>Privacy. Click + at bottom of window and navigate to target drive/s to add). Activity monitor showed as much data being sent as received so this seemed a likely contributor to the problem. I added both drives as described.
• Somewhere it was mentioned that IPv6 might be causing the problem. I turned it off (System Settings>Network>Built-In Ethernet>Advanced (bottom right of window)>choose “Off” in Configure IPv6 drop box.
• I unplugged the Internet connection from the TC to ensure no chance of this being a factor.
• My G5 doesn’t have an Airport but if you do you should also turn this off. You want to be quite certain that there are no connections that either the computer or the airport can channel data through other than the Ethernet cable.
• I don’t have anti virus software but this should also be turned off as it seems this was slowing down data transfer for many people.
• I shut down the G5, the USB target drive and the TC and restarted them all. After start up, I once again shut down all unnecessary programmes.
I restarted the Restore and, after the customary long wait as it added up all the files to transfer, it announced that the restore would take 4 hours (as opposed to the five days it had suggested previously).
Activity Monitor now shows data transfer rates of 17mb – 18mb per second and it looks like 4 hours is going to be about right. It also shows large amounts of data being received but now with negligible amounts being sent.
I’m afraid I don’t know which of the above is the bit that solved the problem. It could be a combination but I believe that if you do all the above, your restores / backups will all go at an acceptable speed.
A last note to thank all those individuals whose wise words I scoured for these instructions. I hope their collected suggestions are of some use to others.

The migration assistant or the original backup?
I tried WiFi, Ethernet and on the second attempt with a fresh backup on a USB drive.

How do i reformat imac hard drive and restore time machine backup?

How do I reformat my iMac internal hard drive and restore from a Time Machine backup?
I have an iMac 20" Mid 2007 with a problematic hard drive.
IntelCore 2 Duo, Processor speed 2 Ghz
800 Mhz Bus speed
4 GB RAM
250 GB Western Digital Hard Drive
10.6.3
Was getting a question mark upon booting up, so I booted from a 10.6.3 Snow Leopard CD and ran disk utility. Repair disk was interrupted with an error message. 'Disk utility can't repair disk. Backup files, reformat disk and restore backed up files.'
1. Should I select Erase, Mac OS Extended Journaled, Erase?
2. If I do this, won't I lose my networkability, and therefore lose access to Time Machine backups?
3. If it were you, would you go ahead and replace the hard drive? Not sure I should trust this hard drive!
4. If I need to replace the hard drive, can you send instructions?
Thanks!

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
If you have your Time Machine backup drive connected, then you can use Setup Assistant to migrate your Home folder, application support files, and third-party applications and system preference files. I recommend doing this via the Setup Assistant when the option appears.

Restore Time machine backup from a stolen computer to a different Mac Pro

*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
D. Copy and paste the entire file structure to a directory someplace and pull off the data as I need it?
*End result: I want my external hard disk wiped ASAP, and in the meantime I want my data files preserved.*
The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

lhbilly wrote:
*My Mac Book Pro was stolen.* It had some Time Machine backups, but Time Machine had stopped working about 6 months before it was stolen. I had stopped using the USB drive since TM would never complete. (2 issues)
1. When I plugged in this USB backup disk to the Mac Pro just now, it asked me whether to use Time Machine with it. It told it no, ask me later so I could browse it first.
2. It looks like the old problem with Time Machine not backing up the stolen laptop shows up as a file called "2008-09-22.204132.inProgress". I am hoping that the backups previous to that one are okay. So far, browsing the files appears to me that my data is intact but perhaps spread across 40 folders.
So now, what should I do to retrieve the data I want?
start Migration Assistant located in /Application/Utilies. it has an option to migrate your data and applications from a TM backup. migrate what you want. note that users will be migrated to new users so to access your old home directory you'll have to log out and log in as the migrated user.
A. Copy the data files and pictures manually without Time Machine? How do I know I will get the latest versions?
B. Use Time Machine with this disk and somehow ask TM to restore to a different machine? (Is that even possible?) (Will it merge the files into my user folders?)
C. Use Migration Assistant?
D. Copy and paste the entire file structure to a directory someplace and pull off the data as I need it?
*End result: I want my external hard disk wiped ASAP, and in the meantime I want my data files preserved.*
The old MacBook Pro definitely did not have Snow Leopard but the MacPro does to which I want to copy the data. It probably had Leopard. But honestly my user data is not necessary, just primarily the data, pictures, DVD projects, etc.
As a side note: My old laptop and my MacPro used the same username and password.

Restoring time machine backup stuck at end

Hello!
I recently suffered a random filesystem failure and had to reinstall the OS. I was running 10.7, in fact, I turned on my MBP to install 10.7.1.
After a lengthy download, the installer prompted me to restore from a Time Machine backup, which I'm keeping since my last hardware HD failure. I chose to restore, and the installer detected my Time Capsule, loaded the backup, and started restoring.
I left it overnight and, come the following morning, the restore hadn't finished yet. Again, I left it while I was at work, and came back 8 hours later to find the screen in the exact same way I left it in the morning.
After some tests trying to restore the backup (including a failed back-to-Snow Leopard attempted recovery, couldn't connect to my TC), I figured I would reinstall Lion from scratch and use Console.app to check the progress using the system log when restoring using Migration Assistant.
My first surprise was when I tried to run Migration Assistant using the root user, which made Migration Assistant crash, so I had to create a second administrator user in order to restore my original administrator account.
After leaving it run its course, I started noticing that the Migration Assistant was trying to restart opendirectoryd, and that it was failing to start, citing error 71 "profile could not be found" (or opened, instead of found, I really don't remember and don't have the log here with me).
I then went into the terminal to check if the restored data was on disk, which it was, so, after a couple of attempts of launchd to restart opendirectoryd, I pulled the plug and shut the machine down cold (no shutdown process, just held the power button).
When the computer started up again (I have verbose boot mode on), it stalled at macx_swapon (again, or something like that, I don't remember), and didn't move in the whole hour and a half I let it sit there.
I tried booting single user mode, but the only thing I got to do was check if the restored data was there (which it was), and try to create my user (which I couldn't).
I've had success restoring backups from that Time Capsule but for another Mac.
Is there any way I can restore my computer back to the exact state of the Time Machine backup? FWIW, the TM backup is a data-only backup (i.e. doesn't have the OS with it), so a disk clone is not an option.
I really would like to avoid going the "fake manual restore" option of creating the same user, moving the files manually and so on, it's a PITA
Thanks in advance,
Nico

Sorry, can'thelp. But:
I trust TM only for rescuing individual files. I tried a full restoration of my Lion system, as a test, and everything was restored and seemed OK except half my Mail messages were missing. A few months ago, on OS 10.5.8, TM suddenly told me that it had deleted some files. The files deleted were all from Jan. 2010 to four weeks before! I know that it does this if the TM disc is getting full, but I had not created any large files in the preceding few hours. Also, the TM disc had loads of space left, yet when the message came, TM's GetInfo showed the disc nearly full!. I had to erase the disc and start again.
I don't find TM reliable. I make my backups in the form of bootable clones, scheduled every day in Carbon Copy Cloner.

How to restore time machine backup without disturbing already installed app

Hi!
My school recently reconfigured/reformatted my macbook and install the school image. Now it is filled with applications that the school help us installed. Now how do i restore the backup that my time machine backups last time? Migration assistant or what? I did not change my mac, it is just that my hard disk got reconfigured. How do i restore backup without disturbing the apps my school installs?
Please help thanks!
ALa.

alazahee wrote:
I did not change my mac, it is just that my hard disk got reconfigured.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is your user account still there?
If not, and if you have either Time Machine backups or a "clone" as backups, yes, use Migration Assistant. See [Using Migration Assistant|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Migrate.html]. Note that you must be logged-on with a user account that's named differently from any of the accounts you want to transfer, or else be prepared to rename the duplicate.
If your backups aren't either Time Machine backups or a "clone," you'll have to drag and drop or restore using the app that made them.

Restore Time Machine backup to newly-formatted Macintosh HD

I recently had to erase and re-format my internal start-up drive ("Macintosh HD," formatted GUID Partition Table) while troubleshooting. Turned out it was a failed main logic board, display and display LED backligh, so it was in the Apple Store for 2-3 weeks (long story). I have my Time Machine backups on an external 2TB USB drive, which has its own system, and is bootable. The newest Time Machine backup I have is from 11/13/11, but I thought I'd be safe and do a belt and braces backup, so I used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup Macintosh HD to a disk image. Somehow, I royally screwed it up, and I have THREE CCCloner backups on my 2TB drive (as well as the Time Machine backups). The three CCCloner backups are:
2011-10-26 (October 26) 15-52-21, total 14.18 GB (no System or Users folders)
2011-11-13 (November 13) 21-47-17, total 16.86 GB (System folder = 136.1 MB; Users folder = 1.54 GB)
2011-11-20 (November 20) 18-58-00, total 12.84 GB (System folder = 27.6 MB; Users folder = 1.05 GB)
It would seem I somehow invoked an incremental backup in CCCloner, and I do manual Time Machine backups.
The problem here is two-fold:
1. Between 11/13/11 (last Time Machine backup) and 11/20/11 (last CCCloner backup), I did a LOT of work, that I don't want to lose, but I don't know how to reconcile the three CCCloner backups. I've been in communication with the developer of CCC, but apparently he's taken the weekend off, and we have not yet worked out a way to cleanly reconcile the three CCCloner backups, which is what I would MOST like to do, as it contains the whole week's work between 11/13/11 and 11/20/11.
2. When I erased and reformatted my startup Macintosh HD, I, of course, severed any link between it and the Time Machine backups on the 2TB USB drive.
I suppose the quick and dirty way to get back to my Macintosh HD status is to do the following (found in an Apple Support Archived document):
"Once the drive has been formatted, quit Disk Utility to return to the installer. Go back to the "Utilities" menu again, and choose "Restore From a Time Machine Backup." Connect your Time Machine backup drive, and allow it to be scanned for valid backups. Choose your latest backup from the list provided, choose the destination for the restoration (the newly formatted "Macintosh HD"), then let it do its thing."
Then cherry-pick the new-to-11/20/11 items out of the CCCloner folders. Not an elegant solution, but I can't think of any other. I don't mind reformatting the Macintosh HD again, but then having to pick through the CCCloner dustbin is a big PITA
Anyone have any ideas?
Bart

<< Are the backups in a separate partition? If not, that may be a problem.
How about the CCC backups? >>
Nope to both.
<< That doesn't make sense. A CCC clone should contain the most recent version of everything (unless you omitted things). Where are you getting those sizes? >>
Individual folder "Get infos."
<< Yes, that's how you do a full system restore from your Time Machine backups. >>
Which I did last night, needing to move on with a number of projects.
<< You should be able to use the Finder to find files on the CCC backup from your home folder with Last Modified Dates since 11/13 (or, perhaps better, the free Find Any File app, which will let you pick any folder), and copy them. >>
<< May I ask why, with an iMac, you're doing all your backups manually, rather than letting at least some of them, especially Time Machine, run automatically? >>
The discussion below with Mike Bombich, of CCC, to which I replied just a couple minutes ago, may help explain some things (it will NOT explain my stupidity -- my only excuse is that I was pressed for time after a long and pointless search in all the wrong places for a very severe problem I was having, as you'll see). Why I didn't do a Time Machine backup just before I took my iMac in for service is a question I can only answer by saying "Duhhhh..."
Email from Mike Bombich and my reply between dotted lines
December 3, 2011 8:04:33 PM EST
Hi Bart:
<blockquote>Choosing the "2TB" drive as the "source" in CCCloner would give me the actual, bootable 2TB's system, which has few, if any, of the permissions, settings, etc. that were part of the the original Macintosh HD System files, which is what I'm trying to recover.</blockquote>
Unless you backed up another system to the 2TB volume since November 20, then that volume definitely has everything from your Macintosh HD as of Nov 20. You ran this task at that time:
2011-11-20 18:57:58 -0500
Task: Copying selected files (-psn_0_106522)
Source: Macintosh HD
Mount point: /
Destination: 2TB
Destination path: /Volumes/2TB
Settings
Archive deleted items, owner: bartonbrown
Archive modified items
Do not automatically prune archives
Which means that everything from your Macintosh HD volume was copied to the 2TB volume, and anything that was already on the 2TB volume was moved aside to the _CCC Archives folder. With the exception of the presence of the _CCC Archives folder, the 2TB volume was an *exact* replica of your Macintosh HD volume when that backup task finished on Nov 20.
I think this actually means that the restore process should be really easy. CCC won't copy the contents of the _CCC Archives folder (unless you choose it as a source folder explicitly), so if you choose the 2TB volume as the source and Macintosh HD as the destination, your Macintosh HD volume should be back to the state it was in on Nov 20. I don't see any need to exclude anything from the restore -- anything that wasn't on the Macintosh HD volume was moved to the _CCC Archives folder.
As an aside, you aren't going to find the bulk of your (most recent) Macintosh HD items in the _CCC Archives folder, that folder contains items that were on the 2TB volume when you started that backup task (which means there probably are some pretty important items in the _CCC Archives/2011-11-20 (November 20) 18-58-00 folder). You will find some items from Macintosh HD in there, but they're older versions of files from previous backups, and items that you have since deleted from Macintosh HD.
<blockquote>is there any way to back up onto an already bootable drive with CCCloner and STILL be able to choose the INDIVIDUAL CCC backup I want to restore the Macintosh HD drive.</blockquote>
Yes:
1. Create a new folder at the root level of the destination volume (e.g. "Macintosh HD 12-03-11")
2. Choose "Macintosh HD" from the Source menu
3. Choose "Choose a folder..." from the Destination menu and select the new folder that you created on the destination
When you want to restore from that, you'd boot from the 2TB volume, then in CCC choose "Choose a folder" from the Source menu and select that folder as the source.
You could also choose the "Create a new disk image" option, but I personally prefer backing up to a folder if the destination volume is formatted as HFS+.
Lastly, one thing to keep in mind with either of these solutions is that subsequent backups directly to the 2TB volume (with default settings) will cause the unique backup folder on the destination to be archived. You can avoid that by using CCC's "Protect root-level items on the destination" option. That's the setup I alluded to earlier, in the "I want to back up my startup disk and a data volume to the same backup disk" article.
Mike
To which I replied:
December 4, 2011 1:13:45 PM EST
Hi Mike --
"Unless you backed up another system to the 2TB volume since November 20, then that volume definitely has everything from your Macintosh HD as of Nov 20 ...and anything that was already on the 2TB volume was moved aside to the _CCC Archives folder. With the exception of the presence of the _CCC Archives folder, the 2TB volume was an *exact* replica of your Macintosh HD volume when that backup task finished on Nov 20.
Oddly enough, it wasn't: for one example, the Time Machine backups, which were NEVER on the Macintosh HD volume, are still on the 2TB backup volume, untouched, and so are literally thousands of files and folders I had backed up directly to the 2TB backup volume -- and thousands more I'm pretty sure weren't -- that DIDN'T end up in the _CCC Archives folder, but at the root level of the 2TB volume.
I wish I'd done a window grab of the 2TB backup volume's window before I did my 11/20/11 backup, and before I restored Macintosh HD from Time Machine, but I was so caught up in testing -- 60 hours worth, and all to no purpose -- for what a senior advisor fromr a company whose name is associated with the pomaceous fruit of the species M. domestica (genus Malus, family Rosaceae) was positive was a problem with third-party memory, just before we finally set up the FOURTH Malus domestica store appointment and I had to bundle the iMac up and drag it 40 miles to discover that the "Senior Advisor" was wrong and I was right -- for a change -- that it was a failed main logic board, well... I was working against time, I finally ran OUT of time, and all I can come up with to account for the current state of 2TB is that didn't do the CCCloner backup correctly. (I know that sentence is really poor grammatically, but when one has to tiptoe around landmines, circumlocution is better than circumambulation.
Last night, I had to restore Macintosh HD from Time Machine, which worked fine, except I now have literally hundreds of gigabytes of duplicate files (better than lost ones!) spread over 3 drives. The only recourse I can think of now is to use TidyUp! to winnow out the duplicates and try to understand better how to use CCCloner for backups, or surrender and use Time Machine.
Thanks for all your help. I have a couple other projects I wanted to finish up today, but I can see the day is going to be devoted to salvage operations...
I will just add this: The 2TB USB drive I use as a backup for Time Machine has been bootable since before I started using it as a backup, as is my 1TB USB drive, and all three -- Macintosh HD, 1TB, 2TB -- are at OS X 10.6.8. I also manually back up individual items to both 1TB and 2 TB drives.
Bottom line is, I obviously don't quite know how CCC works, and I thought I could back up -- at the last minute -- my internal, regular start-up drive, "Macintosh HD," to a Disk Image with CCC.
As for Time Machine, its constant and unfathomable-to-me backing up drove me nuts, so I turned it off, and used it to back up, manually, about once a week. Stupid? Yes.
Mea culpa
Bart

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 restore Time Machine backup after iMAC (Lion) Refresh

I recently did a refresh of my iMAC with OSX Lion. I have been using time capsule to back up my iMAC as well as my Mac Mini for the last 6 months with what I perceived to be no issues.
When I got to the part in the MAC start up to restore from backup it couldn't seem to find the iMAC backup, only the Mac Mini backup so I skipped that part. I then tried to use Migration Assistant later and the same thing, I couldn't find it. I used finder to locate the Time Capsule and was able to find the backup, but when I double clicked on it said "Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Time Machine Backups". you can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to the files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can".
Even though it said that it open a new finder window and I was able to find the backups and I proceed to copy of the files over. All seemed well until I opened iPhoto and it wouldn't open (just hung). I did a library restore/repair by clicking Option + Command when opening and after it ran iPhoto opened. When I browsed around though some recent pics that I uploaded either weren't there or corrupted and all my faces were gone.
I did a fresh install again and tried all over and the same thing happened. Any help on getting back my old backup? Seems to be corrupted or something, but I'm not sure.
See previous post before this... I was told to post my problem here - as I originally posted on the iPhoto forum before I realized I had a time machine / capsule problem.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22248885?ac_cid=op123456#22248885
Help would be appreciated.

lonniebrunet wrote:
Hi there,
I had a look through and I tried to do option A5 - which is repair or verify disk. I dragged the sparebundle for the mackup to disk utility and after trying to do a repair I got the message "disk utility stopped repairing "Time Machine backups".
Does this mean that my backup is corrupted and useless for a restore with time machine?
Yes.
And that also means copying via the Finder may not get everything. Corrupted is corrupted.
Assuming you copied from the most recent backup, you might want to try copying just the iPhoto Library from an earlier one -- that might not be damaged. If you have room, put it somewhere else, like your desktop. Or if you have an external HD, that would work.

Using Setup Assistant to Restore Time Machine backup

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