When I try to restore from Time Machine to a new hard drive, I get the message that the files can't be restored. What's the problem?

See the subject line. Anyone know what the problem is?
Also, the back up disk is called "time mac" but when I get to the Selct a Backup page, it says to Restore from: Macintosh HD on MarySmith2 and that is greyed out. Shouldn't it say "time mac". It won't let me choose anything.
Thanks for any help you can give.

Hold down the option/alt key while clicking on the Time Machine menu bar and select Verify Backup.

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Help with Restoring from Time Machine Backup with new Hard Drive

Hello. Recently, my hard drive died in my 24" Early 2008 Aluminum iMac. Luckily, I had a time machine backup, and I took it upon myself to replace the 320 GB Hard Drive with a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda disk. The hardware replacement (although difficult) went fine. Now, I'm having a bit of trouble restoring the new drive from my time machine backup. The new disk shows up in Disk Utility with the correct capacity. I formatted the new drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using my installation disk. My only problem is that the drive isn't showing up when I am choosing which drive I want to restore my time machine backup onto. I can pick out the backup I want perfectly fine, but I can't find the new drive. Any help?

UPDATE: I restarted it (Classic IT Crowd "Have you tried turning it off and on" moment) and the drive shows up on screen. Right now, I'm waiting for it to "Calculate disk size needed for restore" and I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE 2: Currently restoring. Let's see if it's successful.
Message was edited by: funman895

HT4413 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, only some files and applications and setting are transferred, not all of them. In my latest back up I have them all. How can I fix that?

When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.

sohs wrote:
When migrating from time machine to a new hard drive, not all is transferd, only partial documents, applications , settings etc. How can I migrate the latest back-up with all the content.
If you want to use Time Machine to recover the contents of one of its a backups to a new drive, follow the instructions in Mac OS X 10.6: Recovering your entire system. Note that you must select the "Restore System From Backup" option from the Utilities menu of the Installer disc to do this.
Also note that if you are transferring files to a hard drive to be used with a different computer, you should use Migration Assistant instead. This intentionally will not copy everything because some settings, applications, etc. are not compatible computer-to-computer. Migration Assistant will copy everything that is.

HT201250 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ?

When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ? I need time machine to migrate the latest back-up. Should I delete the older back-ups ?

As noondaywitch says, it should use the latest backup.
Where are your backups (external HD, Time Capsule, etc.)?
It sounds like there are two separate sets, and you're not connected to the right set.

How to reinstall from time machine onto a new hard drive?

how to reinstall the system from time machine to a new hard drive?

If you are connected to the internet you can do this.
Boot your computer and immediately hold down command, option and R (three keys together). This gets you connected with internet recovery.
See this article for more directions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718.
This process installs an OS on your blank drive. You can then boot from the fresh OS installation and restore from your Time Machine back up.
Note that you cannot boot from a TM back up.

Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.

I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

Restoring from Time Machine to an external hard drive

I had a hard drive crash on a MBP and am using DiskWarrior to try and recover it. DW has been running for over 48 hourse and says "speed reduced by disk malfunction: 3,177" (the number increases every few minutes) The DW folk tell me to give it another day or two. Knowing that I would need to replace this hard drive anyway, I took a brand new hard drive from another MBP and put it in a hard drive enclosure. (I put a SSD in that MBP and gave it to my daughter who is out of state so I don't have access to it anymore.) I then used that hard drive to boot up a different MBP (recall the original one is still trying to recover with DW) which was connected to another hard drive where my TimeMachine back up resides. This MBP opens with the welcome screen like you get on a brand new computer and asks me if I want to transfer data from a different computer or do a restore from TM. So I say yes to restore from TM. After that finishes, I then should have a hard drive that is identical to my last TM backup, yes? Instead, I discover that tons of data is missing. When I go back and look at that data on the TM backup, it appears to be all there. So why did it not install on the new hard drive? Does the fact that I was booting it as an external hard drive make a difference? Or is it a problem that the MBP I am using is one year newer and is a 17" whereas the TM backup is from a 15" machine?
I need to get this 15" MBP up and running but don't want to interrupt DW from doing its thing. (now up to 3,194 in the disk malfunction count, whatever that means). I am just a little concerned that TM may not have everything I need to restore the drive and my failure to successfully restore on my first try doesn't help!

Dan Bryant1 wrote:
This MBP opens with the welcome screen like you get on a brand new computer and asks me if I want to transfer data from a different computer or do a restore from TM. So I say yes to restore from TM. After that finishes, I then should have a hard drive that is identical to my last TM backup, yes?
Maybe. I'm assuming you left everything selected on the Transfer Your Information window?
Does the data that was transferred seem current? If not, had you previously done a full restore to the old MBP, or erased it's internal HD? If so, backups done after that may be treated as if they were from a different disk, and the area circled in red becomes a "pop-up" menu where you can select the one you want; you may have transferred from the older set.
It's also possible some data on the old Mac's internal HD was damaged by whatever went wrong with it, and that stuff was backed-up. Were there any odd messages during the transfer?
Try to Repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. If that finds and fixes things, start the new MBP up from the Snow Leopard disc, erase the drive, install OSX, and let Setup Assistant transfer everything again.

Restore from time machine to a new external drive

Hi,
My iMac is configures as follows :
- the internal hd contains the apps/etc
- my home path is pointed to my external usb hard drive (/volumes/hd300gb/users/danygeller)
Is working perfectly and time machine backs it up correctly...
NOW, I need to replace this hard drive with a larger one 750gb.
So, how can i restore Time machine to this new drive ? What's the procedure ?
Thanks/Dany

This web site might answer all of your Time machine questions:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Ciao.

Pull individual things from Time machine to a NEW hard drive?

Howdy - couldnt find this issue addressed anywhere. I have a macbook running OS10.6. i backed up about 10 days ago using time machine. then, my logic board took a crap over the weekend.
i have sent off the macbook for repairs, and i have a loaner macbook in the meantime from a friend of mine...however it is running regular leopard.
Can I pull off individual files (photobooth pics and videos, iMovie videos, etc) from the time machine backup of MY machine to my friend's machine? Or do I have to do a complete restore to my friend's machine (which I have permission to do, it's basically an extra machine he has laying around, anyway)...
If I can pull individual files from MY time machine to his macbook, are there any tricks or tips that I need to be aware of?
Thanks so much, all.
-Brian

goRavens wrote:
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Can I pull off individual files (photobooth pics and videos, iMovie videos, etc) from the time machine backup of MY machine to my friend's machine?
Yes. Since it's a different Mac, your best bet may be to Migrate some or all of your User Account to your friend's Mac. See the pink box in #19 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If I can pull individual files from MY time machine to his macbook, are there any tricks or tips that I need to be aware of?
You can do that, via option 17 in the FAQ, but unless you migrate the account as above, you may not have permission to copy the files.

Can I restore from Time Machine backup after replacing hard drive

I'm planning on replacing the 250GB hard drive in my mid 2010 13 inch MBP with a larger one. My MBP comes with Snow Leopard, and I've installed Lion and recently Mountain Lion from App Store. Can I use my Snow Leopard disc to boot up the laptop after replacing the hard drive, and restore Mountain Lion and everything else from the latest backup in Time Machine without having to install Snow Leopard?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Press Command and R keys while your Mac is starting and restore your backup. You shouldn't use 10.6 to restore the Mountain Lion backup

HT203390 when I try and sync my ipad 2 with my new XPS laptop i get a message that says "attempting to copy to the disk os failed." what should I do to sync my ipad?

when I try synching my ipad 2 with my xps laptop i get the following message. "Attempting to copy to the disk os failed." How do I resolve the problem?

It would be useful to you if they had a different name, but the computer knows they are different. Create separate sync playlists for each device and go to the Music tab when it is connected and specify which playlist should be used for the sync.

Restore from time machine does not list all my backups. I know they exist but there dates are not present on the restore list. Any help appreciated.

Restore from time machine does not list all my backups. I know they exist but their dates are not present on the restore list. Any help appreciated. If I must use one of these older dates to restore, how do I then get the more current data off time machine?

Ok, so am i correct in saying that the steps to fix are as follows.
That's one option, but not what I meant by restoring in the time-travel view. The latter is what you get when you enter Time Machine.
is the fresh install not going to be able to "see" the time machine backups that I have at the moment.
It should, but sometimes people report that it fails. I'm not sure why that happens.

Macbook pro won't restart after time machine install on new hard drive

I installed a new 500 GB HD on my 13-inch mid 2010 Macbook Pro (since the original crashed). I successfully connected to the Disk Utility via the internet connection and started recovery from a recent Time Machine backup....but, the computer will not restart. It's been stuck in the grey screen with the Apple logo and rotating status bar all night. I shut it down and restarted, but it won't go past the grey screen state. I can't find any answers on the Support Page. Help. Any one else have this issue? Should I have first installed the Lion OS X first and then restored from the Time Machine backup?
Also, wondering if all my programs (2011 ILife & IWork and Microsoft Office) will be reinstalled with the back up? (I can't find my installation disks for ILife and IWork :-()

Time machine is easy to set up and theoreticaly recover from. There have been reports of problems when a different disk or computer is used.
https://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?peopleEnabled=true&userID=&containerTy pe=&container=&spotlight=true&q=time+machine
For future reference you may wish to learn about and use cloning of the HDD. I use both CCC and SD to do this and consider it to be the most reliable way to back up and recover.
Carbon Copy Cloner - Home
www.bombich.com/
SuperDuper!
www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
added a good reference
http://Pondini.org/TM/Home.html

Time Machine backups onto new hard drive

My hard drive recently failed and I had it replaced. I am trying without success to restore my data using the Time Machine external drive that backed up my old hard drive. When installing Snow Leopard, it wouldn't recognize my TM drive, so I just did a regular install and updated it to 10.6.6. When I click on the external drive in the sidebar it says there is a file in it called backups.backupdb, however it says there isn't any data in there. Disk utility shows the external drive has 400gb of data on it, which is correct, but I am unable to access it.
This link: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/5.html describes how to pull data off of Time Machine, but it says both disks must have the same partition scheme - my external TM drive is APM and my comp is GUID. Is it possible to change my computer's partition scheme without causing problems in the future? Any other idea on how to pull data off of TM, even if it is manually doing it piece by piece?

Oh, that doesn't sound good. Have you tried doing this on the drive:
Repair the Hard Drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder. After DU loads select your TM backup volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Check the drive again to see if the Backups.backupd folder is still empty. If so then the next thing is to see if there's anything on the drive that's now invisible. The following instructions will enable the Finder to display invisible files:
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Now if all this fails and you find nothing in the user tips, then that means trying recovery software:
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Using time machine to format new hard drive

Hi there, hope this is a relatively easy question!
Long story short, my macbook pro's harddrive recently decided to stop working. I will being installing a new one in the next few days. I've made a bootable USB drive with Mavericks on it, however my time machine save was a couple of months ago (yes I know, I know) completed just before I updated to Mavericks.
If I install Mavericks onto my new hard drive and then restore the pro using my time machine will it cause any problems? I would think it would just restore back to the previous OS and I'll just have to download Mavericks again? Or would you recommend using Migration Assistant instead - but from what I've read this doesn't actually bring any of your previous programmes/apps into your new hard drive?
I don't really have anything important on my hard drive so I'm not bothering with trying to recover data from it.
Thanks in advance for your help! Hopefully this means I can soon be reunited with my pro!

little_lab_rat wrote:
If I install Mavericks onto my new hard drive and then restore the pro using my time machine will it cause any problems?
Of course not. Moreover, Migration Assistant (and Setup Assistant) is designed to transfer Time Machine backups created with an older Mac OS X version, so this is not a problem.
What you can do is to restore the Time Machine backup first (hold Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up, choose the option to restore a Time Machine backup, and follow the steps), and then, download OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store and upgrade.
Another option you have is to download the OS X Mavericks installer from the bootable USB drive and point it to install to the internal hard drive. Then, during its setup, it will ask you to transfer your files from a backup.
little_lab_rat wrote:
Or would you recommend using Migration Assistant instead - but from what I've read this doesn't actually bring any of your previous programmes/apps into your new hard drive?
If I were you, I would choose the second option I gave you. That option allows you to choose what files you want to restore, so you will have a cleaner OS X copy that may improve performance, and it takes less time than the first option. Also, there's no risk, because in the first option, the Mavericks upgrade may fail.

When I try to restore from Time Machine to a new hard drive, I get the message that the files can't be restored. What's the problem?

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