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Time Machine Problem
#15099 04/12/11 10:38 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
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I'll make it short: Someone I trusted gave me bad info on how to use TM to restore info on a replaced HD. (You guys are my REAL friends!) Here's what was done and if anyone can help me figure out the most efficient way to make this user whole, I would appreciate it very much:

iMac G5 running on original drive with fans blasting, passwords not sticking, some strange behavior but not dead by any means. Replaced it with a WD 500. (I'm mentioning the drives and reason here, background fyi only) and zeroed the new drive with a Tiger disk and left it running Tiger because the user didn't have the Leopard install disk so the rest was done over the phone the next day: Installed Leopard with the TM drive disconnected and registered the copy of Leopard using nonsense just to get past registration fields so he could get into the desktop. I was told by the person who ought not be trusted mentioned above to do this because it doesn't matter as long as you get a working system on the drive, TM will overwrite everything once you connect it and create a carbon copy of the drive you specify, just like a disk image. Instructed the user to restart the computer and then connect the TM drive with TM turned off in the Control Panels. TM panel came up and TM turned on. I had him select the TM drive as the drive to use for TM. It started the countdown to backup but before it had a chance to start I had him go into TM and pick the final image of the old drive before we pulled it and hit restore.

It seemed to be restoring but in the end there was nothing but the original Leopard install on the drive. The TM drive revved up for a very long time with a fever bar showing that it was writing 2 of 10 TB (that's right, TB with a T) of info to the TM drive and renamed the backup images with the non-name he had filled in the registration of Leopard he had installed. I was afraid to have him stop it in the middle, so I let it go and now all the folders have the phony name on them. I haven't been there to examine them, but there are folders with older dates still in there.

I suggested he bring the old drive (not dead at all) to the shop with the iMac and have them transfer the info for now. He doesn't want to do it because his accounting is on there.

Do I have to put his old drive back in and run TM? Or just reformat again with Leopard with TM connected, maybe the TM drive will fix itself?

I'm sorry if I keep revising this post and you have to keep reading it, it's done. It was so late at night, I'm trying to remember exactly what happened and make things clear. Thanks, guys.

-slo


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15108 04/13/11 05:01 PM
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Some of this depends on whether the backups on the TM drive are full system backups or user data only. TM does full backups by default, but you can save a little space by not doing the os.

The simplest way to restore from a full backup is to boot off SL disk and immediately go into the time machine in the menubar and start the restore process. This restores the system from TM.

If a full system backup is not available, you have to just go through the regular OS install, and when it reboots, then tell it to restore from the TM backup, and it will import the users etc. I question the wisdom of trying to do that before running software updates to get the OS up to the version that the data is for on the TM backup. (some apps like iphoto and itunes may not like your user library being a newer version) So I always run software updates immediately after such a restore, before trying to use any apps.

For clarity in your posts I suggest not using simply "TM" to refer to the hard drive, because your description can cause some reader confusion as to your referring to the drive or the program.

It would have been better if you would have replaced the hard drive, booted off another system (or in fw target mode to another mac) and used carbon copy cloner or the ilk to clone the old drive to the new, if you were trying to correct a failing hard drive. If you suspected an os/software problem, an archive and install may have been a better first option than replacing the hard drive. The next best thing would have been verifying a good TM backup is available, then doing a leopard (not tiger) install, and restoring from the backup when it restarted to the newly installed os.

From your description I wonder exactly what it restored. You may have picked the wrong backup, or it may have been performing an initial backup instead of a restore. The display reading in the terabytes is certainly worrying. When you were selecting which backup to use, it should have displayed how much data it intended to restore. Is this where you were seeing the large numbers? I don't recall seeing a time machine restore in progress indicating the amount of data (gb) remaining. (but the initial backup I think does?)


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Time Machine Problem
Virtual1 #15112 04/13/11 07:27 PM
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Some very useful things here. I have to examine the TM DRIVE and try to figure out what all that writing was when I get there, the user's going away, won't be back until next week, so a week of torture for me until I see it. I kept asking if the TM drive was writing 10TB, not 10MB, and he assured me it was writing 10TB (undoing compression? The TM drive failing? It's an old drive too.)

To be clear: Only installed Tiger because it was the only thing he had, no working computer at that point, couldn't remember if Tiger had TM. It doesn't. No news there! No SL because it's a G5. He didn't find the Leopard disk when I was there. Everything else was done by phone after he found it because he needed it and I couldn't get there.

You do make a very good point I did not think of: Install a clean Leopard and then install ALL the updates over the web before restarting with the TM drive attached. You are absolutely right about the way this whole thing was done wrong, that's for sure. The person I listened to was bragging how he did his restoration this way and ended up back at the middle of the email he was writing. But he turned out to be someone who should not have been trusted because he gave a lazy explanation leaving out the details of what he did.

The user's old drive was 6 years old, it had to go. The fans were going crazy. With the hardware and software I have, I think it might have been best for me to create a disk image (he was only using part of a 160MB drive) of his internal drive using 400 to 800 FW connection and Disk Utility on my Macbook Pro (which I didn't bring!!!) and just done an erase and restore after switching out his internal drives. (Don't have CCC) Worst case scenario, we start again at step one and do it this way...

I did just get a Newer Tech USB 2.0/3.0 Universal Drive Adapter for bare drives, but has no FW connector... Remember, old G5 computer, USB 2 only.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15119 04/14/11 02:37 PM
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Originally Posted By: slolerner
I did just get a Newer Tech USB 2.0/3.0 Universal Drive Adapter for bare drives, but has no FW connector... Remember, old G5 computer, USB 2 only.


Very few macs have not included firewire ports. 13" UB macbooks, macbook airs, and rev 1 imac g3's are the most recent. All G5's came with at least two firewire ports.

Also, USB 480mbps on powerpc is significantly slower than it is on mac intel. You'd be wise to go with firewire.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15120 04/14/11 08:45 PM
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Assuming you have reinstalled OS X on the target drive and the drive is otherwise clean, I find the easiest way to recover the entire system from a Time Machine Backup is to run Migration Assistant. One of the available options in Migration Assistant is to recover from a Time Machine Backup and it has worked flawlessly for me on several occassions and on several Macs.

Optimally you would run Migration Assistant when prompted during the initial reboot after installing OS X, but you can run it after the setup. If you have created an account with the name of the account you are restoring there is even an option to replace an account of the same name on the target drive.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Time Machine Problem
Virtual1 #15128 04/15/11 03:39 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
Originally Posted By: slolerner
I did just get a Newer Tech USB 2.0/3.0 Universal Drive Adapter for bare drives, but has no FW connector... Remember, old G5 computer, USB 2 only.


Very few macs have not included firewire ports. 13" UB macbooks, macbook airs, and rev 1 imac g3's are the most recent. All G5's came with at least two firewire ports.

Also, USB 480mbps on powerpc is significantly slower than it is on mac intel. You'd be wise to go with firewire.


Once again, I have not been clear. They don't call me Slo for nothing. The Newer Tech doodad does not have a FW port to transfer data from the old drive (now an external bare drive) to the new internal drive in a reasonable amount of time. I was pointing out that the iMac was a G5 with USB 2 port to say that it did not have a faster USB 3 port. It DOES have FW 400. The Newer Tech thingy doesn't.



Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
joemikeb #15129 04/15/11 03:45 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Assuming you have reinstalled OS X on the target drive and the drive is otherwise clean, I find the easiest way to recover the entire system from a Time Machine Backup is to run Migration Assistant. One of the available options in Migration Assistant is to recover from a Time Machine Backup and it has worked flawlessly for me on several occassions and on several Macs.

Optimally you would run Migration Assistant when prompted during the initial reboot after installing OS X, but you can run it after the setup. If you have created an account with the name of the account you are restoring there is even an option to replace an account of the same name on the target drive.


I thought Migration Assistant only brought over the User Folder items, not the entire drive. That would be great.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15145 04/16/11 12:01 AM
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Assuming you are using Mac OS X 10.6.x, since that is the forum you are posting in Migration Assistant will bring over:
  • The contents of the user folder
  • Installed applications (except the standard OS X apps)
  • Settings
  • Other files and folders on the hard drive
Since you have to have a bootable drive to run Migration Assistant, it will not migrate the entire operating system per. se, from a Time Machine Backup. The migration can be...
  • From or to another computer
  • From another drive on the same computer
  • From a Time Machine backup
It will work over
  • Firewire
  • Bluetooth
  • Ethernet
  • WiFi
If you haven't looked at Migration Assistant lately, it has evolved into a powerful and flexible data transfer tool, that IMO is too often overlooked or even flat ignored.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Time Machine Problem
joemikeb #15149 04/16/11 02:17 AM
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I'm in the wrong forum, joemikeb. Sorry. I've been using SL on both of my MBP's for so long, force of habit. Like I said, he has an iMac G5, Leopard.

Then the question is: Does system 10.5x Migration Assistant import apps(except for sys.apps), user folders, etc. to a drive that has a bootable version of 10.5x?

So, Migration Assistant cannot be used with the old hard drive externally using the cabling kit I mentioned above because the kit doesn't have a Firewire, Bluetooth, Ethernet or WiFi connection.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15162 04/16/11 01:43 PM
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migration assistant works fine with usb. Depending on the version, it sometimes gives different options "from another mac" and "from another volume on this mac" The latter is for USB attached drives, and for macs that were firewire plugged in BEFORE the assistant was launched. Try that option.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15182 04/16/11 09:22 PM
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Thread moved from Mac OS X 10.6.x to Mac OS X 10.0 − 10.5.x by joemikeb. As Slolearner said it was lodged in the wrong forum. It was moved to prevent confusion in answers.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Time Machine Problem
joemikeb #15395 05/03/11 05:15 PM
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Here's the wrap-up. I looked at the Time Machine drive and there was one folder called backups.backupdb and another folder called system or system [something]. Inside the backups.backupdb folder was a folder called xyz's iMac G5 and inside that folder were all the dated folders which still contained the intact Hard Drive name and the intact files inside. Phew!

I reformatted the drive and and told it I did not want to import info at that time because I was hoping to have the Time Machine drive correct the name of the user by itself when it saw the correct new registration. Then I registered it with the exact same info as when the the computer was originally purchased. I then used Migration Assistant to bring in his user folder. The user folder import gave me a message that it could not import it because there was a user with the same name and I had to change the registration name I had entered so I did. Then I got the window to import the Applications and it went through with no error messages. I did not import setting such as time and location, things that could be picked as soon as I reconnected it to the router. (I disconnected it just to make things simpler.)

When it was done, all the apps were there, but all of the user file folders were empty. Rather than make myself crazy, I entered Time Machine, picked his user folder and hit Restore. It asked me for the password a few times and bang! everything was back except for his desktop background. Computer completely back where it was and fully functional.

And on the Time Machine drive, XYZ's iMac G5 was now jon's iMac G5, it had corrected itself. I reconnected the router, it reset the time, etc, and I opened Time Machine Preferences and told it to do a Time Machine Backup now. The backup took a very long time even though there was only 170 GB of data, probably because it was very close to an initial backup, and has been backing up every hour since and those backups take a normal amount of time. The drive is a 2 year old Maxell 500GB drive and is only about 2/3 full. It's loud when it's writing, but he said it always has been, a clunky sound.

Even though this string is Geek to my cuz, he did look and sends his sincere thanks to everyone, as do I. I showed him how his Kodak photo viewing program has a built-in backup to DVD function so if this happens again, he's has an alternative backup of the thousands of pics he has.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13"
2.4GHz, 750GB SATA HD, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.7.5
1 HDX1500 2TB Ext.HD, 2 HDX1500 1TB Ext.HD
HP Laserjet 6MP printing postscript via 10/100 Intel print server
Netgear WN2500RP Range Extender (Ira rocks!)
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless Router
Brother MFC-9340CDW Color Laser
iPad Air
Re: Time Machine Problem
slolerner #15430 05/04/11 10:34 PM
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Originally Posted By: slolerner
The drive is a 2 year old Maxell 500GB drive and is only about 2/3 full. It's loud when it's writing, but he said it always has been, a clunky sound.


Sorry, Maxtor, not Maxell.


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