Unable to access time machine backups from clean install

MBP 8.1 2011 I5 13" with 8 GB RAM. The machine has been getting slower over the last few months. I decided that I would wipe the HD and fresh install. I created a bootable USB, erased the HD and got the OS running- however when I plug in the Time Machine backup disk- a 1TB IOSafe drive- I am not able to access my backup from this past Friday (13th-- think that has anything to do with it) or any other backups. I have been using Tine Machine Editor and doing weekly backups for the last 2 years- I have been backpacking in South America and untoward documents, and 2 years of photos reside on a disk I no longer have access to. I enter time machine and try to go to past backups but it will not allow it-- I have not done a backup of the new installation yet. As a note I elected not to use Migration Assistant when I installed the new OS.

Any help or advice would be deeply appreciated. Note that I can see the earlier backups when in Time Machine but can not select them.

Thanks

Expat

Think I may have solved this...... will post back. Thanks and sorry for the thread.

Read the Directions stupid! Solved

Yep read the directions. Was trying to access Time Machine - and did not realize Migration Assistant needed to be used first. Sorry for the superfluous post.

Yes absolutely. Use Migration Assistant. That solved the problem. Now things are back to normal where I have access to my periodic backups. When you use the assistant you can choose what to migrate- for example I elected not to migrate applications but to install from scratch. I did not want old configurations causing problems.

Hope this helps. Let us know how it turns out.

Expat