Anyone ever restore from TimeMachine?

[1458279]

My HDD died, so I want to restore from TimeMachine. I understand that I just boot from a USB and access TM.

What's different is that the new drive is a smaller 120G SSD (vs 500G HDD).

Q. Does timemachine tell you how much space is needed to restore?

Q. Can I select parts to restore rather than restore every file?

 

[MacUser2525]

My HDD died, so I want to restore from TimeMachine. I understand that I just boot from a USB and access TM.

What's different is that the new drive is a smaller 120G SSD (vs 500G HDD).

Q. Does timemachine tell you how much space is needed to restore?

Q. Can I select parts to restore rather than restore every file?

Yes it does have a list of the sizes it will restore and the items it will be restoring which you can select to uncheck to not install. You do not mention the OS currently in use but the Mavericks version seemed to offer a more detailed listing of the items you could exclude than previous versions did for me.

 

[Weaselboy]

My HDD died, so I want to restore from TimeMachine. I understand that I just boot from a USB and access TM.

What's different is that the new drive is a smaller 120G SSD (vs 500G HDD).

Q. Does timemachine tell you how much space is needed to restore?

Q. Can I select parts to restore rather than restore every file?

You can option key boot to a USB Time Machine backup and that will take you to a screen just like the recovery screen seen from the recovery partition. From there just use Disk Utility to format the new HDD to Mac OS Extended, then click restore. You can read about it here. It is all or nothing and there is no to pick and choose what you want or to tell how big it is.

What MacUser2525 is referring to is something different called Migration Assistant (MA). You can read about it here. To use MA you need to first install the OS then run MA to import your account with apps and data. MA does give you some options when choosing what to import. For example, you can choose not to import the Music and Pictures folders to save space.

The issue with MA is you will somehow need to get the OS on the new drive. What year model is your Mac? You may be able to use Internet Recovery for the OS if the machine is new enough (2010+). This will get you back to the OS version the machine came with.

 

[MacUser2525]

What MacUser2525 is referring to is something different called Migration Assistant (MA). You can read about it here. To use MA you need to first install the OS then run MA to import your account with apps and data. MA does give you some options when choosing what to import. For example, you can choose not to import the Music and Pictures folders to save space.

That is not what Apple calls it when you have installed it clearly states the option is to restore from Time Machine backup then offers up the selection screen for you to choose the date of the backup from where you get to choose what you want restored from that backup. This happens during the last boot after you have installed before you would setup the user account.

 

[Weaselboy]

That is not what Apple calls it when you have installed it clearly states the option is to restore from Time Machine backup then offers up the selection screen for you to choose the date of the backup from where you get to choose what you want restored from that backup. This happens during the last boot after you have installed before you would setup the user account.

I understand all of that and have used it myself. That process uses the Migration Assistant I linked to. My point to the OP is he has a new drive with no OS on it, and he cannot use this Migration Assistant process you suggested until he gets the OS installed somehow.

 

[MacUser2525]

I understand all of that and have used it myself. That process uses the Migration Assistant I linked to. My point to the OP is he has a new drive with no OS on it, and he cannot use this Migration Assistant process you suggested until he gets the OS installed somehow.

Of course he needs OS on new drive to do what he wants to do anyways..

 

[Weaselboy]

My HDD died, so I want to restore from TimeMachine. I understand that I just boot from a USB and access TM.

What's different is that the new drive is a smaller 120G SSD (vs 500G HDD).

Q. Does timemachine tell you how much space is needed to restore?

Q. Can I select parts to restore rather than restore every file?

Of course he needs OS on new drive to do what he wants to do anyways..

Not necessarily. If his existing install is less than 120GB he can option key boot to the Time Machine disk and format then restore. That will put the OS and all data back. From the way the first sentence in his question was worded that is what OP was hoping to do, but asked if there was a way to only install part of the data during this type of restore (there isn't).

I was only trying to clarify the difference and options between a full Time Machine restore and Migration Assistant process.

 

[1458279]

Thanks for the replies!

It looks like I need to option boot and find out just how much extra junk I have on the bootable drive backup.

I'm running ML for now, I'll upgrade soon, but there's no reason the whole OS can't fit on the 120 SSD.

If there's too much stuff, I can boot to the backup and then move the extra stuff to another regular drive until I have less that 120G (shouldn't be too much trouble getting it down to that).

I'm really glad I had the TM running, I have about 12 HDs and some are several years old and you never know when they're going to die.

 

[1458279]

Well I've gained access to my files and everything looks fine. The size is over the 120G limit by about 10G (too many downloads on the OS drive).

I've ordered a new 240 SSD, and I'm getting a 4T USB drive. I could restore to another drive and move the downloads then make a new backup, but I think I'll look into upgrading to Mavericks.

As far as I can tell, the backup didn't allow me to restore only part of it. I think I might have been able to go into the backup and remove items, but it might be just as well to do a new install using Mavericks.

Thanks for the help, I've very glad I use TM to back things up.

 

[1458279]

Update: I got another new SSD and a new USB backup drive. The USB Backup is 4T USB3 and the SSDs are a 120G and a 240G.

I wasn't able to restore to the 120G, so I ordered the 240G and it restored just fine. I can tell the bootup was FAST!!!!

Now I'm going to make a point of keeping downloads and other junk on the external drive to make the backup/restore process faster.

I might change over to the 120G SSD so that the 240 can be used in a notebook or something else later.

Overall, not bad, TM did the job it needed to do.

Thanks again for the help. I ended up booting off a ML bootable USB and accessed the TM restore from there. Took about 1/2 hour to restore.

 

[gr8pics]

A question, i got a new imac yesterday, and wanted a clean install of OSX, so i used migration assistan, now i got two different users, and my "old" user account, now runs at half the read/write speeds, while the "new" runs at full speed.
I got a fusion drive, and it seems to bottleneck that part.

So, if i want to make it simpler, and just want a full restore of Mail accounts and its folders/mails, and same with Safari, with a clean install,how do i proceed with TM then?
Which folders to restore from TM to get everything back from Mail and Safari?

A weird thing i noticed, is when i tried to use the TM from scratch/clean install trough recovery mode, the latest backup was the night before, but when i choose migration, the latest is from the morning after, which is the most recent i want.
Why is that, and how do i get the recent backup if i decide to do a full restore from scratch?

Cheers

 

[Fishrrman]

RE:
"i got two different users, and my "old" user account, now runs at half the read/write speeds, while the "new" runs at full speed."

Sounds to me like you have SOMEthing in the "old" account that is slowing things down. Perhaps a login item, or some process that launches at startup?

Try this:
Do a safe boot (hold down shift key at bootup), then log into your old account.
Does it still run slowly?
Do that, and get back to us with your answer, for therein lies "the key".

 

[gr8pics]

RE:
"i got two different users, and my "old" user account, now runs at half the read/write speeds, while the "new" runs at full speed."

Sounds to me like you have SOMEthing in the "old" account that is slowing things down. Perhaps a login item, or some process that launches at startup?

Try this:
Do a safe boot (hold down shift key at bootup), then log into your old account.
Does it still run slowly?
Do that, and get back to us with your answer, for therein lies "the key".

From my experience with disk speedtests, the deeper you get into a directory, the slower it goes, the root is always the fastest, so i was just wondering if a second admin account would be placed in a subdirectory...
I already went ahead and deleted the original admin now, leaving the old from TM backup left, so far so good.