Bare metal re-install, Time Machine backup grayed out in Migration Assistant

[Eljefe619]

Greetings... long time listener, first time caller 😁

I decided to perform a bare metal reinstall to a new SSD. I was on Monterey so I used a brand new USB disk and did a full Time Machine backup. Replaced the boot SSD, formatted it the same way as the backed up system (case sensitive, no encryption) and then installed Sonoma. Sonoma installed and then during first setup phase Migration Assistant asked if I wanted to migrate data. I connected my Time Machine disk, which M/A recognized. I selected the Time Machine volume and on the next screen the backup session I had performed appeared in a list. However it was grayed out and the continue button was grayed out as well.

I went back and booted the OS install disk and went into Disk Utility and my Time Machine volume checked out fine.
Tried starting Recovery from the OS install disk and it saw mt Time Machine volume but same thing, the actual listed backup is grayed out.

What am I missing? Isn't this exactly what Migration Assistant is for? The new OS volume and the Time Machine backup are both case sensitive, same settings.

I even created a same named account on the new Sonoma OS install, mounted the Time Machine volume and that won't do a full restore either.

I can use ditto or Finder drag to bring back my data files but I'm mostly concerned witht he contents of ~/Library and all of the application config files there in.

The grayed out thing is throwing me. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

 

[chabig]

MacOS volumes aren't case sensitive but Time Machine volumes are. My guess is that your recovery options are grayed out because the volume format is incorrect. Reformat to regular (case insensitive) APFS and try again.

 

[Eljefe619]

Solved it...sort of. Leaving this here in case anyone finds themselves in a similar spot.

I found an unreplied to post on Apple support where someone had the grayed out TM backup in Migration Assistant. His solution turned out to be adding the TM drive as a TM backup disk in the new machine and performing a manual backup, which is small since it is a freshly installed machine with no files or apps. There must be some kind of happy flag set on the TM volume when the new backup gets done because afterwards I started Migration Assistant, selected the TM disk and then it showed the backup just performed *and* the original system backup of my old OS disk. I selected the backup session I wanted...continue..continue and winner winner chicken dinner.

@chabig - My old OS disk was case-sensitive, a carry over from much older systems. MA was happy if the case sensitivity was the same on new OS volume and TM backup (old OS disk was case-sensitive). The case sensitivity turned out to not be the grayed out issue but running the quick TM backup on the TM disk solved it.