MBP Not Seeing Ext.Drive via USB?

[knickerlas]

Hi all,

I have a 13" MBP from around 2010 that had a HDD failure. I have the new drive in and trying to restore from TM connected via a USB cable. The MBP does not see it at all and insists on restoring over WIFI. (im using the original install disk)

What's going on here? Is this really the only way to do this?

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

From your description, I am having a hard time understanding what you have tried so far. It sounds like you have an original OSX disk that you want to use to boot from to install the OS, then you want to use migration assistant to copy your data from your TM backup. Is this correct? If so, how far have you gotten? As I recall, this is what you should do:

When you turn on your mac, insert the DVD and hold down the option key. Then choose to boot from the CD.

At some point during the installation, it will ask if you want to restore from TM backup - at that point, plug in the backup disk and follow the prompts.

Is this what you have tried? If so, at what point did things go awry?

 

[knickerlas]

Hi,

No. Not quite. I want to fully restore from TM. I am just using the install disk to get the "restore from tm" utility in the utilities menu.

The problem is that although the backup disk is plugged in via a usb cable, i cannot figure out a way to make the MBP use that disk (except via WIFI, which seems dumb).

Thanks for the help!

 

[Macman45]

AFAIK, the USB port on the TC is not designed for that purpose...It's designed to connect a printer or an EXTERNAL hdd, but the way TM works would seem to limit you to two options:

1) Wifi ( slow as)

2) Ethernet cable or firewire...Much faster. If your Mac has an ethernet socket connect that way and watch the speed increase.

 

[knickerlas]

Right!

Well it's not a TC. It's a syology disk station, but i guess the same applies. I did try the thernet at the start and it still wanted to do it via WIFI. Should i connect the MP directly to the disk via ethernet or to the router (which of course is connected to the disk)

 

[switon]

RE: local versus network TM backups...

Right!

Well it's not a TC. It's a syology disk station, but i guess the same applies. I did try the thernet at the start and it still wanted to do it via WIFI. Should i connect the MP directly to the disk via ethernet or to the router (which of course is connected to the disk)

Hi knickerlas,

As it turns out, TM uses a slightly different format and location of its backups if the TM backup volume is mounted locally (say over USB) or mounted over a network (say on a LAN via ethernet or wifi). So if you made the TM backup originally over a network to your Synology NAS, then you mount the Synology NAS as a local volume over USB, then TM will not find its backup. However, you can force TM to use any particular backup with the "tmutil setdestination" or "tmutil inheritbackup" commands. You may wish to start with the "tmutil destinationinfo" command in order to see exactly which backup your TM is using. These commands are thoroughly documented in the manpages: "man tmutil".

Good luck,
Switon

 

[blueroom]

Right!

Well it's not a TC. It's a syology disk station, but i guess the same applies. I did try the thernet at the start and it still wanted to do it via WIFI. Should i connect the MP directly to the disk via ethernet or to the router (which of course is connected to the disk)

The USB ports on any NAS are host only (they won't communicate with another host i.e. a PC)

Hopefully your router has GigE ports, just connect your MacBook and Synology via wired Ethernet to the router and TM will see the NAS just fine.

 

[knickerlas]

Hi Switon & Blueroom, thanks for the help!

The router has a single Gig-E port. I have plugged the NAS into it for now. It has a usb port also. I have plugged the MBP into the router via the USB --will this work? Or is there a suggestion for how best to utilise the Gig-E port?

I am going to play with tmutils now!

thanks again,

 

[blueroom]

If you want to plug directly into the NAS via Ethernet you'll need to set static IP address on both.

e.g. 192.168.1.250 for the NAS and 192.168.1.2 for the MacBook. Subnet must be the same on both too 255.255.255.0

Setting the Synology for a static address is a good idea anyway, allows you to use the Dynamic DNS service and cloud features.

You'll have to set them back to whatever they were when you're done.

Or buy a GigE network switch, they're cheap. A 5 port ~$10

 

[knickerlas]

Added..

alas, there appears to be no tmutil command available on the terminal...?

 

[blueroom]

When you reinstall OSX one of the options is a TM restore, no need for the terminal. What are you trying to do?

Part of the problem might be you need the internet to reinstall OSX, connect via WiFi would be fine just use different subnets for the Synology and the ISP.

Better yet invest in a GigE switch and you can have everything connected at once.

 

[knickerlas]

Update:

Not sure what changed but it now appears connected to the NAS via the router (unclear if this is via ethernet or the usb as both are plugged from the mbp to the router) but it is now estimating the time at 498 hours!

I'll give it a minute to settlte down....

 

[blueroom]

It's not USB. It's probably WiFi or 10/100 Ethernet as your wired network doesn't appear to be GigE.

From the posts from the UK members I'd say BT uses some major crappy and ancient routers. Ancient 802.11g, 10/100 Ethernet and firmware from around the time of King Richard.

Get a GigE switch or better yet a proper router (and put your existing ISP router in bridge mode) as I've mentioned or wait ~20 days.

 

[knickerlas]

It's not USB. It's probably WiFi or 10/100 Ethernet as your wired network doesn't appear to be GigE.

From the posts from the UK members I'd say BT uses some major crappy and ancient routers. Ancient 802.11g, 10/100 Ethernet and firmware from around the time of King Richard.

Get a GigE switch or better yet a proper router (and put your existing ISP router in bridge mode) as I've mentioned or wait ~20 days.

hehe! yes i think the router may be sub-par... I do have the fastest service BT do (fibre) but would not know what kind of router to get that would be better. I will do a little research, as it's probably about time..

Thanks for all the help everyone. I did get this sorted in the end, and even took the opportunity to upgrade to ML while i was at it. All is well once more!

 

[blueroom]

I have a DS212j & Apple Extreme Base Station gen5. My ISP Rogers also has their own router, I've put it into bridge mode (check if your router has a bridge mode).

The majority of recent Apple products have 5GHz so I went with a dual band router. GigE should be considered a must.

Post router models you're interested in and we'll try to comment.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Not sure what changed but it now appears connected to the NAS via the router (unclear if this is via ethernet or the usb as both are plugged from the mbp to the router) but it is now estimating the time at 498 hours!"

I know this is like rubbing salt into a wound, but it should be said.

If you had backed up the laptop using CarbonCopyCloner instead of Time Machine, you would have been back up, restored and running in a couple hours' time (or less).

If you had used CCC, your backup would be BOOTABLE. That means all you would need to do (once you had the new drive in the computer) would be to:
1. Connect the backup
2. Boot from the backup
3. Initialize the new drive in the computer
4. Launch CCC and "RE-clone" the contents of your backup BACK TO the computer.

…. Instead of all this futzing around that you're doing now.