New iMac can't see old Time Machine backup

[robodude666]

Hey guys,

My 2008 iMac died on me last week, and as I was in major need of an update, I decided to get a new iMac.

When I ask my new iMac to migrate data from my Time Machine backup it just hangs there, doing nothing.

If I connect to Time Machine, and enter Time Machine it doesn't show any backups... even though it says space is being used.

Any ideas on how I can restore my backups? There's a lot of really important data on there that I need to get back.

-robodude666

 

[Puevlo]

If you right click on Time Machine in the Dock it will give you the option to browse other Time Machine disks. That might work otherwise you might have to browse the Time Capsule in Finder manually.

 

[robodude666]

The "Browse Other Backup Disks..." option does nothing. It brings up a window that has no disks in it, even though I am logged into both user accounts, as well as have my old Time Machine backup mounted.

If I browse the shares manually, I see a backup folder, but when I go inside.. it's empty. As if it got rid of all my previous backups because it's a new computer.

 

[JediMeister]

It's unclear from your post whether your backups are on a Time Capsule or on an external hard drive. To migrate from a Time Capsule you do not need to have the sparsebundle mounted. Simply launch Migration Assistant while connected to the Time Capsule's network, tell it that you wish to migrate from a Time Machine backup and it should do the rest. The process is largely the same if the backup is on an external hard drive.