New MacBook Air doesn't see Time Machine volume

[kirbyrun]

Hi, all!

So, my wife purchased a new MacBook Air to replace one that died the other day. Fortunately, we have a Time Machine backup of her old Air. I've confirmed that it works -- I can go into that volume and open the sparse bundle and see all of her files no problem.

But when I connect the backup volume to her new Air, it doesn't see the Time Machine backup at all. It DOES see another Time Machine backup on a separate volume on that drive, but not the one for her Air.

No idea why this is happening! It's infuriating! I just want to migrate all of her stuff over, but I can't do it. Am I doomed restoring everything by hand, or is there a way I can force Migration Assistant to see that backup on that volume?

 

[jpn]

Hi, all!

So, my wife purchased a new MacBook Air to replace one that died the other day. Fortunately, we have a Time Machine backup of her old Air. I've confirmed that it works -- I can go into that volume and open the sparse bundle and see all of her files no problem.

But when I connect the backup volume to her new Air, it doesn't see the Time Machine backup at all. It DOES see another Time Machine backup on a separate volume on that drive, but not the one for her Air.

No idea why this is happening! It's infuriating! I just want to migrate all of her stuff over, but I can't do it. Am I doomed restoring everything by hand, or is there a way I can force Migration Assistant to see that backup on that volume?

here are a couple of things i would try if you haven't already.

1 temporarily dismount the "other" Time Machine so that the new MacBook Air does not see it
2 in Finder, mount the target Time Machine so that it actually appears on the new MacBook Air desktop. to do this it will require the account name and password (the Finder Preferences need to be set in order to be able to view it)

doing either/both of these things help the new MacBook Air Time Machine app to locate and use the Time Machine.
in the past, for me, actually getting it on the Desktop has helped in times like this.

 

[kirbyrun]

here are a couple of things i would try if you haven't already.

1 temporarily dismount the "other" Time Machine so that the new MacBook Air does not see it
2 in Finder, mount the target Time Machine so that it actually appears on the new MacBook Air desktop. to do this it will require the account name and password (the Finder Preferences need to be set in order to be able to view it)

do either/both of these things help the new MacBook Air Time Machine app to locate and use the Time Machine?
in the past, for me, actually getting it on the Desktop has helped in times like this.

Here's what I ended up doing: I opened the .sparsebundle and mounted it on the desktop. The Air saw that and proceeded to migrate. But then at the end, it suddenly quit. Settings had moved over, but no data.

At that point, I gave up and moved everything else manually. But I bet one of your suggestions would have worked, had I seen them first! Thanks for your input!