Recover Time Machine File on Another Computer?

[zerocool23]

Hi everyone, my MacBook's hard drive died last night, but luckily I have a backup from earlier that day on my Time Machine enabled external HD. My friend has a MacBook, and I have a paper due for a class in about a week, so I was wondering if I could hook my HD to her computer and recover just the word document.

I would have tried this by now if the guy at the store who's replacing my hard drive had not told me to be extremely careful when trying this or else it won't restore when I get my computer back. Thanks all!

- zerocool23

 

[tofagerl]

Yeah, should work. I would try to mount it as read-only though.

 

[zerocool23]

Ok, that's good news, but could you explain exactly how to mount it as read-only? I'm hooking it up via FireWire, and I don't want anything to get messed up to the point where I can't restore when I get my computer back.

 

[aristobrat]

I'm not sure how to mount it read-only, but I was going to add that you might have to option+click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar before it gives you the option to "Browse Other Machines Time Machines Disk" (since you'll be using your Time Machine disk on her Mac.

 

[zerocool23]

I'm not sure how to mount it read-only, but I was going to add that you might have to option+click the Time Machine icon on the menu bar before it gives you the option to "Browse Other Machines Time Machines Disk" (since you'll be using your Time Machine disk on her Mac.

What do I do the option+ click on? Do I do it on my time machine device when it shows up on her desktop after I plug it in?

 

[aristobrat]

On the menu bar?

If not, you could just always double-click on your Time Machine (when it shows up on her desktop) and manually go find it.