Time Capsual - recover emails/OSX etc

[MontyW]

I had a HD failure and have replaced the HD on my iMac and I have been able to restore it apart from a number of things such as emails.

How can I restore my emails (Mac Mail) and a number of programmes such as Apeture. Another thing that is causing me issues is that in iPhoto a number of thumb nail pictures are not visible unless I double click them. I tried restarting iPhoto holding down command and alt and choosing to rstore them, but it didn't work.

My Mac is now running Snow Leopard but I had recently upgraded to OSX Lion. Is there a way I can get back to Mountain Lion and how would I do this?

Thanks.

 

[davidg4781]

I can't really help you with the emails and photo parts, but I may be able to try with Lion. And these issues may be due to being back on SL.

How did you install Lion in the first place? If you downloaded from the Mac App Store, you should be able to do this again. I would maybe do a clean install of Snow Leopard, upgrade to Lion, then restore your Time Machine Backup. If you have the USB drive... install from that.

Oh, as for email, do you use IMAP or POP? If IMAP, just adding your accounts back should download everything back to Mail.

 

[marzer]

I had a HD failure and have replaced the HD on my iMac and I have been able to restore it apart from a number of things such as emails.

How can I restore my emails (Mac Mail) and a number of programmes such as Apeture. Another thing that is causing me issues is that in iPhoto a number of thumb nail pictures are not visible unless I double click them. I tried restarting iPhoto holding down command and alt and choosing to rstore them, but it didn't work.

My Mac is now running Snow Leopard but I had recently upgraded to OSX Lion. Is there a way I can get back to Mountain Lion and how would I do this?

Thanks.

Sorry to ask the obvious. Did you try a full Time Machine restore from the Time Capsule?

I'm not a Mac right now, but Mac Mail can be manually recovered by drilling down into the ~/Library folder. Either under "Application Support" folder or Apple something. Just search subfolders for a "Mail" folder, drag it to the same spot on the new drive and you should see your mail items restored.

 

[MontyW]

Well I thought I'd done a full restore from my last backup prior to the HD failure.

There is well over half of my emails that are missing - I had them in nice logical folders within Mail.

I've tried searching the ~Library but I cannot find anything. Does this mean my emails are gone? Or do I need to look elsewhere.

Everything else has been recovered from my Time Capsule backup - very confused.

 

[marzer]

Well I thought I'd done a full restore from my last backup prior to the HD failure.

There is well over half of my emails that are missing - I had them in nice logical folders within Mail.

I've tried searching the ~Library but I cannot find anything. Does this mean my emails are gone? Or do I need to look elsewhere.

Everything else has been recovered from my Time Capsule backup - very confused.

To be clear, you searched ~/Library, as in the subfolder under your home folder? And not Library for the root folder level.

Another option is to move the entire User folder from the latest backup to your hard drive, just let it overwrite your current home folder. Just be sure capture any latest work/save files to ensure you don't lose any newer stuff.

The fact that your Time Machine restore did not restore to the last expected state of your computer may indicate the backup process hadn't ran properly for awhile. Esp. if you were upgraded to Lion and it restored Snow leopard.

If you open the restore facility it should list out available backups with time stamps. How old is the latest time stamp in the list of available backups?

Since converting to IMAP years ago, I've gotten into the habit of keeping all my mail stored on the server. That way if a HD crashes or I rebuild a system or all my email folders are available to me, current and archived, without having to restore anything to the local computer.

 

[davidg4781]

The fact that your Time Machine restore did not restore to the last expected state of your computer may indicate the backup process hadn't ran properly for awhile. Esp. if you were upgraded to Lion and it restored Snow leopard.

Sorry, but I thought you HAD to have a working copy of OS X installed to do a Time Machine Restore. Is that correct?

 

[McGilli]

Sorry, but I thought you HAD to have a working copy of OS X installed to do a Time Machine Restore. Is that correct?

Nope.

If you had Lion - u just boot pressing COMMAND R and it boots to recovery partition.

then select restore from time capsule, and it puts back your entire hard drive exactly as it was the last time it backup up. OS, email, apps everything....

 

[davidg4781]

Nope.

If you had Lion - u just boot pressing COMMAND R and it boots to recovery partition.

then select restore from time capsule, and it puts back your entire hard drive exactly as it was the last time it backup up. OS, email, apps everything....

So let's say you installed Lion then selected restore from Time Capsule, and the TC had a Snow Leopard install on it, it would install SL over Lion? I thought OS X wouldn't install over an older version?

If it has SL on the TC, obviously OP doesn't have any data backed up from that time to the time he installed Lion. That could be what's causing the iPhoto issue since I THINK there's an update for iPhoto under Lion.

 

[MontyW]

More Time Capsule help needed

Okay I'll try and break this down into what has happend.

• iMac HD failed
• I use a TC to backup and a backup took place before HD failure
• Took iMac and TC to Mac repair centre
• iMac HD replaced with a new one
• Repair centre recovered my documents and photos from the TC

I'm running 10.7.4

Now this is where gets complicated (for me). The repair centre also recovered my emails but only about a third of them.

In Apple mail I had a series of folders with 'archive' emails and attachments. These were not recovered. What has been recovered was my In-Box and Sent items only.

I have the TC and iMac back at home with me now. My issues are that I get a flashing orange light on the TC and no matter what reset I do, this does not change.

I can connect to the TC via my iMac using an Ethernet cable only and I can only get into the TC via Finder even with a flashing orange light and I see an icon that says (my name) iMac Backups dating way back in time.

I cannot connect via Time Machine or get the Time Machine screen with time line.

When I open the iMac backup folders I can find one that is called Mail but it is only a few Megs and has the last backup Inbox and Sent Items and NO other emails. Its the other emails that I am looking for.

My questions:

How can I connect to my Time Capsule so that I can access Time Machine and not via Finder and opening backup folders?

How do I go from orange flashing light to green on the TC?

How do I find my 'other' emails?

Thanks.