Went back to Mojave now MBP cannot find the Time Machine back up please help!

[Fash Sarkar]

dont press the r key
use the option
(carbon copy wont help now)

how did you back up Mojave using Time machine?
if so
is there a list of backup listed on an external hard drive?
do you see "latest" ?

I updated to Catalina a few week's ago. Lots of problems. Did a time machine back up Friday. Reinstalled Mojave this morning. Have not been able to load any back up from time machine.

Please scroll above to see images of what's available re list of back ups. No mention of" latest"

 

[Fash Sarkar]

while reading the tread thoroughly, what OSX do you want to use?

since your files are saved, Apple Robert offered great advice in moving them and dont panic
Mikzn heart is into this which is great, and had good advice as well.
i'm trying to use my previous reinstall experience with time machine knowledge and went back from High sierra to Mountain Lion on the macbook air and mac mini in 2019.

again don't panic or erase anything.

I want Mojave 10.14.6 and that's loaded now no problems

Apple Roberts method didn't work for me please see images above showing the problem

 

[MBAir2010]

try this

also read through the Catalina OSX part of this forum to see if someone else solved your quest.
seems to me you need to erase the drive for catalina, but time machine is supposed to override any OSX.

and be patient!

 

[Fash Sarkar]

while reading the tread thoroughly, what OSX do you want to use?

since your files are saved, Apple Robert offered great advice in moving them and dont panic
Mikzn heart is into this which is great, and had good advice as well.
i'm trying to use my previous reinstall experience with time machine knowledge and went back from High sierra to Mountain Lion on the macbook air and mac mini in 2019.

again don't panic or erase anything.

I want Mojave 10.14.1 and that's loaded now no problems

Apple Roberts method didn't work for me please see images above showing the

try this

also read through the Catalina OSX part of this forum to see if someone else solved your quest.
seems to me you need to erase the drive for catalina, but time machine is supposed to override any OSX.

and be patient!

Thank you mate but I've already installed Mojave that's working fine I'm just struggling getting it to restore from my backup.

Disk Drill seems to be my best option at the moment there's about 30m left to go I'll see what happens after that otherwise I'm hoping someone can find the right answer!

 

[Fash Sarkar]

I want Mojave 10.14.1 and that's loaded now no problems

Apple Roberts method didn't work for me please see images above showing the

Thank you mate but I've already installed Mojave that's working fine I'm just struggling getting it to restore from my backup.

Disk Drill seems to be my best option at the moment there's about 30m left to go I'll see what happens after that otherwise I'm hoping someone can find the right answer!

Disk drill has identified 209 GB of data to recover

Original back up was 269 GB.

Not sure what's happened or what to do will try with disk drill

 

[MacCheetah3]

Thank you. I'm struggling to understand how to do this manually as this is what I get when I access the HDD for the time machine back up. I can't find any files.

The second screenshot with the file having a “inProgress” extension is probably part of the problem. My guess is Migration Assistant doesn’t recognize the Time Machine backup because the latest backup didn’t complete (for whatever reason).

Each increment should be a folder.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

I cannot help you this time, because I've never used nor trusted time machine and NEVER will.

I can advise you for NEXT TIME.
Next time, DO NOT put your trust in time machine.

Use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead.
If you had been using either one of them, you would not be in the mess you're in now...

 

[rehkram]

I'm not an expert, just a semi-retired, semi-senior programmer. But if it were me I'd 1) reinstall the version of Catalina you used to make the backup and then 2) retry Migration Assistant.

If that failed for the same- or similar reasons, I'd 3) find the backup file and manually change the file extension from '.inProgress' to '.backupbundle'. That's what valid TM backup extensions are on my network. No guarantees, it's just what I would do.

It sounds to me like you maybe didn't give the Time M/c session enough time to complete before starting the roll back to Mojave. Renaming a file is pretty common programming practice to lock-out other processes from accessing a file. Maybe you did a forced reboot by holding the power key for > 5 seconds before the TM backup session was done?

 

[rehkram]

Couple of things could happen if you do what I suggested above. 1) TM will perform various integrity checks on the renamed file. If it fails to validate the file your next move is 2) call Apple support and hope you get someone on the phone who is sympathetic and has time to help you.

Please let us know how this all pans out, I understand what you must be going through.