Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Brawdy14

Suspended
Original poster
Feb 1, 2018
169
22
Devon, England
Hello

Using Monterey Version 12.4, please select Migration Assistant from your Launchpad (Other) and then 'follow through ....

Do you see an image something akin to this?


IMG_0652.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Yes, I believe this is what I saw when I set up my new Mac on 12.4 and was transferring stuff from Time Machine.

What's your question?
You have just answered my question! 😉

But I now have another one! I recently started my iMac in Recovery Mode and erased (I thought) my hard drive. I then chose to restore from back-up. I was presented with this image - but I could not change the source of the backup i.e. Restore From was 'fixed' in the position shown.

IMG_0623.jpeg


I appear to have restored from my Macintosh HD instead of my 'My Book' Time Machine external drive.

I'm confident that this didn't occur in years gone past!

Thanks for any views/comments.
 
You have just answered my question! 😉

But I now have another one! I recently started my iMac in Recovery Mode and erased (I thought) my hard drive. I then chose to restore from back-up. I was presented with this image - but I could not change the source of the backup i.e. Restore From was 'fixed' in the position shown.

View attachment 2029403

I appear to have restored from my Macintosh HD instead of my 'My Book' Time Machine external drive.

I'm confident that this didn't occur in years gone past!

Thanks for any views/comments.
Hmm, weird....i don't remember how TM works lately but am wondering maybe if it had some additional hidden partition that kept your TM backups?

If you open Disk Utility can you erase the drive again? And have you tried plugging in your external disk backup at this screen and see if it lets you choose it? I don't think it'd grey it out for you unless it didn't detect another disk.

Have you booted up from your Time Machine drive?
 
Hmm, weird....i don't remember how TM works lately but am wondering maybe if it had some additional hidden partition that kept your TM backups?

If you open Disk Utility can you erase the drive again? And have you tried plugging in your external disk backup at this screen and see if it lets you choose it? I don't think it'd grey it out for you unless it didn't detect another disk.

Have you booted up from your Time Machine drive?
My comments after this article may help you better understand matters (David B.) https://eclecticlight.co/2022/07/11/a-users-guide-to-disk-images/?c=76002#comment-76002

I had no idea that I could boot FROM my my Time Machine drive! 😮 Tell me how, please!
 
I had no idea that I could boot FROM my my Time Machine drive! 😮 Tell me how, please!
Yep! Turn off your Mac, plug in Time Machine, then hold down the option/alt key and boot up. Keep holding it until it shows you a graphical interface to select which disk to boot from. If your TM disk is working properly, it'll show it and you can click or use arrow keys to select it and boot from it.

It'll boot a Recovery environment with Disk Utility, Terminal, Restore, etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brawdy14
Yep! Turn off your Mac, plug in Time Machine, then hold down the option/alt key and boot up. Keep holding it until it shows you a graphical interface to select which disk to boot from. If your TM disk is working properly, it'll show it and you can click or use arrow keys to select it and boot from it.

It'll boot a Recovery environment with Disk Utility, Terminal, Restore, etc.
Thank you. I'll try that in a bit!
 
  • Like
Reactions: izzy0242mr
Yep! Turn off your Mac, plug in Time Machine, then hold down the option/alt key and boot up. Keep holding it until it shows you a graphical interface to select which disk to boot from. If your TM disk is working properly, it'll show it and you can click or use arrow keys to select it and boot from it.

It'll boot a Recovery environment with Disk Utility, Terminal, Restore, etc.
Tried doing as you said. This is what I ended up with ......

IMG_0653.jpeg


There were NO choices!

Have you tried yourself?
 
Tried doing as you said. This is what I ended up with ......

View attachment 2029439

There were NO choices!

Have you tried yourself?
Yeah, I've booted up from Time Machine multiple times. Are you sure your Time Machine drive is working properly? Do you have another Mac you can test it on? I'm almost wondering if your disk is corrupted or got messed up somehow.

EDIT: Well, folks on the internet are saying I'm wrong. And admittedly it's been a while since I tried, I know for sure it was possible on older OSs so maybe it has actually changed.

But at any rate, if you're booting into macOS recovery (CMD+R) and you open up Time Machine, it should be showing you your Time Machine backup when you're plugged in.

If it's not, I'm still wondering if the TM disk has somehow been corrupted.

Remind me what your end goal is here? There may be a better solution than restoring a full backup depending on what you're trying to accomplish, as I assume you can manually browse files on the TM drive
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brawdy14
Yeah, I've booted up from Time Machine multiple times. Are you sure your Time Machine drive is working properly? Do you have another Mac you can test it on? I'm almost wondering if your disk is corrupted or got messed up somehow.

EDIT: Well, folks on the internet are saying I'm wrong. And admittedly it's been a while since I tried, I know for sure it was possible on older OSs so maybe it has actually changed.

But at any rate, if you're booting into macOS recovery (CMD+R) and you open up Time Machine, it should be showing you your Time Machine backup when you're plugged in.

If it's not, I'm still wondering if the TM disk has somehow been corrupted.

Remind me what your end goal is here? There may be a better solution than restoring a full backup depending on what you're trying to accomplish, as I assume you can manually browse files on the TM drive
If you read the answers given to me by Howard Oakley in the comments section of the article I provided, I think you'll recognise that "Things ain't what they used to be!"

If you have the time to spare, try doing it for yourself! 😉
 
If you read the answers given to me by Howard Oakley in the comments section of the article I provided, I think you'll recognise that "Things ain't what they used to be!"

If you have the time to spare, try doing it for yourself! 😉
It's sad haha.

If your goal is still removing Norton, I suggest the app "AppCleaner." You can drag the Norton app into it and it'll search everywhere for any related files and delete them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nvmls
If your goal is still removing Norton, I suggest the app "AppCleaner." You can drag the Norton app into it and it'll search everywhere for any related files and delete them.
+1 to AppCleaner, fantastic little app.

As with most Apple software lately, TM is no exception and has turned into an absolute trash, to restore I'd avoid it like the plague. Almost any third party cloning app will do a better job to restore your data sadly.
 
+1 to AppCleaner, fantastic little app.

As with most Apple software lately, TM is no exception and has turned into an absolute trash, to restore I'd avoid it like the plague. Almost any third party cloning app will do a better job to restore your data sadly.
What other issues are there with it? I'm newish to Catalina Monterey so I'm not sure what I've missed coming from Mojave.

EDITED (Accidentally said Catalina when I meant Monterey)
 
Last edited:
  • Wow
Reactions: Brawdy14
What other issues are there with it? I'm newish to Catalina so I'm not sure what I've missed coming from Mojave.
This forum section is, I thought, dedicated to macOS Monterey. No wonder you haven't properly understood matters.😅
I originally said "Using Monterey Version 12.4, please select Migration Assistant...". You must have missed that, Izzy.
No matter. Thank you for trying to help. :)

Btw, I fully support the use of AppCleaner, although I'm sure Norton's own cleaner is preferable.
 
This forum section is, I thought, dedicated to macOS Monterey. No wonder you haven't properly understood matters.😅
I originally said "Using Monterey Version 12.4, please select Migration Assistant...". You must have missed that, Izzy.
No matter. Thank you for trying to help. :)

Btw, I fully support the use of AppCleaner, although I'm sure Norton's own cleaner is preferable.
My bad, I actually *am* on Monterey. I got it confused with Catalina in my last comment but I am in fact using the latest macOS 12.4. So my initial answer to your question was still correct. When I set up my new *Monterey* Mac using Migration Assistant, that was the screen it displayed for me.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Brawdy14
My bad, I actually *am* on Monterey. I got it confused with Catalina in my last comment but I am in fact using the latest macOS 12.4. So my initial answer to your question was still correct. When I set up my new *Monterey* Mac using Migration Assistant, that was the screen it displayed for me.
No worries, Izzy! :cool:
 
  • Like
Reactions: izzy0242mr
You have just answered my question! 😉

But I now have another one! I recently started my iMac in Recovery Mode and erased (I thought) my hard drive. I then chose to restore from back-up. I was presented with this image - but I could not change the source of the backup i.e. Restore From was 'fixed' in the position shown.

View attachment 2029403

I appear to have restored from my Macintosh HD instead of my 'My Book' Time Machine external drive.

I'm confident that this didn't occur in years gone past!

Thanks for any views/comments.

When you boot from Recovery and chose Restore from Backup, there are two possible sources: the Snapshots created hourly which exist on the Boot drive, and the regular TM backup which exist on the external TM back up drive.

Your screenshot is showing the hourly snapshots on the boot drive. The fact that you do not have the option to change that suggests that you don't have a TM external drive with usable backups attached. If you do, I don't know why you don't have the option.

Restoring from a Snapshot is near instant compared to restoring from a TM backup because there is no migration involved. But the method has limitations. You can't (since Big Sur) use this method to roll back the macOS version, because the snapshots are of the Data Volume only. And you probably only have them for the last 24 hours (though CCC can make and keep for longer).
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Brawdy14
When you boot from Recovery and chose Restore from Backup, there are two possible sources: the Snapshots created hourly which exist on the Boot drive, and the regular TM backup which exist on the external TM back up drive.

Your screenshot is showing the hourly snapshots on the boot drive. The fact that you do not have the option to change that suggests that you don't have a TM external drive with usable backups attached. If you do, I don't know why you don't have the option.

Restoring from a Snapshot is near instant compared to restoring from a TM backup because there is no migration involved. But the method has limitations. You can't (since Big Sur) use this method to roll back the macOS version, because the snapshots are of the Data Volume only. And you probably only have them for the last 24 hours (though CCC can make and keep for longer).
Thank you for your comments, Mike.

I have asked Mr Oakley to review what you have said to me. All appears to be working well.
Here's a screenshot from my iMac (about 4.5 years old, Intel)
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2022-07-14 at 11.26.33.png
    Screenshot 2022-07-14 at 11.26.33.png
    489.6 KB · Views: 77
If you are having problems with Time Machine, there is plenty of expertise on the Apple Support Communities if you ask there.
Thank you. 😅 I didn't notice the URL in your post!

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/monterey

(WTF? "This member limits who may view their full profile." - Why?)
ISTR that you don't post there. I cannot post there; somebody doesn't like me!
 
Thank you for your comments, Mike.

I have asked Mr Oakley to review what you have said to me. All appears to be working well.
Here's a screenshot from my iMac (about 4.5 years old, Intel)
You haven't said whether you had a connected and fully working external TM drive when you took the photo in post#5 ?....if you didn't, that would explain why you only had the option to restore the local snapshots.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: Brawdy14
You haven't said whether you had a connected and fully working external TM drive when you took the photo in post#5 ?....if you didn't, that would explain why you only had the option to restore the local snapshots.
Did you actually read the 'comments' here, Mike? https://eclecticlight.co/2022/07/11/a-users-guide-to-disk-images/?c=76002#comment-76002

I had said "I had expected to be able to select the source as being from my external WD ‘My Book’ Time Machine back-up, but I could not change anything!"

In order to do so, my external hard drive (with my Time Machine back-ups) would have had to have been plugged in to my iMac. So ..... Yes, my "fully working external TM drive" WAS plugged in to my iMac.

What I think we both should question is why Mr Oakley has said " your Time Machine backups can’t reinstall your System either." I have already asked him. Perhaps you will consider asking him too.
 
What I think we both should question is why Mr Oakley has said " your Time Machine backups can’t reinstall your System either." I have already asked him. Perhaps you will consider asking him too.
I don't need to ask him, as I already know that Time Machine backups do not contain a System Volume. As the process explains when you try and restore, you are instructed to install and migrate from the TM backup of the Data volume.

No, I had missed that the comments on the link answered my question. As I already said, if the TM drive was connected and working I don't understand why it wasn't an option for you (maybe encryption came into it somewhere)....so I am happy to leave Howard Oakley to resolve your problem.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.