Q: Problems With Migration Assistant & Time Capsule

nstarksen88 wrote:

. . .

I then used Disk Utility to repair the Time Machine drive.  And it told me that the drive appears to be ok.

All that tells you is the directory, etc., structure seems correct.  Not whether everything that should be there is actually there, or whether every file is intact interally.  It's a good sign, but no guarantee.

The other odd thing is that I am able to open the sparsebundle and get to all of the files.  So I know that there is nothing wrong with the backups.

Maybe, maybe not. 

What version of OSX was the Mac on the backups running?

Had you excluded anything from being backed-up, via Time Machine Preferences > Options?  If so, what?

Drat. 

Take a look at the backups via the Finder.  If you're not sure how, start with the pink box in How Time Machine works its Magic.  If you can open the disk image, see what folders are in the folder for the internal HD, similar to the sample in the green box there.

Per the backup in the center, you should see Applications, Library, System, and Users, and perhaps some others.

How proficient/familar are you with Macs and OSX -- do you use Terminal, or know about invisible files, etc. (in case this gets deeper)?

nstarksen88 wrote:

. . .

In there I see "Applications" "DamagedFiles" "Incompatible Software" & "Users". 

No System or Library, eh?  That's the problem.  Most likely, the hidden private folder isn't there, either. 

That's why neither the full restore or Setup Assistant recognizes them.  This is not the first time we've seen this on Mountain Lion; it's not common, but I just got done helping another user recover from it. 

(DamagedFiles and Incompatible Software were found at some earlier time, by the OSX installer, and archived there.)

You're going to have to rebuild your home folder manually, by dragging & dropping from the backups via the Finder.  It's rather tedious, time-consuming, and easy to mess up, but should get you mostly back in business, but there will likely be some glitches.

Before you get started, close any apps you can and do not start any you don't absolutely need. 

If you open some of the folders in your home folder in the backups, such as Desktop, Documents, etc., do you see little red no-entry badges on them, or do they look like you can see them?  (Don't try try to change anything there.)

Is the user account you're now using the one you want to keep using on the new Mac (ie, the name is ok)?

If so, you'll need to work on one sub-folder at a time.  The "default" sub-folders in your new account should all be empty (there might be a stray file or two in Documents, and perhaps an empty iPhoto library, etc.).  Just drag & drop the contents from the backups into the new account -- don't try to copy the folder itself.

If you created other sub-folders there, you should be able to copy those, folder and all, into the new home folder.

Do the same with your Applications folder, but do not try to open any of them yet.

Then we need to address ~/Library.  Showing the one on the new Mac is easy; the one in your backups, not so much.  The easiest thing to do is to show all invisible items.  Copy & paste this into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1

When this is all over, repeat with a zero instead of the 1.

That will show a whole raft of things you haven't seen before, mostly things with a leading dot as the name.  Do not touch!

But it will also show the ~/Library folder in the backups.

You need to do basically the same as you did with the other folders, but the new account already has a bunch of default (mostly empty) files and folders in ~/Library, so OSX may not let you just drag & drop and replace. 

You may have to do one sub-sub-folder at a time (ie, ~/Library/Application Support), or delete the contents of a sub-sub-folder before trying to copy into it.  (The security has been tightened up in recent versions, and I'm not sure which things Mountain Lion will complain about.)

Since there's no top-level Library folder, you've lost all your system-level stuff (printer drivers, energy saver settings, Time Machine settings, etc., and likely some things in support of some applications, including some internet plug-ins.  We'll deal with those later.

Make a large pot of coffee . 

Post back with any questions or problems.  

nstarksen88 wrote:

 

Before I get into this.  Because I can tell it is quite a process.  Would it be better to restore from the most recent full backup (February) and change things from there?

That's really your call.  You'd have to figure out what changed, and what didn't.  You'll have some new stuff, but probably a fair amount of older stuff where you have to compare dates, etc., perhaps fairly deep into the folder structure, if you file things that way.

What I mean is, if Folder A contains folder B which contains file C, and file C is changed, or another file is added to or removed from Folder B, the Date Modified on folder B is changed, but not Folder A.

Also, for certain things, especially in ~/Library, you can't tell what's what -- for Contacts (Address Book), Calendar, and Mail in particular, you can't tell because the file and folder names are ID numbers, not recognizable names.  Look in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook, ~/Library/Calendars, and ~/Library/Mail.  Also some stuff for "sandboxed" apps is in ~/Library/Containers, including all your Mail settings.  Plus, some 3rd-party apps put data there, too.

You might be able to do the other folders that way, but at least some of the above will have to be replaced entirely.

Also, these folders that are not showing up in the backup...are the because they are invisible, or because they were not backed up at all?  The reason I ask is when I look back in finder, all of the backups prior to February 24 have those folders in them, but after that date, none do.

Not backed-up.  There's some bug in Mountain Lion, or some condition, that's causing them to be skipped.  Just yesterday, I had one where the backups were like that, but the originals were still on the Mac, so I'm talking him through running a diagnostic report and filing a Bug Report with Apple.  But since your Library folder is gone, we can't see what was there to cause it.

Uh, hold on a minute - - do you still have access to the old Mac?  If so, don't touch anything yet . . . you can transfer directly from it, or do a couple of things to fix the problem and run another backup that will get everything backed-up properly. 

nstarksen88 wrote:

. . .

Wait...actually only the "User" was deleted.  I created another user and deleted the old user.  And when it asked me, I told it to delete the folder.

Ah, great, at least for filing a bug report.  Please don't change anything there yet, and when you get the new one running, don't do any new backups (of either Mac) yet.  We'll want to run a diagnostic report and file a Bug Report with Apple, so they can fix it, if they can figure out what caused the problem). 

1.  Migrate from the old computer.

 

2.  Drag the user folder from the latest backup to the "Users" folder on the new mac.

 

3.  Create a user with the same shortname and have it direct to the newly added user folder.

Not exactly, but I think we can finagle it. 

Create a different Admin user account temporarily.  Log on to it and delete the one you have now.  Restart.  Log back on to the temporary account.

Copy the home folder from the backups to the Users folder.

Try to create a new Admin account with the exact same name as the old one.  That should give you a prompt about a home folder already existing and let you use it with that account.

If so, that account is cool.   Log on to it to make sure (you won't have any 3rd party apps or system settings yet, though).  If so, delete the temporary account. 

EDIT:  actually, there's no need to delete it yet.  Might be handy to keep it around for a while.

Run the Migration Assistant app (Applications/Utilities) and transfer Apps, Settings (Computer settings at least), and Other files and folders from the old Mac.  That should get your apps and support files for them, internet plug-ins, etc.

When we're ready (not yet!) and you do the first backup, you should get a prompt asking if you want the new Mac to "inherit" the old backups.  If so, they'll be changed so they look like they were made from the new one, TM will only back up the changes, and everything will be the way it should.

Message was edited by: Pondini

Probably not.  I was more worried about the home folder. 

If you can, connect them via FireWire or Thunderbolt and use Target Disk mode, it will be faster and less risk of changing anything on the old one before we get the diagnostics run.  If so, select From a Time Machine backup or other disk (since the old Mac looks like an external HD via Target Disk mode), not From a Mac or PC.

Just be sure to Restart after deleting the current Admin user account.

Hadn't fooled with this in a while, so just tested creating the user account and it did work.   I got this prompt: