Can't restore files from Time machine backup?

Either login to her account if you know the password or have her login to her account. Then she can restore her files from her TM backup.

Then look here: Time Machine User Tips for help. Also see:

Using Time Machine to Restore System and/or Files



Mac 101- Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Recovering items using Time Machine and Spotlight
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Restoring files backed up with Time Machine
Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine
Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions
Time Machine - TROUBLESHOOTING

For additional help select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine."

Was there a reason you erased the hard drive before installing Snow Leopard? That's rarely required or helpful.

When you first booted-up after the install, you should have been asked whether you already have a Mac, and been given the opportunity to "transfer" your settings, apps, users, and files. Is that how you did the first restore (the one that "kinda" worked)? If so, did you select everything?

If that's not what you did, how did you do that restore?

Have you made other important changes to your data since the install?

wrongusername wrote:

My iMac was freezing for no apparent reason and my hard drive was not detected by the install dvd.

I can see reinstalling OSX, but erasing everything is a last resort.

Nope, I chose to transfer nothing. I wanted to start fresh and reinstall all my applications.

The problem with that is, if you didn't set each user up exactly as before, you'll get permissions problems. Not only the user names, but the ID numbers used by UNIX must be the same.

At this point, I think you've only got two unattractive options:

1. If the last good backup is still on your TM drive, start over. Use the TM interface to delete the backup(s) you've made since the Snow Leopard install (see item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.)

Erase your internal HD, install SL, then let the +Setup Assistant+ transfer everything (you could omit apps if you want to). The reason you have to delete your SL backups is, +Setup Assistant+ won't give you a choice of backups; it uses the last one.

2. Copy from the backups via the Finder. You will have all sorts of permissions issues with them, but at least you can get the data.

wrongusername wrote:
But if I transfer everything with the Setup Assistant, won't I once again be experiencing the problems I had?

If the problems were caused by your data. But that's extremely unlikely. It may have been an app, or, much more likely from your description, something corrupted in the Leopard OS. That's one of the problems with upgrading a sick system without knowing what or where the causes are. It's a bit like a brain surgeon operating on himself: if he isn't in tip-top shape to start with, his condition is likely to change, and not for the better.

Most of us would have recommended first simply doing a +*Repair Disk+* on your internal HD; if that didn't help, installing the "combo" Leopard update; if that didn't work, doing an +Archive and Install+ and re-installing the "combo."

After a clean re-install of Snow Leopard, my Mac worked fine again (except for the TM trouble). So it probably had something to do with my old files.

Probably not. Much more likely OSX was somehow damaged. And you got a whole new one.

How come I could read the files on my external HD and yet not be able to copy the files?

Time Machine uses special "deny everybody everything" permissions on it's backups, among other things, in an attempt to keep us mere mortals from moving, changing, or deleting things and corrupting them.

wrongusername wrote:
I'll try out reinstalling the OS again. Would I need to wipe out the hard drive again?

Now you're worried about erasing? But yes, this time, since we don't really know what's there and with what permissions, and in what condition, erase your OSX partition.

You might as well do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your TM drive while you're at it.

I booted from the Windows partition,

I really love it when we first find out there are (at least) two partitions in your EIGHTH post. Are there any other little tidbits you've left out?

How many partitions are there, and how big is each one?

installed Mac Drive 8, and... all my Mac-formatted drives and partitions appeared in "My Computer" EXCEPT for my Time Machine drive. I could copy the files from my Macintosh HD as I liked to (and copy files from my bootcamp partition to my Mac-partition as I liked to); I could browse all the user folders without permissions restrictions; and for all those goodies, my TM drive does not appear! Argh...

I don't do Windoze, so have no idea.

Hello,

First of all I have to disagree with Pondini. If you have a system running for over a year and tried different applications, tools and shareware, your system gets compromised. Of course not always but if you use your mac on a daily basis it'll probably happen.

A clean install is very refreshing and gives you back a fast and snappy operating system.

I did the same thing last week, clean install of Snow Leopard. Unfortunately without knowing about the time machine issue.

After some research a very easy solution presented.

Use the Terminal!

cp -R source "destination"

It copies everything without the annoying permission error.

You can even drag the source folder from your time machine backup folder into the terminal.

For example:
cp -R /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb/MK\ MBP/2009-09-29-141056/Macintosh\ HD/Users/mbluhm/Documents/DOC "/Users/mb/Documents/DOC"

This simple solution saved my day!

Hope it helps.

All the best.