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Time Machine can't see backup to restore even though the data is there

After encountering a few issues with Catalina I decided to go back to Mojave. The erase of Catalina and reinstall of Mojave from a USB installer went fine except when I tried to migrate data back from Time Machine the Mac now running Mojave couldn’t see the backup.

I have two user backups on a Time Capsule Time Machine. I'll call them MBP A (me), and MBP B. MBP B was a one-off backup made a few months ago that has not been backed up since.

MBP A is my 24/7 backup running automatically from my MBP. With Mojave reinstalled I can browse the The Machine backup in Finder and I see MBP B's Sparse Disk Image Bundle there. But my own MBP A is nowhere to be seen. If I run Migration Assistant I can see MBP B in the list of backups to choose from but not MBP A.

So, I reinstalled Mojave 3 times and still no MBP A data on the TC to select. So, I wondered if it was something to do with Catalina having made maybe one or two backups since it had been installed. I erased the Mac drive again, installed Catalina, and then it was possible to see both MBP A and MBP B backups on the Time Capsule. Restore of MBP A proceeded without a hitch (except for all my Photos missing but that's another issue).

Any help trying to get my MBP A backup visible in Migration Assistant in Mojave so I can restore it and not have to go back to Catalina would be most appreciated.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 14, 2019 3:22 AM

Top-ranking reply

David Auckland Author

Level 1

28 points

Posted on Oct 16, 2019 3:36 PM

SOLVED: For anyone reading this who encounters a similar experience:

Cause

It appears Catalina may have placed a different file extension on the end of the backup file name. The original file extension of .sparsebundle created in Mojave (and before) had been replaced with .backupbundle presumably by Catalina (although I can't be certain) .

Solution

By renaming the file extension from .backupbundle to .sparsebundle the backup file I had been looking for became visible in Migration Assistant. It was possible to rename the file extension by connecting to the Time Machine backup in Finder as follows:

Steps

Open Finder
Click on Airport Time Capsule underneath locations in the sidebar on the left of the Finder window.
Click the Connect As button (top right of the Finder window)
Enter your password
Open the Data folder
Hopefully your backup will be listed and it should be possible to manually change the file extension name from .backupbundle to .sparsebundle just by clicking on the file name.

This worked for me.

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Time Machine can't see backup to restore even though the data is there

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