Time Machine that was last backed up yesterday Restores iMac to 2015, why?

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Time Machine that was last backed up yesterday Restores iMac to 2015, why?

For some reason my mother's iMac stopped working this afternoon. Reinstalled OSX, still hung at the same point on startup.

So, cmd+R reboot, erased the HD, and Restored from time machine backup, the most recent of which was yesterday evening. It restores OK, but then suddenly realised I'm looking at icons on the desktop for an ISP we stopped using years ago. Then looked at the Dropbox file, most recent file was from 2015. The iMac backups go back to 2013, so it seems its randomly picked some four year old point to restore to.

Thankfully I think most of my Mother's important stuff is on DropBox, but it looks as if Time machine just lost 4 years, I suppose the clue is in the name and I shouldn't be surprised.

I've just gone through the process again having deleted the most recent backup, just in case it was corrupted, but there didn't seem to be any way to select a "Restore from date", so I assume it supposed to be picking the most recent, but just isn't.

Is there any way to force TM to look as a particular point in time to restore from?

Thanks

Stephen

Posted on Nov 24, 2019 11:58 AM

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Answer 1

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SdeS Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 24, 2019 5:05 PM in response to SeaPapp

OK, I’ve finally got there, back to yesterday via three slow trips back to 2015. That video was the key. What he inadvertently shows is that you can skip over the window where you pick the backup you want.

You have to wait patiently looking at a blank panel and NOT press “Continue”. If you just think, we’ll, nothing’s happening here, I might as well continue, it just selects its default backup without telling you what that is. It turned out it was loading the last backup of a HD that had failed in 2015 before being replaced by an SSD.

What’s missing is a progress bar or a “ loading” dialogue. Perhaps on a new machine it loads quickly, but on an older iMac like mine it took about a minute before anything showed on that list. during which pressing that continue button is a pretty natural thing to do imho.

Thanks for the responses, i will remember the anomaly next time.

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Answer 2

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,488 points

Nov 24, 2019 12:46 PM in response to SdeS

Use the time line on the right side of Time Machine to select the time you want to restore from.

Use Time Machine to restore deleted files or older files

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

Nov 24, 2019 3:43 PM in response to SdeS

Something doesn't add up, you shouldn't have to click back at any point.

Restart your Mac.
While the startup disc is waking up, hold down the Command and R keys simultaneously. You're Mac will boot into macOS Utilities. If it doesn't, try again.
Select Restore from Time Machine Backup from the list of available options.
Click Continue.
Click Continue on the Restore Your System Page.
Select your Time Machine Backup.
Click Continue.
Select the most recent backup of your Mac's hard drive.
Click Continue.

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Answer 4

SdeS Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 24, 2019 2:31 PM in response to SdeS

Just found this slightly wobbly video. It looks as if its a weird sort of hidden option that you only find by selecting "back" to get to a screen of date options that you never had visibility of when going forward, crazy.

I will see if I can find the "Easter egg" date option page. You'd think it should be really obvious and not totally hidden unless you know to go back to something that was invisible on the way through!

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Answer 5

SdeS Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 24, 2019 1:55 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the suggestion, but isn't that to restore files and folders? I'm trying to restore the entire system from a backup to an erased SSD.

An update on the situation is that I've just been through the entire "Restore" again having deleted a couple of the most recent backups in case they were corrupted.

It still restores to 2015 not Nov 2019. It joyfully says "Success, restart to start using.....etc.", but I'm afraid I don't really count missing 4 years as a TimeMachine high point!

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