Restore from time machine computer cannot connect

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Level 1

43 points

Restore from time machine computer cannot connect

I was told by a senior Apple care advisor to backup (did that successfully), restart in recovery mode, goto disk utility, erase drive, then reinstall OS (we were trouble shooting Bluetooth connectivity issues and the engineers wanted to rule out any conflicts in my data).

When I went to restore from time machine airport time capsule (older, gen 3, but have restored from this recently when reinstalling OS due to Big Sur glitches), it could see the backup disk just fine, but when I clicked Restore (or continue or whatever) I got an error that it couldn’t connect to the drive. I tried via WiFi and direct from Ethernet.

Called Apple care and and was sent to a time capsule person. He was stumped. Tried reinstalling os again. Used my 2011 MacBook Pro to confirm time capsule was working (capsule has solid green light) looking at the capsule info, all checked out and we could see that it successfully backed up today. Used iPad airport utility to re-verify the airport time capsule was working. All looked good.

Now I seem to have lost 1.5 years of work even though I backed up regularly (hourly auto backup).

Hoping somebody here knows how to recover the data.

thx

j

Posted on Mar 10, 2021 7:51 PM

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Answer 1

gatehealing Author

Level 1

43 points

Mar 11, 2021 2:52 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Migration assist!! I cannot believe Apple care didn’t suggest that. The senior advisor troubleshooting the Bluetooth issue had told me to reinstall Big Sur in recovery mode...that’s the trouble. When I saw migration assist, I remembered that method and it seems to be working...it’s got another hour to go, but restoring from cmd-r restore mode didn’t even get to transferring files. Not sure why that didn’t work.

to answer other questions:

yes, I was able to see the capsule in finder and was able to connect...I could see all the backups.

No, I had not encrypted.

Fingers crossed this works. Glad I posted here since neither Apple care person suggested this...they stuck with trying from recovery mode.

j

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Answer 2

Bob Timmons

Level 10

193,212 points

Mar 11, 2021 3:37 PM in response to gatehealing

The senior advisor troubleshooting the Bluetooth issue had told me to reinstall Big Sur in recovery mode...that’s the trouble.

Hard to believe that a senior support person was not aware that things have changed dramatically with Big Sur. Users must now install the operating system first......then.....use Migration Assistant to transfer files from a backup over to the "new" Mac.

I say "new" Mac because if you erased the Mac's hard drive and then reinstalled the operating system, you have in effect a "new" Mac.

restoring from cmd-r restore mode didn’t even get to transferring files. Not sure why that didn’t work.

Very simple answer. It did not work because that is not the way to restore a Mac that is running Big Sur.

neither Apple care person suggested this...they stuck with trying from recovery mode.

More training needed for these folks, who should have known about changes that were made months ago.

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Answer 3

Bob Timmons

Level 10

193,212 points

Mar 11, 2021 9:03 AM in response to gatehealing

Sorry, but I cannot tell from the information in your post whether or not you tried to use Migration Assistant to transfer data from a Time Machine backup to a "new" Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981

Is that the case?

If yes, what troubleshooting steps have you used to try to connect your Mac to the Time Capsule?

Does the Time Capsule appear in the left panel of any Finder window under the "Locations" heading?

If not, did you use the Finder > Go > Connect to Server command to try to establish a connection to the Time Capsule?

Did you perhaps use the option to "encrypt" the backup that you made previously?

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Answer 4

gatehealing Author

Level 1

43 points

Mar 10, 2021 8:25 PM in response to gatehealing

By the way, I was restoring from backup bc I had finished testing the issue.

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Restore from time machine computer cannot connect

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