Address Book Restore from TM

Matt,

Thanks for the response. I see one window address book which is the current one "through which I enter time machine". I can not flip through the time line since there is nothing.

I even opened mail because I wanna restore mail and all my smart email boxes, and there is NOTHING.

How can this be as my TM backup file is about 30 GB...?

Matt,

I have tried that too. The funny thing is, when I enter time machine, no matter what window I do it through, I cannot navigate the time line, although it does give an approximate start time which correctly reflects when I started using time machine.

I find the above behavior extremely bazaar since Time Machine worked fine until the system restore. For example, I was able to enter time machine through finder, and simply use the arrow buttons in the lower right hand corner to navigate forwards and backwards in time. I even retrieved a file two days ago which I had deleted from my documents folder about a month ago, but now I simply cannot go back in time.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that, my Mac hard drives was named Macintosh HD(4). When I did a restore, I deleted the hardrive in order to install a fresh copy of Snow L. I entered the instller and erased the Macintosh HD, and renamed it Mac HD. So perhaps it could have something to do with be renaming of the hard drive, but then again NONE of the **** folders allow me to navigate back in time. The backups are there because I can enter the backup folders from the normal Finder window.

Anyways, I have given you a mouthful outnof desperation. Thanks for the help so far. Much appreciated!!

I will try and explain my setup to give you a good idea of what my problem is.

I run the latest version of snow leopard. I had a user account with a password. The name of my hard drive of my MacBook pro was named Macintosh HD (4). The name of the hard drive on which I made my backups using time machine is called Mybook.

So here is what happened. I run an Internet filter which was causing problems. Due to the nature of the product, it can only be removed with a password which I some how lost ( I installed the program about 2 years ago). I figured the only way to get rid of it is a clean start with Mac OS. So I ran the installation disk, used the disc utility to completely format the Mac Hard drive and install a clean copy of snow leopard. So when the computer finally restarted it ran through the setup as it did the day I took it out o the box when I bought it.

I renamed my home folder, and the name of the MacBook hard drive had been changed to Mac HD. So yes, essentially the user account is not 100% the same as before.

Now, when I click Finder > MyBook and access the backup folder, it appears as if though most folders are there. However, when I open address book and then run time machine, I can not navigate up the time line. it simply gives one window and black subfolders behind it. It does the same for any other folder that I open through finder an the open time machine. Could this be that time machine sees me as a different user and therefore does not allow me access to the backup files.

Just another thing. When I click Finder > Mybook>backup>System>Library>Application Support....there is no folder named address book. However, when I access Application support on my MacBook pro HD, the folder is there.

Finally, when I set up time machine to make backups I set it up to exclude NOTHING.

I hope this clarifies the issue somewhat for you guys to be able to work with something.

Thanks a lot.
ST

In case anybody cares to explain the logic, I solved the problem, but admit that I officially don't understand the logic of Time Machine.

So, first of all, it seems I cannot browse the time line of backups from a previous user account.
Secondly, I was able to restore my address book by clicking Finder>MyBook>Backups.backupdb>Users...then selecting my old user account name I was able to access all the stuff I had backed up.

Anyways, I solved the problem and I hope it becomes useful to someone in the future.

Thanks for attempting!
Cheers