using old ™ backup after migration

If you used Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, you should get this option when the first backup starts:

See #B5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details.

If you did something else, or didn't get the prompt, you might be able to do it manually, per #B6 in the same article.

Greetings:

My iMac died and Apple replaced it with a new one. I migrated my Time Machine backup to my new iMac successfully. However, I didn't see a dialog box with the option for inheriting my Time Machine backup history. So I tried to follow your instructions for reconnecting (B6). I entered the commands as you specified, but I ended up with the following and don't know how to proceed:

If you have any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it, since I know nothing about UNIX and don't want to mess things up here.

Thank you,

Nancy

The screen shot didn't attach to my message. Following is the text from the terminal window:

Last login: Sat Dec 17 12:01:00 on console

[Nancys-iMac:~] nancyfarlow% sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/backup\ HD/Backups.backupdb/Nancy\ Farlow’s\ iMac

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss

or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your

typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

[Nancys-iMac:~] nancyfarlow% sudo tmutil associatedisk -a //Volumes/backup\ HD/Backups.backupdb/Nancy’s\ iMac/2011-12-10-030425/Macintosh\ HD

Usage: tmutil associatedisk [-a] mount_point volume_backup_directory

A local volume mount point and a snapshot volume path are required.

[Nancys-iMac:~] nancyfarlow%

I tried the associatedisk... command again with the space after the slash, and was asked for my password, as your page says, and I entered it. So I think it worked. I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but unfortunately, I am. What do I do next? Close the terminal window? Time Machine on to see if it worked?

Thank you,

Nancy

nfarlow wrote:

. . .

[Nancys-iMac:~] nancyfarlow% sudo tmutil associatedisk -a //Volumes/backup\ HD/Backups.backupdb/Nancy’s\ iMac/2011-12-10-030425/Macintosh\ HD

Usage: tmutil associatedisk [-a] mount_point volume_backup_directory

A local volume mount point and a snapshot volume path are required.

[Nancys-iMac:~] nancyfarlow%

From the pink box:

To "associate" the OSX volume you're running from, copy the following after the prompt, leave a space after the slash, but do not press Return yet: (emphasis added).

It looks like you didn't leave that space. The sample from #B6:

Note the space after the first slash (before the blue underline), but none on yours. That's likely all that's wrong.

nfarlow wrote:

I tried the associatedisk... command again with the space after the slash, and was asked for my password, as your page says, and I entered it. So I think it worked. I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but unfortunately, I am. What do I do next? Close the terminal window? Time Machine on to see if it worked?

Thank you,

Nancy

Yes and yes.

As long as you didn't get an error message, that's all you can do.

But it may not work; TM should have done this automatically -- since it didn't, and we don't really know why, this may or may not work. If it doesn't, you'll be stuck with a separate set of backups.

No error message, so I'll cross my fingers and see what happens. Thank you for your help!

Cool. Let us know.

It worked! 🙂

Thanks again for all your help!

Nancy

Roger Billcliffe1 wrote:

. . .

I didn't get the 'inherit' option either but your instructions worked perfectly and I'm now addidng to the original backups

Great! 🙂 Glad to hear it, and thanks for the feedback.

nfarlow wrote:

It worked! 🙂

Teriffic!

TM usually does it automatically -- I wish we could figure out what went wrong in cases like these, so we could report it to Apple and get it fixed.

Hi Pondini, I am trying to follow your B6 solution for my new Mac. According to instruction I need to use both blue and pink procedures. I have Time Capsule. Blue box made it clear I need to drag the sparse bundle file to terminal window, but what should I do for pink box if I am using Time Capsule? How do I open sparse bundle file and locate the volume?

Thanks in advance.

The "associate disk" function doesn't work on network backups. I see that the last time I revised that page, that's not entirely clear -- I'll revise it again.

You can try it if you want (I did, and wasn't able to get it to work):

Locate the sparse bundle via the Finder.

Double-click it to mount it. After a few moments, a disk image named "Time Machine Backups" should appear on your desktop and/or Finder sidebar.

Double-click the disk image to open it. Then you should see the folder structure similar to the samples in #B6.

Pondini's solution just worked for me too. Would like to be able to like the key answer to award some points!