Migration assistant not seeing external hard drive

My wife has the same problem. The hard drive of her 2011 iMac crashed so she had a new one installed. But when she went to transfer all her old data over using Migration Assistant and Time Machine, MA would not see the drive. If I allow TM to do a complete backup of the new drive, MA will then see the drive but only the most recent backup, which contains no data. I tried dragging that last backup to the trash, but when I do, MA again does not see the drive. We took both the iMac and the backup to a Genius Bar but the technician could not solve the problem. He tried another cable then said we'd have to drag files over in the Finder manually, reinstall her apps, and reconfigure her email client, etc.

What at I find especially annoying about this is she did everything right, keeping a current backup using Apple's backup software. If you can't rely on a backup when you need it most, it is not a good backup. I can only guess the problem has something to do with her jumping from OS 10.8.5 to 12 Sierra? But it seems to me that what we are trying to do is not extraordinary and a typical situation for which these apps were designed. A big fail for Apple on this one.

This is not the first time recently that I've found a lack of backward compatibility with Apple. Recently my iPhone died and an SE would not sync with my 2007 MacBook Pro. So I switched to Android, which, ironically, does sync. Now my trusty MacBook Pro has finally died and I don't think I'll be replacing it with an Apple product. I've been an Apple user since 1992 with an LC475, but a certain arrogance has crept into the offices of the company that once was close to bankruptcy in the late 1990's. Yes, they have become very successful, and many people are quick to upgrade to the latest phone or device, but losing sight of founding principles such as ease-of-use and reliability, not to mention customer loyalty, has driven this user to look for an alternative.

Before using Migration Assistant... have a look here, at Podinis Link, on using Setup Assistant...

Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC

Is this a network drive or attached drive via FW or USB?

What kind of network drive? A normal external HD that was connected to an Airport Extreme, Time Capsule, or other Mac? Or a 3rd-party NAS drive?

Does anything at all appear in the Select Your System window? Note that the name shown there may be the system and disk that were backed-up, not the one they're on.

If not, try repairing it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Message was edited by: Pondini

Slapshot Scott wrote:

Thanks. It's an external HD connected to an airport extreme. as I said I'm now trying to connect it via USB to make it quicker. Would the drive show up or the backup within the drive?

You may need to "mount" the sparse bundle manually, by double-clicking it via the Finder (I don't recall offhand).

That's because Time Machine stores local backups differently than those made over a network.

But it sounds like they're corrupted; the repair should make it work.

It should work while connected directly via USB (and I just tried it, without manually mounting the backups).

There should be a green disk icon (although it might be yellow), with the name of the disk and computer that were backed-up.

If not, they're probably damaged. Try Repairing the sparse bundle, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

You have to repair the sparse bundle, not just the drive.

If you don't see the messages in the center part of the screen, as in the sample, click the Log icon in the toolbar.

If it doesn't say the disk "appears to be ok" as oin the sample, it's not ok.

If it can't unmount it, be sure nothing else is trying to use it (be sure Time Machine is OFF). As a last resort, start up from your Recovery HD and repair it from there.