Migration Assistant does not see my WD backup drives!

Question

Level 1

5 points

Migration Assistant does not see my WD backup drives!

Apple recalled my Seagate HD and I just had it replaced with a new HD at the Genius Bar. I picked up my iMac today and am now attempting to RESTORE with my backup to my new (internal) HD. However, when I used the Setup Assistant, it did not see either of my external backup drives. I continued through the setup process and thought I'd try the Migration Assistant. Even THAT did not see either of my back up drives. When I use Time Machine to RESTORE, I navigate to the latest folder but the Restore button is greyed out.

The drives are both on my desktop and they work in the Finder with no issue, I've repaired and verified both and they check out just fine. I've seen this problem in other posts in the Apple forums and elsewhere on the web, and I've tried the suggestions with no success. Some I haven't tried because they refer to Lion—I have 10.6.8.

BTW: I had a HD fail on my MacBook a year ago and after the new HD was installed, I ran the Setup Assistant on it and everything went smoothly (same BU drive manufacturer) when restoring with the backup.

Do I need to go back to Genius now (no no no!) or call Apple Support (yikes!)?

I am going MAD without my Mac!

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks—katorama

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), with combo update v1.1

Posted on Nov 3, 2012 9:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

sanjampet

Level 5

7,982 points

Nov 4, 2012 4:54 PM in response to katorama

Try booting holding option key and this should bring uo the disc you wish to select.

Reply

Answer 2

katorama Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 4, 2012 6:57 PM in response to sanjampet

Thanks sanjampet.

I called Apple support and the tech had me make a bogus account with a different user account name. I then logged into the bogus account and ran Migration Assistant. MA cannot override while logged into your main account, thus the bogus one is needed.

Turns out that while in MA, you will *not* see your backup drive in the list when it comes to the "select a drive" screen. It wants you to select a drive to migrate to, not from. Once you select the "Macintosh HD" and Continue, Migration Assistant will locate your latest backup and restore it to your new HD.

Once the migration is complete (this takes a while of course), log out of the bogus account, then log back into your main account. You can delete the bogus account.

That's it!

😎

Reply