Sparsebundle / Migration issues

Mac Mini 2007

10.6.8

OCZ SSD

All was working happily. Back ups being transmitted to 'Time Machined' share on Lacie Ethernet Gb drive. Other Macs do the same and they work find for TM restore and past file review etc.

Yesterday, MacMini bombed. SSD (never use OCZ Petrols) died. On the hung screen panel showed progressing back up ie it was killed in the middle. Last successful back up was Dec 20. Worried that compromised back up will effect integrity of earlier, complete one.

Put in an old but reliable HDD. Installed 10.6. Named computer JAMES afresh in sharing. Pointed TM to Lacie share. Tried to migrate the back up JAMES.sparsebundle (see last para).

Migration assistant listed all the other back up drives from around the office. Failed to show JAMES.sparsebundle anywhere.

Loaded into disk utility. Opened. Ran successful repair. Seemed OK. Also tried terminal clean – failed to function.

Now I cannot access the old backed up files inside JAMES.sparsebundle. Only get todays unbacked up offering. Cannot see back to Dec 20.

Need to restore but am stuck. Can I restore using disk utility to a partition on the newly set up drive? Must I use Migration assistant even though cannot find JAMES.sparsebundle.

Do I need to adjust the plist file in the bundle?

Thank you in advance