Time machine backup is not recognized in Setup Assistant

orppaha@gmail.com wrote:

The installation CD is Snow Leopard and when I checked Mac OS X version, it says 10.6.8.

So, there is a chance that the backups made before 3/6 might be under Mountain Lion and the current OS X that I have on this computer is Snow Leopard and this mismatch causes a problem?

That's clearly what's happened (although we can't tell if it was Lion or Mountain Lion, since the System folder wasn't backed-up).

And you can't restore or migrate "backwards" -- from a newer version of OSX to an older one, as the file/folder structure of some things (including Mail) have changed. The newer versions know about the older setup, so can convert to the newer one, but can't go backwards.

This may be possible because I don't know what OS X version it had before as it was installed by someone else.

Did you get this Mac used? That's what it sounds like.

And may be why so many things were omitted from the backups (and who knows what else is screwed-up 😟).

Do you think if I can get Moutain Lion installation CD and tries to restore, it would work?

There is no such thing. Effective with Lion, OSX is only available by downloading (4+ GB) from the App Store.

You have a couple of choices, neither very attractive:

• You could download Lion or Mountain Lion from the App Store. You'll have to either use the AppleID it was purchased with to download it for free, or pay for it under a different AppleID. Since you've already got the Mail folder copied into your home folder, it may work without further messing about (but you will need to copy the preferences file from the Containers folder on the backups into the corresponding one on your Mac, if you haven't yet).

• You might be able to stay on Snow Leopard and recover the mailboxes by "importing" them. That probably won't transfer attachments, though, because of the different file/folder structure. Since you've already got the new folder setup in ~/Library/Mail, which the Snow Leopard version won't recognize, you'll have to either erase and install OSX again, or create a new account and copy the default structure from it, and hope for the best.

If you want to think about that for a while, or have some questions first, that's fine. (I'll be going to bed in an hour or so, so if you don't post back until then, I won't answer until tomorrow, but I will be back.)

Message was edited by: Pondini

orppaha@gmail.com wrote:

. . .

I will ask IT what version of OSX this computer has before. The only problem with our IT is they don't know much about Mac.

Clearly! 😢

Once I try out those two options, I will post the result (most probably tomorrow afternoon.)

I think your best bet is to install either Lion or Mountain Lion. I just realized you can tell which you had, even without the System library. Go to the exclusion list you posted, and scroll up to the top (it was cut off in your post). If you find .DocumentRevisions-V100, it was Lion; if not, Mountain Lion.

If you try to recover to Snow Leopard (which I don't think will work well, if at all) you probably know you'll have to copy the Mail preferences file from the Containers folder in the backups to ~/Library/Preferences on the Snow Leopard version of OSX. I'm not sure it will work properly there, though -- the layout may have been changed.

Good luck!

orppaha@gmail.com wrote:

. . .

I installed Moutain Lion and copied preference file and mail folder from 3/6 backup. It all worked out, beautifully. So, it was indeed due to different version of OSX.

Great! 🙂

Now I will try to see if I can restore entire system from Time Machine Backup, I guess this may not be possible as time machine backup does not cotain system backup.

Correct.

You might be able to use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, but it's doubtful, as you already tried that (per your first post), and the backups apparently weren't recognized. The easy way to tell is to start the Migration Assistant app and see if it will recognize the backups, and offer you the option to transfer your user account(s) via this window:

If it does, you may not want to do it that way, exactly, but it will tell you if it's possible. See Using Migration Assistant on Mountain Lion or Lion.

orppaha@gmail.com wrote:

. . .

As expected, it didn't work. Migration assitant does not recognize the backup. At least, I am happy to recover mail, address book, calendar items. I can go through other applications.

Yup, I was afraid of that. 😟

The locations of some common files are listed in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #28.

Again, you have been a great help and I am so grateful.

Thank you very much.

You're quite welcome. Sorry it was such a mess -- good luck!