New hard drive to replace broken one - Migration Assistant doesn't see the external hard drive with my time machine backup, even though it mounts to the desktop... Anyone else had this problem? Using a MacBook pro with OSX 10.8.4
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)
Can you see the backup on the external drive with the drive mounted? If you can, can you get it to mount in Finder?
Hi! I can see everything on the backup drive - it displays as it should - just migration assistant that doesn't see it. I have run disk warrior and repaired a few minor errors and also tried it on another machine and still can't see it. I have since done a clean install of all software and just copied the data from the backup disk to my new hard drive. All working properly now. I'm just concerned because time machine should have done this all for me (and saved hours of work) so any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong would be really useful! Many thanks!
Here are the articles I have on Migration Assistant. None of them had the answer to your problem (or at least I couldn't find it). Check what you did versus the recommendations in the articles is about the best I can offer.
Thank you so much for the help - I'll take a look - think I might try re-formatting the backup drive and see if that helps... - once again - thanks!
You are welcome.
On 10.8.5 or earlier systems, Migration Assistant will not see the backup disk(s) created with 10.9, because it will have been created by a newer version of Time Machine and needs the newer version of Migration Assistant! Same will happen if you try to see a clone disk created with 10.9 system.
In fact it seems to me that MA of any system will not be able to see the Time machine or any clone disks created using a newer system, even if some of the backups are of the older system.
So if you are trying to revert back to 10.8.5, like I am, then your only chance to restore your 10.9 apps and settings is by manually copying files and folders, and THAT will take a long time and cumbersome detailed searches of want you need and where to find them so you can copy them.
I have been on the line with Apple Support for at least an hour and this was the result we reached.
migration assistant can't see time machine disk
