How to reinstall data after Maverick upgrade

You can try to see if he recognize your HD, by looking it up in the Finder.

If so you can try to restore data using the "Migration Assistant" but that might have you ending up with a second user.

If you want to restore a full backup, I would go to the Recovery HD (Command ⌘ + R) and selecting the first option. Remember this will erase your internal HD and then restore the backup from your external HD. You might even be able to revert back to Mountain Lion.

Manually restoring might be the safest way tho, as you do not know for sure your external HD will be recognized.

Edit: You can always manually retrieve your data by opening your external HD via the finder, and then opening your Time Machine backup.

Message was edited by: Shoozzz

Yes that is what I mean with manually.

Doing a full restore, then you should follow the other option using the command + R option.

About CCC, I am not sure.. I kinda only use official software and no 3rd party software.

If you go to the Recovery HD, the first option will completely restore a backup, but then ofcourse your external HD has to be recognized.

I would still advise you to check the first option in the Recovery HD, just to see if it will recognize your Time Machine backups, if so, they also should tell you on what OS the backups are made. You might even be able to restore to a backup made on Mountain Lion that way (Not sure if it will bring you back to Mountain Lion tho(Let me know!)).

You are correct about that, but I am not sure what OS X will do, if it will restore Mavericks and then restore your files, or that it will restore Mountain Lion from the backup.. I would say it goes back to Mountain Lion.. but I am just not 100% sure about that.

No worries...if you choose a 10.8.x Time Machine backup restore point it will restore Mountain Lion. (The boot loader GUI will still be Mavericks but the actual working version of OSX will be Mountain Lion with apps and data of that date's image snapshot.)

I'd say it's worth a shot. If it's still not recognizing the drive, try resetting the NVRAM:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Finger's crossed and smart thinking with multiple back up strategies! I've done the same with an offline, ext My Book for ages myself (no trace of WD software on any of my devices however ;-) Hopefully Apple and the affected vendors will get this mess sorted quickly!

Since upgading to mavericks migration assistant no longer sees my backup on my external drive that I use for my time machine backups. The drive mounts fine and I can access my backups through my finder using "enter time machine", but I can not restore because migration assistant can't see the drive. I don't knoe if it's a time machine issue or a mighration assistant issue. I have tried on several macs and with several different hard drives but migration assistant cannot restore from my time machine backups. I suggest everyone make sure they can restore from their time machine backups because this may be a major problem and result in complete loss of data. I have found no solution yet.

I've heard more about the LaCie and Western Digital things also.

I'm also glad you at least made multiple backups, and are able to get to work again.

Further, I do think contacting Apple about this might be good, this will make them aware, and process it in an update or something.

Hopefully it will get fixed, so you can work with your external hard drive again!