Cannot restore from time machine

Question

Cannot restore from time machine

I installed a new SSD into my late 2012 mac mini along with the current HDD. Turned it on formatted the SSD and everything work fine. Next I wanted to transfer OSX and applications to SSD and use HDD for just storage. I backed up using time machine. I looked into a few different was to transfer OS. DIsk utility was wanting to create a fusion drive from the 2 drive. I went with this option.

It wiped the drives and made a new single storage group. I tried restoring from time machine a couple of times but this would not work saying: 'An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk' I went back into disk utility and checked the disks. Repaired the errors it said and tried again. Did not work.

Next I tried deleting the disk again and installing Mountain Lion from scratch from the internet option in recovery mode. This took I long time and got as far as nearly installing osx but got stuck on 15 mins remaining. I left this all day while I was at work.

Tried doing this a second time and it started downloading from the internet again but something must have gone wrong because when I came back it was back in recovery mode screen.

So not sure what else I can try to get this fixed. There is a suggestion online that this is a known problem with Mountain Lion and 2012 machines, but that doesn't really help me get working agian. The only other thing I can think of trying is un-fusioning the 2 drives and trying to install on just one to see if this works.

Does anyone else have any other steps to try?

Posted on Feb 10, 2015 1:26 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Feb 10, 2015 1:59 AM in response to getsomehavesome

Some drive partition configurations can result in the OS X Installer reporting that it cannot create a Recovery System. If this happens, you might want to quit the installation and create an external OS X hard drive with a Recovery System first. You can continue installing OS X on your computer's startup drive after creating an external Recovery System.

Where did yo install the SSD? Lower bay (one nearest the bottom cover) or the uppter bay (normally empty on single drive Mini?

Some users have reported problem with an SSD in the upper bay. Maybe because of the new cable or because of that SATA bus.

Try installing the SSD in the lower bay iff it is not there. Also if yo do not want a Fusion drive, disconnect the HD during the install if the SSD has enough space for the TM backup

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Answer 2

Feb 10, 2015 5:44 AM in response to lllaass

Ok thanks I'll try creating a external hard drive recovery. I installed SSD in the lower bay as the original HDD was in the upper one

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Answer 3

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Feb 10, 2015 5:48 AM in response to getsomehavesome

Next would be to switch the drives

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Answer 4

Feb 16, 2015 5:22 AM in response to lllaass

I have it now working. This is what I finally did to get this fixed.

Broke apart the Fusion Drive that disk utility created when I first installed the SSD
Used recovery partition to install a fresh copy of Mountain Lion from the internet on HD
Upgraded to OS to Yosemite to get around the issue with Disk utility wanting to always create a fusion drive.
Partitioned the HD to slightly smaller than SSD
Swapped the HD to the lower bay and put the SSD in the upper bay
Used disk utility to copy the contents of HD to SSD
Boot into SSD version of OS to check everything worked
Changed start up disk to SSD
Erased HD

Big thanks to lllaass for all the help that got me to the final soultion

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