I am trying to restore my data from airport following a HD replacement on my macbook pro. The airport shows all my back ups from June 2015 and before but they are in grey and I cannot access them. How do I access them? thanks

Question

I am trying to restore my data from airport following a HD replacement on my macbook pro. The airport shows all my back ups from June 2015 and before but they are in grey and I cannot access them. How do I access them? thanks

Problem restoring from Airport - My MacBook Pro suffered a hard drive collapse so I have replaced the HD and am trying to restore from Airport. The MacBook is 12 months old and has been continually backed up by Airport during this time apart from the period when it was being repaired. The only dates that it is allowing me to back up to are the last couple of days when there was no data on the machine. The previous dates from June 2015 and earlier are all in grey and cannot be accessed. Does anyone know how to access the earlier dates? Thanks for any suggestions. Peter Cayman.

Posted on Jul 2, 2015 7:07 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Bob Timmons

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Jul 2, 2015 7:35 AM in response to Peter Cockhill

Time Machine assumes that you will be restoring data using the same Mac that made the backups, so you would not use Time Machine in your case.

To move data from an existing Time Machine backup over to another Mac, you would use Migration Assistant. It's located as follows:

Finder > Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant

More info in this Apple Support document: Move your content to a new Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jul 4, 2015 10:24 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob - thanks a lot for your reply, which makes sense. Unfortunately I was unable to successfully migrate the data because although the Airport was recognised it did not allow me to actually enter and choose a date to restore. Reluctantly I had to take it to a service provider who has successfully restored the data at a cost of a couple of hundred dollars. Hey ho. Thanks again.

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Answer 3

Jul 4, 2015 5:20 PM in response to Peter Cockhill

Glad that you got things resolved, but surprised that you had difficulty with Migration Assistant, as this is the correct application to use and it is normally a very straightforward process, assuming that you knew the device password for the Time Capsule.

Had we known that you were having difficulty, we would have suggested transferring files using the Finder on your new Mac.....which is a significantly more complicated process.

The tech might have used this method, or he may have reinstalled the operating system again on the Mac and used Setup Assistant.....easier than Migration Assistant to move files over from backups. You only get one shot at using Setup Assistant.....when you start up the Mac for the first time.

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