Restoring from Time Machine takes more than 1000 hours

tbirdvet wrote:

How did you format your new SSD? it should be Mac OS extended (journaled) and one partition and GUID.

Yes, did that.

Now I wanted to try to just reinstall OS X and then use Migration Assistant to restore my files, so I boot from the recovery partition, choose to reinstall OS X and I have to sign in to the App Store to download Mavericks. Why aren't all the files on this Time Machine disk? I already downloaded and installed Mavericks from the App Store before. Why don't they put a copy of it on my Time Machine disk? Now they want me to download it again and they tell me it will take 50 hours! If I had to wait for 50 hours in the full-blown OS X I could just let it download and do other things and then start the installation after a few days, but now I have to wait for more than 2 days in this limited recovery environment where I can't do anything else. The modern times of digital downloads... Absolutely brilliant. Just give me a disc, so I can just install OS X within 45 minutes.

The only option I get is to download and install Mavericks, but how about Yosemite. That's one of the reasons I've bought a bigger SSD. After Mavericks is up and running on this new disk, I'm going to install Yosemite anyway. Why don't they tell me a new version of OS X is out and offer me to install that one instead? Yes, I could do it from the old SSD, but that's the point: I don't have enough space to download and install Yosemite on my old SSD. So, I first have to wait for 50 hours in the recovery environment before Mavericks is finally downloaded and after I'm done setting up Mavericks on the new SSD I have to wait for 50 more hours until Yosemite is downloaded. I wished I could just go to the store, buy Mavericks and install it on my new SSD, just like in the old days. Drive 1 hour to the city, drive 1 hour back, 45 minutes to install the new operating system. Less than 3 hours and everything would be up and running, instead of waiting for hours and hours. I don't even understand how it can be this slow. How much does it have to download? 5 GB or so? So it would take 10 hours for 1 GB? About 100 MB an hour? How is this even possible?

I booted from the old SSD again and just removed everything, so I would have enough space to download Yosemite. When it's downloaded I want to make a bootable Yosemite disk of the downloaded file, boot from this disk and install Yosemite on the new SSD and then restore my files from the Time Machine disk. Downloading from the App Store while running the full-blown operating system is twice as fast as running from the recovery partition, but it still takes 1 day and a few hours. I really don't understand how the App Store can be so incredibly slow.

There is no Apple Store in my country. There's an Apple Premium Reseller, but they don't know anything.

After about 30 hours Yosemite finished downloading, so I made a bootable Yosemite disk and started the installation process. After several minutes the Mac was restarted and it started part 2 of the installation. It showed a remaining time of 13 minutes which changed to 12 minutes and then it got stuck. It doesn't seem te be doing anything.

I've installed many operating systems (many different versions of OS X, Windows and Linux), but getting an operating running on my new SSD in this MacBook just seems to be impossible. No matter what I try, everything takes hundreds of hours or just gets completely stuck.

I tried installing Snow Leopard, but it seemed to be stuck at 17 minutes remaining, so I tried installing Lion (Yes, I'm actually one of those persons who bought Lion on USB), but this one didn't even start. Immediately when booting from the install USB it says: 'There was a problem installing "Mac OS X". Try reinstalling.' I then swapped the SSD for an old fashioned 80 GB HDD, but I got the exact same error.

I really don't know what's wrong with this machine. I installed OS X on this machine before and I never had any problems, but now it just refuses to install anything or restore from Time Machine.

Yes, I'm posting this from the old SSD. I didn't try reinstalling OS X on the old SSD, because I'm afraid I will end without any operating system at all. I did try to install OS X on a regular HDD, but my MacBook also refused to install anything on this disk.

I'm now trying to use the iMac of my boss to install Yosemite on the new SSD. I took the new SSD and the external HDD with Yosemite to my work and connected both to his iMac. After the Mac restarts it shows me the message:

'OS X could not be installed on your computer

An error occurred while extracting files from the package "BaseSystemBinaries.pkg".

Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again."

Posting this from Yosemite. I don't know why I was making a bootable disk and constantly swapping the old and new SSD in my MacBook (remove the old SSD and install the new one to try and install Yosemite, then installing the old one again to post on this forum and try to find a solution and then install the new one again and so on and on and on and on). It isn't necessary at all to use a bootable disk. I now just opened the app to install Yosemite while running from the old SSD and connected the new SSD by USB. I told the app to install Yosemite on the SSD connected by USB and only half an hour later Yosemite was already running. I still don't understand why the other things didn't work that I tried, but I finally got Yosemite running. Thanks for the help.

Just to answer your questions (not that it still matters):

His iMac is of the first generation super slim models. What year was this? I think 2013.

I now got it working without reformatting or anything. I just started the app that I downloaded from the App Store and this time it just worked.

Thanks all for helping.

It was a little bit too early to think everything would be fine. I posted my last comment right after Yosemite while the SSD was in the case connected by USB. I thought everything would be fine and I could now just take the SSD out of the case and install it in the MacBook. However, after installing it, the MacBook refuses to boot. It starts to boot and when the loading bar is at about 45-50% it just stops. I took the disk out again and connected it by USB and everything is fine again.

The reason this disk refuses to work every time I install it in the MacBook seems to be because this MacBook still has SATA I and the disk I bought is only backwards compatible with SATA II, but not SATA I. That's why everything is fine when I connect it by USB, but when I install it in the laptop it's impossible to restore a Time Machine backup or install any operating system on it or boot from an operating system that is already installed on it.

How about the error I got about not being able to extract files from the package "BaseSystemBinaries.pkg"? I only got this error when I connected the SSD using a universal USB adapter (or whatever I should call it, but it's one that has SATA and IDE and can be used to connect 2.5" disk, 3.5" disks, CD/DVD/Blu-ray players). I noticed Disk Utility said G.U.I.D. was not supported when I connected the SSD using this adapter, but it is supported when I connect the SSD using the regular HDD case. I expect this has something to do with it.

Anyway, I think the core problem of the new SSD not working in my MacBook is the new SSD not being compatible with the old SATA interface in my MacBook. At the moment I don't have a disk in the MacBook and I'm just running Yosemite using the case. I will buy another SSD that supports SATA I and think (hope) everything will be fine then.

Like I said, I started the app to install Yosemite while I was booted into Mavericks and then chose to install Yosemite on the new SSD. However, after Yosemite was installed on the new SSD, Mavericks on the old SSD was gone. It's just stuck in a "install Yosemite state" or whatever I should call it. I think this is ridiculous, because I'm going to install Yosemite on the new SSD that connected by USB, not on the old SSD that's installed in the MacBook. Then leave this disk in it's original state, instead of also starting the install process of Yosemite on it. So, be careful. If you want to use someones Mac to download and install Yosemite (or whatever version of OS X) on your own disk, don't just start the app from their machine, because you can't get back to their old operating system. After you've installed OS X on your own disk, you'll also have to install it on the Mac that you used to download and install OS X. So, if you use someone else's Mac, you have to make a bootable disk or they won't be able to get back to their old operating system.

Sorry for the extremely late reply. Today I suddenly remembered I still had to post the solution to this problem on this discussion board.

A few weeks after my last post I bought another SSD and this one works without any problems. If you've got a Mac with SATA I interface make sure you buy a disk that's backwards compatible with SATA I. A disk that's only backwards compatible until SATA II clearly doesn't work.

After I got my new disk I put it in my MacBook, installed Yosemite and everything immediately worked without any problems. When El Capitan was released I installed it and for several months now I've been running El Capitan from my new SSD.