poe
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Q: Unable to restore from Airport Extreme - seek help

After I formatted my Mac-mini's hard drive to finally resolve a slow response issue, I found that I could not restore any of my old files in the Airport Extreme.  Despite I can view the backup after entering Time Machine, nothing happened when I clicked on them.  All my photos as well as other important documents are in there but not accessible.  Any help is appreciated.

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 25, 2015 2:33 AM

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poe

Q: Unable to restore from Airport Extreme - seek help

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  • by Bob Timmons,

    Bob Timmons Bob Timmons Dec 25, 2015 6:29 AM in response to poe
    Level 10 (105,368 points)
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    Dec 25, 2015 6:29 AM in response to poe

    If you formatted the Mac Mini's hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, then Setup Assistant should have appeared very early in the setup to ask if you wanted to restore from another Mac or a Time Machine backup.

     

    If you passed on using Setup Assistant at that time, you can't go back and choose again unless you start over, erase the drive and install the operating system again.

     

    If you don't want to do that, you should be able to use Migration Assistant on the Mac to move over the data that you want.

     

    Finder > Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant

     

    Migration Assistant.png

     

    More info about Migration Assistant is here in this Apple support document:

     

    Move your content to a new Mac - Apple Support