Q: How to Migrate Time Capsule BackUps to Permit Full TC Restore

Exactly how old is the TC.. is it over or under two years?

Do you have current applecare on any computer, ipad or appletv?? If so your TC is covered by warranty and apple will replace it.

If no applecare and over 2 years.. unless you still have a device that is valid for applecare and within 2 years of purchase of the TC you are out of luck.

Anyhow..

The store has given you a bum steer.

What I would ideally like to do is migrate from the TC to the G Drive, restore the TC to factory settings and find that it miraculously recovers from its ailment and then transfer all the data back from the G Drive.

Resetting the TC to factory will not do anything to the files on the TC.. and it is completely unnecessary to erase the drive.. if the drive is faulty it will show a drive fault error. A full factory reset should always be attempted to clear up faults. If you plug it by ethernet into the AE and simply run it in bridge mode it might work fine.

Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.

Factory reset universal

Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.

N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.

The TC does become unreliable when you get near the 3 year mark.. so if you have owned the TC for more than 2 years.. just replace it. Mine (3rd one now) just did a nose dive after running well for a couple of years.

I did factory reset it 3 or 4 times before it half revived but I have now relegated it to the untrustworthy equipment pile.

I have now purchased a 4TB G Drive (USB3) and am struggling to migrate the back ups of the two macs onto it so that I can the do the full restore of the Time Capsule. I have searched many sites but cannot find accurate instructions to migrate from a Time Capsule to an external drive.

Plug your G drive into the TC and make sure it is recognised.

Open the airport utility to the disk tab of your TC.. (you do this standalone after a full factory reset).

Simply archive the disk.

The other way is to copy the sparsebundles from the TC plugged into your computer by ethernet to the G-drive plugged into the computer by USB.. this is about twice as fast as plugged directly to the TC but means your computer is going to be busy for the next 1-2days doing the backup.

If this doesn't work, then a partition on the G Drive becomes the new back-up location. With this in mind do I need to partition the G Drive now or can I partition it later once the back-ups are on it?

Remember that partitioning will destroy all data on the disk.. sometimes you can get away with reducing one partition and creating a second one but this is never the best way to go. Whatever state you want the G drive to be.. start with it like that. For use as TM target it is not necessary to partition the drive although it can be useful.

If you are going to archive the TC disk as per instructions above you should not partition.

I purchased the TC direct from Apple in January 2014 so it is 2.5 years old. I subsequently purchased one year ago a MacBook Air directly from Apple in July 2015 with AppleCare. Does this mean I am eligible for for a replacement TC?

Correct. you are indeed eligible for replacement.

The TC is less than 3 years old.

The applecare on the laptop is current.

The laptop was purchased within 2 years of the TC.

Insist apple replace it.

You do not need to create the folder .. data is the default root partition of the TC.

If you still have the TC make an export of the settings in the airport utility.

So click the TC.. then click edit in the summary screen.

Go to top menu area and you can export your current configuration.

On the new TC you can import it.

Simply copy the sparsebundles back to the TC.

HOWEVER.. we do find this can lead to issues.. it is not always going to work.

We generally advise people keep the stored backup sparsebundles.. and create new ones on the TC.

After a few months if you have not required anything in the old sparsebundles you are unlikely to ever need them.. so wipe them and reuse the G drive for something else.