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Restoring Time Machine Backup of an external hard drive that has failed?

Hello all,


For some reason I just can't figure this out, and I feel it should be pretty straightforward.


I have an external hard drive where I store all of my most important professional files (650gb) and my photo library (250gb). This is obviously a bunch of important data, so I have set up time machine to back it up along with my main computer. This week that hard drive failed. I have a new one now - same overall style, size, and formatting system - and I can't for the life of me figure out how to use time machine to restore the data from the backup of the previous hard drive to the new one.


The time machine app browser seems to operate through versioning files, where it is expecting you to be able to pull up the finder window for the files you want restored. I don't have access to that finder window, and I can't seem to get the time machine app to recognize the new hard drive as the one I want to transfer the files to. I tried. Migration Assistant, which let me navigate to the external hard drive backup and select it to restore, but it will only let me move those files to my computer, and I would need to move ~1tb worth of files, which is the size of the entire internal HD.


Is it as simple as just navigating to the backup.backupdb folder and copying files from there? I can verify that everything I need is right there, and accessible. I just don't want to accidentally mess up the only versions of these files that I have left, so don't want to play around with those files unless I need to.


For reference, my info is below - thank you so much for the help!


2021 MacBook Pro 16"

Apple M1 Pro

MacOS: 13.3.1 (a)

Failed External HD: Lacie 8tb

Backup External HD: Seagate 8tb

New External HD: SanDisk G-Drive 6tb

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jun 25, 2023 8:01 PM

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Posted on Jun 25, 2023 8:28 PM

I can't for the life of me figure out how to use time machine to restore the data from the backup of the previous hard drive to the new one.


Open up Time Machine and give it some time to fully load.....maybe 20-30 minutes

Using the timeline on the right side of the window, go back to a date before the hard drive failed

Click on the name of your Mac under the Locations heading on the left panel of the Finder window and then look over in the space to the right to see if the name of the hard drive appears

Right-Click on the hard drive and select Restore To from the drop down menu

Select a destination where you want to restore the data on the hard drive

You can take it from here

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5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 25, 2023 8:28 PM in response to baldwints

I can't for the life of me figure out how to use time machine to restore the data from the backup of the previous hard drive to the new one.


Open up Time Machine and give it some time to fully load.....maybe 20-30 minutes

Using the timeline on the right side of the window, go back to a date before the hard drive failed

Click on the name of your Mac under the Locations heading on the left panel of the Finder window and then look over in the space to the right to see if the name of the hard drive appears

Right-Click on the hard drive and select Restore To from the drop down menu

Select a destination where you want to restore the data on the hard drive

You can take it from here

Jun 28, 2023 1:37 PM in response to Bob Timmons

So your advice worked in terms of finding and transferring the backups from the old external drive to the new one. I sincerely appreciate it. Two other interesting problems came up in the transfer that you may be able to assist with, or I can also start a new thread if needed.


1) Firstly, and less of an issue: the transfer was two large folders (with lots of sub folders) and my photo app library. The two large folders (~2tb combined) transferred fine, but when I went to 'get info' to see how large they were (to compare them to the original file size) they were listed as zero KB. I left it open and waited for it to potentially update, but nothing. I dug deep into the subfolders and checked some folder sizes there, and the deepest subfolders would update, which would then update their parent folders. I basically went through the entire file directory doing that until the upper most container folder read a file size that was roughly what the original backed up folder was. Any idea how to get this folder to accurately read it's overall size? I am assuming the index of the drive wasn't updating, but no amount of restarting or remounting the drive made a difference.


2) A bigger problem: the photo app library would not transfer. All the other folders in the backup transferred, but on the transfer of the photo library I received this error: "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “Photos Library” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)". I've tried several times, with several versions of the backup going back a month or two, but I get the same message each time. Any advice on getting this folder transferred so I can attempt to repair it? For reference the folder in ~250gb. Sincere apprecation and let me know if I should start a new thread, as this is a different problem.

Restoring Time Machine Backup of an external hard drive that has failed?

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