Timemachine won't let me restore to a new/another computer

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Level 1

32 points

Timemachine won't let me restore to a new/another computer

Finally, my Mac Pro (with High Sierra) gave up after 13 - 15 years service. It doesn’t matter much anymore: a Mac mini pro M2 is waiting eagerly to take over. IF - and only if - I am capable to transfer all the data from my TM backup to a new disk and here is where things stuck: Sonoma can’t read data of the old hd which came from the High Siera computer. At first I thought: no problem! Time Machine and my backup files will do the restore job. So I cranked up Time Machine on the mini M2, mounted my backup drive and .... stuck! Time Machine only wanted to make its (first?) backup. I couldn’t select a folder -or file- to force Time Machine to restore it to a specific location.

Is this supposed to be logic? Not being able to command Time Machine: restore this to that location. Restoring is not just copy and paste because of the backup proces which only backs up differences of files and folders. A restore means: locate the original file and all its changes and weave them together.

So my question is: how do I go on from here or does this mean "sorry"?

Any help will be appreciated and as always: Thanks in advance

Hans

Posted on Aug 24, 2024 9:20 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

23,393 points

Aug 24, 2024 9:40 AM in response to hanyvo

Use Migration Assistant.

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

244,949 points

Aug 24, 2024 1:37 PM in response to hanyvo

Good advice so far, also...

https://web.archive.org/web/20151020192435/http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20151018143224/http://pondini.org/TM/B5.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20151018143224/http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html

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Answer 3

hanyvo Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 30, 2024 7:43 AM in response to BDAqua

I am soooo happy you read my questions mr Waters ;-) Indeed, in the mean time I tried and tried Migration Assistant to no avail what soever and getting more and more frustrated. At least this link give some alternatives to tackle the "problem", which shouldn't be a problem at all in the first place. I must be more careful who I trust my precious photo's to.

Time to read your link and thank you

Hans

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Answer 4

hanyvo Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 30, 2024 4:18 AM in response to BDAqua

Okay. That was the easy part. This one is daunting - for me at least. Long time ago I moved my Photos Library to another disk because of a lack of memory space on my boot disk. So I moved it to a 2 TB hd where it sits with all the other stuf. I only want to restore my Photos Library -which is about 200 GB - but the Migration Assistant app calculates the size of ALL the files together, and concludes that the total exceeds the size of the destination disk. And stops here. I can't open the Other Files & Folders to select the Photos Library or deselect all the others. I can't select any of the Other Files & Folders items either.

My hope is on some ingenuity of you guys.

Thanks a lot in advance, anyway

Hans

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Answer 5

hanyvo Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 25, 2024 3:03 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

I knew it: I should have asked this community earlier. Thanks a lot for your solution because there they are: all the files I thought they were lost ...

Hans

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