Restore from TM to another Mac

[mjohansen]

I am trying to restore specifik files from my MacBook Pro onto my iMac. I followed the instructions on http://pondini.org/TM/17.html and used the option-key => Browse Other Backup Disks and selected the MacBook Pro. But the files that are shown in the TM window are the files on my iMac.

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: If I try to mount the sparsebundle file by double clicking in Finder I get an error: 36 The application "DiskImageMounter" can't be opened".

 

[Weaselboy]

Try just looking at the TM backup files in Finder. Just open the Backups folder and scroll to the very bottom to where is says latest... then double click that and you should be able to see everything and just drag and drop from there.

 

[mjohansen]

Try just looking at the TM backup files in Finder. Just open the Backups folder and scroll to the very bottom to where is says latest... then double click that and you should be able to see everything and just drag and drop from there.

Thanks for the help. I found the files. But I don't have permission to access all the folders (different user on iMac and MacBook Pro). How do I solve that?

 

[Weaselboy]

Select the drive in Finder the command-I for get info and check the box to ignore ownership on the drive.

 

[mjohansen]

Select the drive in Finder the command-I for get info and check the box to ignore ownership on the drive.

There's no option to "ignore ownership" in Get Info. What to do next?

 

[Weaselboy]

Hmmm.... you don't see this checkmark? Is the drive encrypted?

 

[CoastalOR]

I did an interesting test just now since I was curious.

If I Get Info on a regular disk partition it has the "Ignore ownership" checkbox available. If I do a Get Info on a TM disk partition it does not have the "Ignore ownership" checkbox. Both partitions are on the same physical drive and there is definitely no encryption.

 

[Weaselboy]

I did an interesting test just now since I was curious.

If I Get Info on a regular disk partition it has the "Ignore ownership" checkbox available. If I do a Get Info on a TM disk partition it does not have the "Ignore ownership" checkbox. Both partitions are on the same physical drive and there is definitely no encryption.

Hmmmm... interesting. I can't check because my TM volume is encrypted.

 

[CoastalOR]

Hmmmm... interesting. I can't check because my TM volume is encrypted.

Here is the Get Info from my non-encrypted volume:

 

[mjohansen]

Here is the Get Info from my non-encrypted volume:

Exactly the same with me.

 

[CTHarrryH]

you just want to restore some files?

 

[KALLT]

When you opened Time Machine, did you navigate to a point using the arrows or the time line? It will always present your current data first, not a snapshot. Regardless, you don’t have permission to access these folders anyway.

You can try disabling the ownership with:

sudo diskutil disableownership <disk>

You can find the disk identifier (<disk>) in Disk Utility, in the white box, at ‘device’.

I suppose that Finder hides this option for Time Machine volumes, because you aren’t supposed to change this. Enforcing ownership is part of the security architecture of Time Machine.

 

[mjohansen]

you just want to restore some files?

Yes. I want to restore my MacBook Pro with my iMac backup (to make 2 identical devices). But I want to make sure that I will be able to access the old MacBook Pro backup later on, if I forgot to move certain files to the iMac before the restore.

When you opened Time Machine, did you navigate to a point using the arrows or the time line? It will always present your current data first, not a snapshot. Regardless, you don’t have permission to access these folders anyway.

You can try disabling the ownership with:

sudo diskutil disableownership <disk>

You can find the disk identifier (<disk>) in Disk Utility, in the white box, at ‘device’.

I suppose that Finder hides this option for Time Machine volumes, because you aren’t supposed to change this. Enforcing ownership is part of the security architecture of Time Machine.

When I use the Time Machine interface, I can only see the files on my iMac. I can't seem to find a way to access the MacBook Pro files via TM interface. So I had to mount the sparsebundle in Finder to be able to see the backup.