Problem taking files from time machine when using a mac with smaller capacity

Hello. I had a 500gb imac which got stolen, but i had a 1tb harddrive used as a time machine. Now i have a mac book pro 250gb(well, 237gb!) and so i thought i would use the 'time machine' to restore. using migration assistent, when the list came up asking me what files to sync, my music folder was 247gb and it wont let me access the 'music' folder to filter what albums etc to sync. is there anyway round this? How can i then access the music on my 1tb hard drive?!

Open Finder - select your external hard drive and double click on the Time Machine sparsebundle to open it. It will start checking the volume. This can take some time. A long time. You can cancel out of the volume check and it will then mount the volume.

Next select the backup in the sidebar of finder - You'll then be able to browse through the directory structure like any other drive.

I tried that, but because when i restored the macbook using the time machine, i unchecked the music and movies as the folders were bigger then the internal harddrive on the mac book. Now when i do as you have suggested above, there is no trace of a music or movies folder anywhere on the 'backups'. If i select all in the external hard drive and go to 'get info' it says there is only 300 gbs on it, but when i actually right click on the drive itself, it says 835gb used! So i know the music and movies are still on there, i just cant get to them! Alos, down the left hand side in finder where the folders are(desktop,movies etc), when i click on 'movies' it says there is no such drive and offers me the option of 'delete alias' 'fix alias'.

This is most confusing and frustrating as all i want to do is to get access to the music and music folders, so i can decide what to 'restore'.

???

All I can suggest is to browse back through older dates in the backups.

If you have not turned on Time Machine on the new drive, I'd give that a try and don't exclude the iTunes/music/movie folders. Then try using Time Machine to selectively restore from the older backups or browse the folder structure again.

(Now I know why I have my music folder saved in 3 locations.)

the music is not in ANY of the back ups. When you go to the music/itunes folder, all that is in there is 'itunes plugins' not the library! But i know its on the drive beacuse there is 836gbs used!! Its on there, it just seems because my internal harddrive is not big enough to restore all, i cant access it. Very poor. This music folder is pretty much the only reason i have an external drive. I see the only soloution is to find someone with a mac and an internal harddrive bigger then 250gb. Restoring it all on their's and then somehow transeferring the individual files from that mac to mine.

The contents of a folder being larger than your internal would not prevent you from browsing the folder structure in Finder. There is something else going on, but I don't know what it is.

My next guess is that by turning off the sync of that folder during the Migration Assistant, it has somehow trashed or hidden that folder from your machine. And I'm only guessing here. Look in the trash and also try turning on show hidden files and folders. (If you don't know how, I use Onyx to do this when I need access to hidden data.)

(Anyone else with experience, can chime in at anytime.)