Time Machine Help

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I read here a lot but have not had to post very much, however, I have caused myself a Time Machine problem that I need help with.

I have both an iMac and MacBook Pro. The MBP is getting old and performance is down. I did a migration from the MBP to a new account on the iMac then copied all necessary files to the old main account on the iMac.

Here is where I screwed up. I set up Time Machine figuring it would do an incremental to my iMac. It did not happen, it created a new full backup and now I cannot access my old backup stuff just the new one.

I looked at the MyBookWorld I use for Time Machine and it appears the files are there based on the disc space.

I want to end up with access to all my backed up files in some manner.

How do I sort out the mess I have created for myself?
 

chscag

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Did you use Time Machine and the same drive for backing up your MBP? When you open Time Machine from the iMac what does it show?
 
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Here's where my understanding gets shaky. As far as I know I used the Time Machine on the same MyBookWorld drive as the iMac originally used. When I open Time Machine only the files from when I tried this appear.

I have read that I should have restored from the Time Machine rather than using migration. If I return to that point and start again, how do I restore the iMac from the MBP Time Machine?
 

chscag

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Personally, I always recommend using Time Machine when moving from one Mac to another. The migration assistant works well but it does have a few things about it that seem to confuse folks.

As far as starting over, I'm not sure you can do that because you restored to a new account on the iMac and then copied everything over to your old account. As long as the iMac has all your data from the MBP, I would leave well enough alone. Unless you're missing some important data from the TM backup from the MBP, trying to restore again may overwrite what's already there on the iMac.

It's probably best to wipe the external drive and start the backups all over again. I had to do that very same thing when I migrated from my older MacBook to a new iMac.
 
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On the Dock, right click the Time Machine icon and select " Browse Other Time Machine Disks " and see what that says.
This menu allows you to select other TM backups to restore from .... might take a while because it needs to rebuild its database ( aka Deep Traversal )
Worked for me.

Cheers ... McBie
 
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Thanks you for the help. I have had to make a trip out of town and will not have access to my iMac until about the 14th. I will check these responses then and let you know if I succeed.
 

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