Restoring from Time Machine to new iMac hard drive

I received my iMac back from its warranty repair yesterday and it had a new hard disk fitted. A new user (called User) had been set up and the recovered data had been put on the desktop. I transferred the data to an external disk for safety.

Then I went into Time Machine and asked it to Restore from the last backup, which it did overnight. I can now see that 270GB of the new disk has been used, but I can't find the data. I expected it to restore my original user which was called Stephen.

As well as restoring the data during the night, it also did a backup of the User data, including the recovered data on the desktop. So I deleted this from Time Machine.

Two questions -

Where can I find the "hidden" 270GB of data?

How can I restore from Time Machine my original Stephen data? One option is to transfer all the data manually from the recovered data on the external disk. But the problem with this is all my software and software settings won't be replaced. (I had an number of applications such as Office, Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut, etc).

The shop which did the repair have no clue, sadly.

Any help gratefully received.

Stephen

Are you sure that they are invisible ?
Easy way .
Download EasyFind it is a free app .
When running it be sure that Invisible file and Folders is also on .
You do not neat to know the whole name to find it with EasyFind
I know Finder is great , but sometimes EasyFind did a better job

Once you figure out where Time Machine restored the data to, I'd get rid of it. Then, run Migration Assistant (Applications => Utilities). Migration Assistant should allow you to restore all of your apps, data, settings and user accounts from that Time Machine backup.

When it's all done, just log into your old user account and remove the "User" account that Apple created for you.

Another option is to reformat the HD (I would) using your original OS install disk then after the format, there is an option to restore from Time Machine built into the OS installer under Utilities I think. Restores perfectly to the state as of the last backup.

Chilbear said:

Another option is to reformat the HD (I would) using your original OS install disk then after the format, there is an option to restore from Time Machine built into the OS installer under Utilities I think. Restores perfectly to the state as of the last backup.

Click to expand...

That's probably the best approach. This way you won't have any redundant data and get everything put back exactly as it was.

I agree. I'm kinda surprised Apple did that to you; it's not the most convenient method. IMHO they should have just installed the system and not even run Setup ***'t.

But I would start anew. If you run Migration ***'t now you may end up with duplicates. You might try to delete users and just create a temporary account, and then migrate. But the safest is probably to reinstall a system and then run Setup ***'t from the TM when it first starts. BTW, this would be better than restoring because you don't want to restore files that may have been corrupted by your defective disk.

rob

Thanks everyone.

My only further question is I had Snow Leopard originally, but then I upgraded to Lion viA App Store. If I use the OS install disk I got with the iMac, then do I lose my Lion download?

Anyway, most importantly, thanks for the advice all.