Need help installing mountain lion on new hd from TM backup

I'm having some issues installing a time machine backup of mountain lion on to a new internal drive that I installed on my MBP. I'll list the steps that I went through I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

1. Swapped drives, All went well

2. Turned on computer with snow leopard start up disc, which is what came with my computer. Used disc utility to format drive. 1 partition mac extended journaled/guid under options.

3. After that was finished I went back into utilites and selected restore from time machine backup. I clicked through the menu and it started to restore after a few hours it crashed and gave a warning saying error unable to restore from time machine backup. I tried the same thing three more times with the same result.

4. Next I reinstalled snow leopard and planned to use migration assistant to get the data from the time machine backup...this didn't work either as an error came up saying you cannot restore from a time machine backup that has mountain lion on it to a computer that has snow leopard.

5. Last step was I remembered that mountain lion can reinstall the OS via the apple server so I held command R and went through the steps...another error came up saying this computer is not recognized as owning a copy of mountain lion. I'm guessing it doesn't see it on the new hard drive since it was fresh out of the box and mountain lion was installed on the old drive and the TM backup.

6. So I've swapped drives again so I can use my computer. I'm not sure where to go for here. I'm hoping ome of you guys could offer a little help.

Dom

Don't use Time Machine. You'll do a lot better with cloning software. Carbon Copy Cloner is what I recommend since it also clones the Recovery partition to the new drive.

Go to their web site and read up on it but it's a worth while investment. It's what I use for backups (in addition to Time Machine) and has saved my bacon several times. Download LINK It's $39.95.

A less expensive but not so robust (it does not copy the Recovery partition) cloning software is SuperDuper. Download LINK. It's $27.95.

chscag said:

Don't use Time Machine. You'll do a lot better with cloning software. Carbon Copy Cloner is what I recommend since it also clones the Recovery partition to the new drive.

Go to their web site and read up on it but it's a worth while investment. It's what I use for backups (in addition to Time Machine) and has saved my bacon several times. Download LINK It's $39.95.

A less expensive but not so robust (it does not copy the Recovery partition) cloning software is SuperDuper. Download LINK. It's $27.95.

Click to expand...

In the future I will clone, but for now I gotta go with what I have.

domromer said:

In the future I will clone, but for now I gotta go with what I have.

Click to expand...

I thought you said you swapped drives back? Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner to your old drive and then clone it to the new one. Swap drives again and you're finished. A lot easier than fighting the battle you're engaged in now with Time Machine.

WOuldn't I need an external enclosure to swap it from the old drive to the new drive? The only external I have now is the backup drive I used to as my time machine backup. I don't want to erase that and put on a clone of the original HD. Or is there another way that I'm not seeing. Thanks for the help by the way.

Yes, you would need an enclosure or adapter to clone from your old drive to the new one.

I thought you had a good working copy of Mountain Lion on your old drive and that you made a backup of that? What I'm suggesting is that instead of using the Time Machine backup to restore to the new drive that you can copy or clone over to the new one from the old one.

Also, you could use your Time Machine backup drive to do the above. In other words, use it for cloning from the old drive. After all the transferring was complete, you can go back to using it for Time Machine.

I can understand why you wouldn't want to do what I suggest as it does sound a bit confusing but I assure you it's really not difficult to do.

I currently keep four external hard drives on my desk. I use two of them exclusively for backups: One for Time Machine, the other for CCC. Not suggesting you do the same but a good backup regimen to follow requires redundancy.

Anyway, press on with whatever method you're comfortable with and let us know how you get on.

I am quite capable of misunderstanding domromer's problem! But I thought his problem stemmed from the fact that he was running ML originally from which he created a TM backup.

Then, after swapping the HD, he installed Snow Leopard and attempted to restore from the TM which came up with the error...SL not compatible with ML...

So, would I be correct in thinking that if dormer installed SL, used the combo-update to 10.6.6 or higher, he could then reinstall ML and thereafter use TM to restore his data & settings?

Ian

So, would I be correct in thinking that if dormer installed SL, used the combo-update to 10.6.6 or higher, he could then reinstall ML and thereafter use TM to restore his data & settings?

Click to expand...

You would be correct. However, the point I was trying to get across to him is that if he had used CCC instead of Time Machine, the job of swapping drives and getting back to Mountain Lion would have been a lot less troubling.

IWT said:

I am quite capable of misunderstanding domromer's problem! But I thought his problem stemmed from the fact that he was running ML originally from which he created a TM backup.

Then, after swapping the HD, he installed Snow Leopard and attempted to restore from the TM which came up with the error...SL not compatible with ML...

So, would I be correct in thinking that if dormer installed SL, used the combo-update to 10.6.6 or higher, he could then reinstall ML and thereafter use TM to restore his data & settings?

Ian

Click to expand...

Would I have to purchase another copy of ML to do this combo-update to 10.6.6 or higher?

What if I created a bootable mountain lion dvd, then did a fresh install of ML on the new HD, then restored with the ML time machine backup.

You have SL already. Once installed, the SL-combo update from Apple would be free, and you could take it up to 10.6.8 although 10.6.6 is sufficient to access the App Store — and NO, you do not need to pay again if you purchased ML previously.

Your second idea is also workable and less hassle.

Of course, what chscag was pointing out was that the cloning method using CCC is even less hassle in the long run.

As you have TM already backed up via ML and as you have at least two ways of getting ML onto your new HD, that is probably the best way to go. And your second option for getting ML onto the HD is quicker.

Problems? Come back. Some of these guys, like chscag, have masses of experience - I'm a relative new boy!

Ian