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Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 08:28 AM

Hi,

So the hard drive in my iMac (24" 2.4 Ghz C2D 2GB) said good bye. I have now installed the 10.4 that came with the machine onto an external usb drive and it works pretty okay. Now the problem is that I have a Time machine backup of that system on another external disk and I was wondering if I can restore/migrate the data stored on the time machine backup onto the system that runs of the external drive using the Leopoard Upgrade DVD (Apple sent it to me because I bought the computer within a month of the release) and then again later onto the new system after the hard drive has been replaced by Apple care?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Biest

Simon · Jul 5, 2009, 08:36 AM

If you migrate the entire system from your TM backup to the external disk you will have the exact Leopard install you had before your disk died.

Can you boot from the Leopard DVD? Try that and then launch Migration Assistant from the Utilities menu. Select migrate from TM backup.

Once you're back up and running you should be able to continue using TM to back up. After the hard drive has been replaced you can again use Migration Assistant to restore from your TM backup onto the new internal disk.

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 08:51 AM

so basically once I restore the system on the external drive I can restore it again onto the new hard drive without having to fear that time machine deletes the backup that i restored earlier

Simon · Jul 5, 2009, 08:52 AM

Yes. If you use MA to migrate from a TM backup, TM should later behave as if you had never changed the disk.

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 08:56 AM

Now i just need to find the Leopard upgrade disk..... thanks a lot for the help.... I will see how everything goes

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 10:04 AM

so the upgrade this will only allow to restore and not migrate. I guess i will have to install 10.5 before i can migrate

OreoCookie · Jul 5, 2009, 10:29 AM

It allows for both: you can restore the state of your whole OS or you can migrate users and settings. And you can restrore/migrate any backed up point in time -- just in case something is wrong with the last backup/state of the system.

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 10:32 AM

So the warning it presents me with is for the hard drive i want to restore too, not the hard drive that the TM back up is on

OreoCookie · Jul 5, 2009, 10:40 AM

What do you mean with `presents me?' Obviously you shouldn't install anything on your Time Machine drive.

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 10:48 AM

When I go on the "REstore from backup" on the leopard Install catalog it gives me a warning that the drive will be erased on the next screen. It does not specificy what drive, just says it does. I am not installing it on the TM drive, but on a separate drive... that ironically it won't let me selet when i do the restore from backup. I guess i will have to install leopard first from Tiger and then do the migration.

OreoCookie · Jul 5, 2009, 10:55 AM

No, you don't have to do that at all.
In the install dialog, you have already selected a drive onto which you want to install OS X.

Biest · Jul 5, 2009, 10:59 AM

No what I mean is that I have to update first before i can even do a restore, since it won't let me select the external drive, but only the broken internal one