evan.musing << current

Got a new harddrive for my wifes MacBook. Couldn’t find her 10.5 upgrade DVD, so I tried to use the install DVD for my new MacBoor Pro. The DVD promptly told me it would not install (Apple cripples the OEM DVDs to only reinstall on the same make of machine), but it did not exit. So I select Restore from Time Machine Backup from the Utilities menu.

Nothing happens.

I try a few times, nothing. I give up for a while. Upon returning and seeing it still doesn’t work, I open the Install Log under Window.

I notice there are number of entries listed: Unable to load XIPanel_RestoreIntroduction nib file. Ok, well something is wrong with the Installer.

Terminal to the rescue. Open it up, do find / -name “XIPanel*” and find a number of them in a Resource folder. Ok, so it’s there, this must be a bug in the installer. Now we get serious. If you’ve gotten this, here’s what you do to get the Time Machine Restore to launch:

• Open Terminal
• Run ps ax and find the listing for Mac OS X Installer.app, note the number of the far left for it (the Pid)
• Run kill pid_of_installer
• You should now get a dark grey background, you’re doing great.
• Run export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. I’m not sure if this matters, but I did it, so you should too
• Run cd “/System/Installation/CDIS/Mac OS X Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/”
• Run ./Mac\ OS\ X\ Installer “/System/Installation/Packages/OSUpgrade.pkg”
• The installer should popup and say Welcome and such (likely with no graphics, thats ok)
• Click Yes/Continue enough for the Utilities Menu to appear at the top and select Restore from Time Machine Backup
• With luck, it will load! You can now do the restore!

Thanks for playing! Booo to Apple for having bugs in their Installer, Yay to Apple for leaving Terminal available in the Installer!

NOTE: Be sure to leave the Installer in the foreground while it restores, otherwise it will stall!