Doing a Time Machine full restore even if it doesn’t want to
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!
Pretty cool.
Nilanjan
June 2, 2009 at 7:38 pm
insert semi-snarky comment about Windows being superior, without really understanding what you are talking about, but being loyal to the company nonetheless.
ddv
ddv
June 3, 2009 at 9:55 am
Insert snarky comment about there being no way for a normal user to perform a backup on Windows.
evanphx
June 3, 2009 at 9:57 am
wow! you’re brilliant!!! I’m a such a novice.. how in the world did you know how to do this? I would really love to learn this stuff, although i’m not sure I’m smart enough.
Thank you so much for investing the time to publish this.
Many many Thanks
Phil
June 15, 2009 at 9:01 am
This was a lifesaver for me! Thanks!
Charles
June 16, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Very helpful! Thanks!
jan
July 15, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Saved my backup!! Thanks a lot.
Also hard to find an answer to such a specific question.
Ulrich
August 6, 2009 at 10:28 am
nice tip…I’m mid-restore now, thanks! This is a work computer that I’d kept my own time machine backups for, the hd died and they restored it to the OS but wouldn’t support my backups or give me the media. grrr.
beerick
August 10, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I am really a novice, but after following these instructions I get nothing. I’m sure I’m not doing something properly. Help!
Eric
September 13, 2009 at 6:10 am
This was great for using OSX 10.5 install media for restoring my iMac G4. The frustrating part I missed a few times is that I first had to format the new hard drive with an appropriate boot record for Mac since it came with windows. That and my machine is old enough that the hard drive was too big to use without partitioning it. It’s a pity more of this logic isn’t built in to the software.
Jeremy
October 6, 2009 at 6:37 am
That just saved my system. Thanks so much. The only thing I would say is that you should make it clear that you need to run kill then the NUMBER of the pid. That is for idiots like me who don’t have your computer skills.
Tim
October 18, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Dude you are a freaking genius
ajaytr
October 23, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I’m not sure why, but backslashes weren’t working for me, and I had to substitute:
./”Mac OS X Installer” “/System/Installation/Packages/OSUpgrade.pkg”
in place of
./Mac\OS\X\Installer “/System/Installation/Packages/OSUpgrade.pkg”
just in case anyone else was having this issue…
THANKS SO MUCH!
Nick
December 9, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Yeah! You saved my day… thanks alot!
Benni
December 19, 2009 at 4:10 am
Saved my life, thanks so much!
Mark
January 3, 2010 at 6:45 am
Evan, I’d like to say both thank you and to go to hell. You see I had thus exact issue and to be honest this was a last resort for me and it worked my trusty ol’ power mac will once again serve my needs! Now, I say go to hell because I was really looking forward to the possibility of getting a shiny new Mac and now since your post has fixed my issue I’m committed to my G5 for god knows how long!
Jeff
January 5, 2010 at 6:03 pm
You’re welcome and screw you.
evanphx
January 5, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Amazing. Worked. You are a genius.
Aaron
January 21, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Thank you so much, worked perfectly
Daniel
February 5, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Hi Evan,
I’m mid restore now so only time will tell if you are a lifesaver. Everything showed up just as you said it would until the very end. I didn’t have the opportunity to restore from backup, it simply asked me to begin installation of the os x upgrade. Did I miss a step somewhere? Will I have the opportunity to restore from backup later? Its currently “checking the dvd I’m using for the install for ‘consistency’”. Thanks in advance for the help
Duncan Anderson
March 4, 2010 at 9:35 am
Caught my mistake, restoring now. I can’t thank you enough man. I’m in DC for the semester, without my orig. Install disk of course and with a computer that just basically died on me. I erased the HD, but then it wouldn’t let me restore from time machine! If I hadn’t found your site idk what I would have done. Where did you learn to use terminal commands and stuff? Did you just figure this out by trial and error?
Duncan Anderson
March 4, 2010 at 10:12 am
Duncan: Glad to hear I worked! The terminal stuff is second nature to me, I’m an old Linux guy. Started with OS X in the 10.0 days, when you’d still have to do a lot with the Terminal.
I knew that Apple frequently leaves stuff pretty open, so I just had to spend a little time poking around and some trial and error.
evanphx
March 4, 2010 at 10:37 am
Lifesaver! Much appreciated
Denn:x
March 22, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Evan, thank you for this! I am currently at a client replacing a failing drive on a G5 that had been upgraded to 10.5 by his school, so he had no Leopard disk, but am currently using the restore DVD from his MBA and your work to restore from his Time Capsule (and I managed to leave my disk binder at home). Thanks for saving me a trip!
Joe White
April 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
Thanks Evan. I can’t say that it saved my day, but it definitely saved about 4-6 hours of my time, which, ok is maybe about a days work
. My wife’s G4 iBook’s HD died yesterday, and having a TM backup I assumed everything would be OK. So I stripped the iBook down and replaced the HD (which is not a trivial matter) and buttoned it all back up. To my horror after booting the original Leopard retail disc that I installed the system with (you know leopard won’t officially install on a 800mhz iBook right? 
) the TM restore facility refused to start – just because I’m not allowed to have 10.5 that I purchased, installed on an iBook. Damn you apple.
Honza
April 12, 2010 at 11:05 am
It seemed to work until the restart after the restore… Then I got the “you need to restart your computer” message and don’t what to do…
Jordan
June 21, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Thanks Evan, that was very helpful. But am I the only one left wondering why Apple would ship a DVD which includes a bug fix for the buggy installer instead of shipping the bug-fixed installer? And why does this issue not merit a mention on “Mac OS X 10.5 Help : Recovering your entire system” here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
Any ideas anyone?
johnesutton
June 24, 2010 at 1:29 am
dude you are the man.
PK
July 29, 2010 at 6:29 pm