A friend of mine has 27inch iMac and its fusion drive failed.
She had the drive replaced with an SSD by a well established repair shop in London. Everything went swimmingly and afterwards it asked for the TM for do a restore.
5 hours later the restore was complete.
But…..
She also says that her PW doesn’t open the Mac.
I’ve promised to go over but I’m not at all sure what I’m going to have to do.
Help please.
One possibility: if the computer completed the “new computer setup” process after the new SSD was installed and Migration Assistant was launched from the Finder, there may be a conflict between the macOS User ID created during setup and the User ID on the Time Machine backup.
(I haven’t had to deal with this issue for a long time but as I remember, macOS assigns User ID 501 to the macOS user account created when “new computer setup” happens. If the Time Machine backup also belongs to a User ID 501—likely if the TM backup comes from another Mac or HDD/SSD—Migration Assistant won’t allow the newer macOS user account to be replaced by the older macOS user account)
Possible solution: Reset the Mac to factory settings. Follow the “new computer setup” process, using the TM backup when prompted.
(if you’re indeed looking for a holiday resort for a Time Machine, I suggest Goa)
;-)
Thanks for that.
I was able to reset the user password, but oddly, TM does not appear to have restored anything from the user account.
Not all the apps are there. It has restored old unused apps but not currently used ones.
Photos haven’t been restored at all even though they are on the TM drive
I’m thinking that I should wipe the internal drive using Restore and start all over again with installing sequoia and then restore from the TM.
Any comments please.
Fish commented:
“I was able to reset the user password, but oddly, TM does not appear to have restored anything from the user account.
Any comments please.”
Yes, but they won’t help immediately – only in the future.
Stop using time machine.
Start using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead.
If your friend had used either one for backups, she’d be up-and-running already.
Disclaimer – I have no financial interest in either of the above two apps.
They just … work … that’s all.
(…when tm doesn’t, as your friend found out).
I agree with what @Halfsmoke noted. Since this Mac doesn’t have a T2 chip (you said it had a Fusion drive, and those Macs didn’t have the T2 chip).you can’t use the “Erase all content and settings” route to get a clean macOS installation. You’ll probably need to re-format the startup disk with APFS using the information in Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support. After you’ve reformatted the boot drive’s Macintosh HD volume, reinstall macOS from Recovery using the information in How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support.
After you’ve reinstalled macOS and booted it the first time, follow Restore your Mac from a backup - Apple Support to restore from your Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant.
I personally don’t reinstall applications from a Time Machine backup. I prefer to install them manually on a freshly installed macOS so that I don’t carry over cruft that builds up over time. But I leave that decision to you…
