My blood ran cold as Backup’s restore didn’t work. There it was, my 10gig full backup file and Backup wouldn’t restore any of the files out of it. Five years of photos in an iPhoto library that I couldn’t get out… when I tried to restore, nothing, no files came back.
My old iMac was already gone. What was I to do? Well fortunately the Apple guys are smart, and Backup writes files that are easy to browse through. If Backup couldn’t, wouldn’t restore my files automatically, I would do it manually. Here’s how:
Step 1: Find your files.
Step 2: Rename the back up file. Add .dmg as the new extension. The file will turn into a folder.
Step 3: Navigate to the Contents folder. Double-click on Backup.sparseimage.
Step 4: Open the newly mounted image (notice iLife) in the Tool Bar
Step 5: Find the files you want to restore
Step 6: Drag and Drop them to where you want them to go. Wait for them to copy. Done.
This process should work for the incremental backups as well. But to be safe be sure to do each incremental in order to avoid data loss.
[tags]backup, .mac, restore, apple, dotmac backup, .mac backup[/tags]
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s an interesting article on how someone repaired a corrupted sparse image.
http://lorenzo.yellowspace.net/corrupt-sparseimage.html
This publication just saved 5 years of photos. Priceless. I have been sick for a week since a clean install of Leopard. I thought the .Mac Backup restore would be my savior. After many attempts, yes “my blood turned cold”, restore was failing. I had been e-mailing with .Mac support (worthless), I had been to the Genius Bar (worthless) and in and out of forums with people having the same problem, but no solutions. FINALLY, I FOUND IT AND IT WORKED! THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART. I am headed out into the forums to hopefully pass on this information to another hurting individual. As I sit and type this comment, I watch 5 years of the greatest memories of my life (5 years of being with my wife) come back to iPhoto one picture at a time! God Bless You!
Sweet. :D
Thank you SO much. You don’t even know…