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Short story:

Macbook pro Retina 13" early 2015 with 128GB SSD /8GB RAM free space left <5GB

  • I bought a new 512GB SSD
  • I did Time Machine backup on a encrypted external usb HDD (~64GB)
  • I Replaced the SSD
  • Macbook turned on pressing Cmd+opt+R
  • Erased the new SSD (MACOS Extended Journaled filesystem)
  • Then selected to restore system from a TimeMachine disk
  • Unlocked the encrypted Time Machine volume for restoring
  • Selected the new clean SSD as target

Finally started the Restoring: seeing a "nice" animation with no progress. Both the Macbook and the disk seem to be quiet. I left it running for a couple of hours no signals of moving forward

NOTES:

  • I opened the log window available during the restore no logs there about the Restoring process

  • My Time machine backup is not big size: around 64GB

  • I stopped the procedure two times (after waiting 2h each) and when interrupted looking at the SSD from disk utility seems like nothing relevant happened/was written inside

  • I tried then a new install of MacOS Monterey (there I have an estimation! 2 hours to complete install) then will try migration assistant.... hopefully this could be a time-boxed way around(?)

Question is:

How can I possibly understand if the Restore procedure is stuck and I'm wasting my time or if it's really working and it really needs longer time to be restored on a new SSD?

Any experience on this ? How long Recover from TimeMachine did take for you?

koalaok
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  • Does this answer help? – fsb Jan 04 '22 at 20:34
  • That aswer says: "While the backup is running", I'm restoring instead and there's no visible chance to have a terminal available.... – koalaok Jan 04 '22 at 20:37
  • Got it, sorry about that. – fsb Jan 04 '22 at 21:04
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    I finally was able to restore the TM backup on a clean install Monterey. using migration assistant. ~1h to install Monterey + ~1h for data migration Still wonder if there’s a chance to restore it directly or may not be the right way – koalaok Jan 04 '22 at 22:20
  • Monterey should insist on being installed on APFS, not HFS+ - wonder if something choked & didn't tell you. – Tetsujin Jan 05 '22 at 07:42
  • Dont get the point of your comment @Tetsujin, why are u assuming I had HFS+? – koalaok Jan 05 '22 at 18:13
  • It's stated in your question - "Erased the new SSD (MACOS Extended Journaled filesystem)" – Tetsujin Jan 05 '22 at 18:16
  • Ok I realised now that MACOS Extended Journaled uses HFS Plus. But the thing is... Having it formatted like that I was able to then install Monterey (and now in fact as you say it is APFS). Restoring directly on the formatted ssd HFS+ the TimeMachine backup (which was Catalina 10.15) instead didn't start... – koalaok Jan 05 '22 at 18:22
  • Catalina is also APFS. I think the insistence started with perhaps Monterey, prior to that I recall it was optional [or you could force it]. – Tetsujin Jan 05 '22 at 19:23

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