You don't want to try jimmying a Time Machine backup to try to fool it. Time Machine is fragile enough even when you don't dick with it.
The usual way to adopt an old machine's identity is to use the old Time Machine drive to perform file migration at the time you take the new machine out of the box. But that isn't your situation. What you can do instead is to use File Migration manually, to reload all the files (and apps, but probably not the settings) from the Time Machine drive, presumably into a different user ID. (If you have the same user ID on both machines already, take some time to change your current one before reloading, then afterwards you can change them back to anything you want.) When you're satisfied you have all the files loaded, it's easiest to wipe the backup drive and take a full backup to start fresh. Yes, you will lose "history" versions from the old backup, but if you expect this to be a really serious consequence, your only solution is to keep the old backup drive entirely idle against the times you will need history. > On Feb 15, 2017, at 1:14 PM, Carl Hoefs <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Is the only way to make the new machine a "clone" of the old one? The old > machine is fried and won't boot. > > What does TM look at to determine identity? I gave the new machine the same > hostname as the old one, but that's not sufficient. Is there a way to > "migrate" TM backups to a new host? > > -Carl > > >> On Feb 15, 2017, at 1:06 PM, Macs R We <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> From your message, I can't understand what effect you are trying to achieve. >> >> At first, I thought you were trying to clone all operation of your dead >> machine onto this other machine, but somehow that doesn't seem to square >> with your story. >> >> Then, I thought you were just trying to reuse the drive to be a Time Machine >> drive for a different machine, to which the answer is just to erase the >> drive; but no, you seem to want to keep the old data around. >> >> It sounds like you're trying to keep the history of the old machine >> available on the new machine, but not make the new machine a clone of the >> old machine. If that's so, then where you are is as far as you can be. >> Time Machine won't let you access the history of machine A from machine B, >> because they have no common history. Yeah you can drag files around via the >> Finder, but you can't use the automated GUI. >> >>> On Feb 15, 2017, at 12:29 PM, Carl Hoefs <[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> A mid-2010 iMac (Yosemite) mobo flaked out on me so I transferred its >>> external TimeMachine drive to a late-2009 iMac (Sierra). In Sys Prefs I >>> selected the new drive to be the TimeMachine drive. But when I attempt to >>> Enter Into TimeMachine, it gives me an error panel saying: >>> "Can't connect to a current Time Machine backup disk." >>> >>> What does that mean? I can access the drive and the files on it manually in >>> Finder. How can I tell TM to use the drive and the existing backups? The >>> new iMac has the same name as the old one. >>> -Carl >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> MacOSX-talk mailing list >>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk >>> <http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk> >> >
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