I was in the same situation as others about this, up all night stressing out over this because TM could not access the 4 years worth of backups after I finished migrating to the new iMac using Setup Assitant to move my User account from the very TM backup disk - connected the whole time. TM is now in the process of cleaning up old backups, finally. A window should pop up (screen grab below). This worked for me with the Time Machine disk connected to your new Mac start the Time Machine backup. Thanks so much to anyone who can help, Jeff If I click this, will it erase my original data or will it ask to inherit the drive? It's not very clear what will happen after I click "Use Disk".
The only option after selecting the drive in Time Machine is "Use Disk". Now back to desktop and into the Time Machine utility: This option to inherit doesn't seem to exist or is obvious. Since I didn't have the drive attached, I didn't see that. I've read under different parts of the forum that if you go through this process during the original setup and the Time Machine drive is attached to the computer then you will be prompted to inherit the old Time Machine. HERE'S THE ANXIOUS MOMENT: If I select TMD, which is the original, will it overwrite all that orignal information, or will it continue adding to it? I am able to see the disk in Time Machine but it doesn't tell me that its got data on it. Upon arriving at the desktop and connecting my original TMD, I was able to see it in finder but Time Machine did not automatically accept it.
#How to use time machine backup mac os 10 install
I chose to install as a new computer and did not choose a Time Machine backup option because the original TMD was not attached at the time of installation. I just got through doing a clean install from Mavericks to Yosemite and now I'm trying to attach and recognize the original Time Machine Drive (TMD)