MacOS – restore a Lion Time Machine backup from a MacBook Air onto a MacBook Pro (currently) running Snow Leopard

macossnow leopardtime-machine

My MacBook Air w/Lion is getting sent in for repairs, and IT gave me a MacBook Pro w/Snow Leopard. I have a current backup of my Air, and I'd like to get this MBP to run Lion with all my apps, files, settings, etc…

We were theorizing that we need to wipe the hard drive on this MBP and then try to boot from the Snow Leopard disk and do an install from Time Machine backup. And since that is the Lion install with all my stuff, everything will just work.

Does that sound like it will work?

Best Answer

I think the best way to proceed is like this :

  1. First, see with your IT department to gave you an Mac OS Lion copy (from Mac App Store or on a usb drive)
  2. Next install Lion and restore with your TM Backup

If you cannot have a Mac OS Lion copy, you can try to navigate to your TM Backup (with a Finder) and copy only what you need on your disk (it depends on what you need to work, if it's just some documents for example it should ok, but I do not recommand to copy an app).

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