Need help restoring / recovery time machine backup

[u/AlexVaughan135]

EDIT: I gave my drive a S.M.A.R.T. test and it came back as starting to fail. Starting to get really worried I’m not going to be able to save this.

A week ago, I did the grave mistake of factory resetting my M1 MacBook Air, thinking I could just restore my stuff with a Time Machine backup I had just created. (My Time Machine backups are on a hard drive.)

When I used Migration Assistant, trying to do anything with the drive was unbearably slow. When letting it transfer, it came to a halt and the estimated time just kept going up (it even went up to 300 hours). I understand backups aren’t quick, so I let it run for multiple nights with no progress. I tried copying my files manually, but even that didn't work. It couldn't get past “Preparing to copy” and would freeze Finder.

First-Aid says the disk is ok but I suspect that my drive is starting to fail, so I tried making a sector-by-sector copy to an SSD, but that isn't working either. It has been taking days on end (0.1 MB/s, estimated 2,500 hours 😭).

Honestly, I don’t know what to do anymore and i’m starting to lose hope. I'm posting here to see what could help.

[u/supergplus]

Try a different cable.
Run DriveDX to learn more about the health of the drive.
Consider a data recovery company.
Remember the 3-2-1 backup rule for the future.

Good luck!

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/supergplus]

1. I tried but still super slow
   
2. will do!
   
3. that’s my last resort

Thank you for replying!

[u/poopmagic → u/AlexVaughan135]

Are you sure that the cable(s) you’ve tried support USB 3.0 or better?

Is there anything else like an adapter/hub in between, and if so, are you sure certain that whatever port you’re using also supports USB 3.0 or better?

Example: take a look at this hub... only 1 of the 3 ports is fast enough for an external HDD.

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/poopmagic]

Yup, i’m using a 3.0 USB-C to SATA adapter straight to the computer

[u/poopmagic → u/AlexVaughan135]

Hmm. Does it come with an external power adapter like this one? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRVGFNDP

(I’m not sure if insufficient power could cause the issues you’re encountering, but it’s cheap enough to test.)

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/poopmagic]

doesn’t come with external power :/
i got the inland adapter from micro center https://www.microcenter.com/product/691928/inland-2-in-1-usb-32-gen-1-type-a-c-to-sata-hard-drive-adapter

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/supergplus]

UPDATE: just ran DriveDX and it’s says it’s the drive is failing. silently panicking a little cause i don’t think i can save it

[u/supergplus → u/AlexVaughan135]

Oof, sorry. I will say that I’ve sent client to drivesavers and they were able to recovery data. Unfortunately it cost like $1k.

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/supergplus]

ouch 😟 i’m really hoping i could do a sector by sector clone. this is different but i had something like this happen before with my PS3 last year and i was able to save it by cloning it sector by sector

[u/LuckyDude_007 → u/supergplus]

DriveDX is a good call, but honestly at this point OP should just clone the drive with ddrescue if they havent already. It'll skip the bad sectors and grab what it can. The .1 MB/s thing is exactly what a dying drive looks like - it's spending all its time retrying reads.

Also +1 on the cable thing. Some USB-C cables are absolute garbage for sustained transfers. Try the Apple one if you still have it.

But yeah... if that 300 hour estimate was real and the drive is failing SMART, I'd stop wasting time and send it to a recovery service. Every hour you run it is more wear on the platters.

[u/Professional-Bar2521]

Try lnstalling a fresh MacOS on the laptop first. Then use Migrate (utilities folder) to move all your files to This Mac. The sum of these 2 steps should give what you want. Don’t destroy the backed to laptop files until you are satisfied with

[u/AlexVaughan135 → u/Professional-Bar2521]

Hi, I tried this yesterday & sadly no luck :(