Time Machine Full Restore freezes part way (iAtkos v5i)

[onLIKEdk]

I had a working iAtkos v5i installation updated to 10.5.6, then I decided to to a restore after clicking on a Flip4Mac installer, and Opera suddenly started taking over my system out of nowhere...doesn't really matter.

 

Anyway, I booted to the iAtkos DVD, went to Restore from Time Machine, picked my safe backup, and braced as it told me it was going to wipe the drive.

 

The restore went smoothly until about 20%, then it froze.

I tried again, it got to about 18% and froze again.

The mouse still worked but the progress bar just sat there.

 

 

Next I tried doing a fresh install, and use the migration utility. This worked alright.

 

It hung at "less than a minute remaining" for quite a while, but chugged through to copy application settings, and some other stuff, then froze for almost 24 hours on "transferring your network settings" before i got impatient and did a hard reboot.

 

After the reboot, my familiar desktop came up, except many settings were wrong.

Symptoms:

• OSX itself reverted to an earlier version, 10.5.5 i think
  
• iTunes reverted to an earlier version and would not open my library because it was made from "a later version of iTunes"
  
• All my Little Snitch preferences were gone, and it started prompting me about apps accessing the network.
  
• Final Cut wanted a serial number again.
  
• iPhoto started loading, then quit unexpectedly, with the standard Leopard error popup window.
  

It seems like it copied some of the files, since all the applications were there, but there were many things wrong.

 

Is there a way to choose from which backup to restore on the Migration Assistant utility? I recall it just asked me which components (user folder, applications, etc) to restore, but not the time/date of the backup to restore from. I have a feeling it picked the earliest one?

 

It got my network settings copied over (since networking worked first boot after the restore).

But I had to run uInstaller to get my graphics driver to work correctly (on first boot, resolution was incorrect, dual monitors didn't work, QE was disabled).

 

Any suggestions?

 

I have an earlier, working Leopard installation on another HD that I can boot from.

Is there any way to manually copy over the Time Machine backup files to the new boot drive and get the system running?

 

System:

Intel BadAxe D975XBX2 motherobard

Q6600

nvidia 8500gt 256mb

750gb seagate boot drive

1.5tb seagate Time Machine drive