I just bought a new MacBook Pro with Lion. I restored my files and apps from the MacBook with Snow Leopard, etc., from Time Machine. All seemed to have uploaded correctly, but after using several weeks, I did find missing files . . . which I recovered by going back into Time Machine and simply uploading those files. Recently, while attempting to back up my machine, I got an error message stating, "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 467.34 GB but only 155.61 GB are available." I realized that all the old data needed to go, except I wanted to save 3 backups from the old computer to ensure that I could recover the files, should I find others missing. Easy enough, I thought! Wrong!
I opened Time Machine, navigated the window to the MacBook Pro setting, went back in time to select the date before which and including I wanted to delete the old files. Much to my dismay, only files after February 12 were dated, the others were gray, contained no dates and were impossible to select. So, now what?
Sadly, I could have avoided this, had I delete old data before I uploaded files to the new computer. But, I'm afraid my learning curve runs behind my needs. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda!" So, now what? Help, please!