Trying to restore Time Machine. Lost boot disk I just bought a new Macbook Air after giving mine to my wife.  Before gifting the old laptop I created a Time Machine backup.  

Now that I have my new MBAir, I went into Apple+R and chose to restore a Time Machine Backup.  Chose my backup, chose the Macintosh HD as the destination drive.  It failed.  

Now, subsequent attempts have not shown Macintosh HD as a choice for restoration destination. It is also not a choice when trying to choose a start up disk.

However it does show up in Disk Utility.  

Boot attempts without holding Apple+R take me to the same OSX Utilities Page.  

It seems that I lost my Macintosh HD....  

What should I do?
Depending on how old the original MBA is compared to the new one, you probably won't be able to do a bare metal restore.

What you can do, is do a fresh OS install (if not done already) and "Migrate Your Settings" from the Time Machine Backup.