Erase and Install backup plan using Time Machine

From my own personal experience, if you have all your data backed up in TM and you go for an erase and install you should be able to restore all your data. When you boot up for the first time you will get the option to transfer your data from a TM backup. I used this method on three new macs and it went without a hitch.

Having said all that, if you can use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your data to another external drive, then that would be an added precaution.

I'm not sure about the answers to the rest of your post, but somebody else will no doubt help there.

Joe

Joe - you show a healthy sense of paranoia about computers. I wish more of tech students shared it.

I'll take that as a compliment! Comes from bitter lessons learnt the hard way and when it comes to computers, you think something is so obvious but turns out to be something else entirely and you should have thought of it anyway! Go figure, as you guys say.

Joe

I've used Time Machine to restore just data and I've used it to restore just data and applications and the results were exactly what I wanted. Two caveats though: Apple warned that TM and Aperture were not compatible but Aperture 2 is. So if you've bought Aperture 2 and converted your library you should be fine. Otherwise, before you go forward, manually copy the Aperture library. Also, if you use Yojimbo, don't depend on TM to restore it.

Look for your iWeb file inside Application Support (I think, I fired that stinker pretty quick).

Mail stores its data in the Mail folder inside your Library. Entourage is inside the Microsoft Users folder in your Documents folder. Get the com.apple.mail.plist from the Prefs folder so you don't have to set up all your mail preferences - including accounts.

Erase and install will affect only your internal hard drive.

After performing the erase and install, your TM backup will want to perform another massive all inclusive backup. Make sure you have enough drive space to handle that or TM will begin deleting old backups to make room. You might want to keep TM off if you lack the space, at least until you are certain you've got everything off of it that you want.

It took me quite a while to get a full sense of what I needed to keep from the Library and what I could safely dump. For a while I was quite grateful that I had more than one computer so I didn't have to recreate somewhat important things like my address book, mail, bookmarks, templates, and other such stuff.

And it was meant to be a complement. You should see some of the problems my students put themselves into because they assume the documentation is correct or the computer went together okay with no spare parts sitting on the bench so it all must be okay. And those poor future clients who think that an A+ card actually means something. Sigh.

I recently upgraded my memory and hard drive. I used Leopard CD to boot the computer, formatted the new hard drive with it and installed Leopard. It asked me whether I wanted to use Time Machine to transfer files etc. So I did. Everything worked great, I had all my installed software, itunes library etc. So I was very happy about it.
However, the other day I turned on my external hard drive and did a back up with time machine. I was thinking it would be a short process and copy the files that were changed. Nope. It started a brand new back up, so it backed up 100 gigs of data. When I check the preferences, I see the oldest backup as my original back up date from back in December. However, when I go into time machine, I cannot access those. It shows it on the sideline, I see the dates but I cannot go back in time. It just lets me access the new backups I did with the new hard drive.
I hope this was not too long to explain and someone can help me. I would like to combine those backups and also gain my 100 gigs of lost space (or doubled info) back from my external hard drive.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

If you look in Finder at the Backups folder on your external HD, is there just one computer name or two (in the sub-folder to Backups.backupdb)? Can you see the backups going back to December?

Joe

Just one. I renamed my hard drive this time when I formatted it. I thought that caused it but that folder shows one folder and the name of the computer.

I suspect the only way to gain back your 100 gigs is to delete, in Finder, the old backups you can't access in TM.
As to why TM didn't just carry on from the last of the old backups is probably connected to how you resumed TM backups e.g the Change Disk process, or renaming the upgraded mac - did you name it exactly as before the upgrade?

It might be worth checking in Disk Utility to see if you can Verify/Repair Disk Permissions or Verify/Repair Disk.

Joe

Message was edited by: Joe Cowley

Message was edited by: Joe Cowley