What is the difference between using a bootable backup and system recovery

Slacker4141 wrote:
What is the difference between using a bootable backup and a system recovery?.
Is the bootable backup from a external drive all of your programs, email addresses and personal settings.

Not necessarily. A bootable backup could just be an external drive with a bootable OS on it. You would need a clone of your hard disk to get back all your programs, data, and settings.

And a system recovery disc is a restore to the original settings?

Not necessarily. You can boot a Mac with your original install DVD and then restore from a Time Machine backup. In that case, your backup isn't bootable, but you get back all your programs, data, and settings and your system recovery disk doesn't (necessarily) restore original settings.

It is up to you to decide when option to use. Time Machine is nice because you just plug it in and forget it. The chances of needing a full recovery are pretty slim, but if you do, the recovery process is only a little bit more difficult than using a clone. You could be restored in seconds with a clone, but then you always have to remember to keep the clone up to date, which is much slower and more difficult than time machine - all for something that probably won't even happen.

A system recovery disk is usually one used to recover from some very bad corruption. Your Mac OS X install disk could be considered a system recovery disk, as could be a hard drive on which you've installed a version of Mac OS X along with tools like [DiskWarrior|http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html] and [TechTool Pro|http://www.micromat.com>. It contains no data whatsoever specific to you.

A bootable backup is simply a backup of the entire boot drive onto media that you can boot from, usually an external hard drive. It can be used to restore the system to that exact state and includes copies of any of your settings, data, etc that are contained on the boot drive.

For more help understanding backups, see my [Mac Backup Guide|http://www.reedcorner.net/thomas/guides/backups>.

I'm not sure what you mean by "system recovery" as being different from a bootable backup when both can mean the same thing.

A bootable backup is a clone or duplicate of your startup volume. If placed on an external drive or another internal drive (where feasible) then in the event of a problem with the startup volume you can boot from the backup. Then you can erase the startup volume and restore the clone. You're back in business almost immediately.

Time Machine does not create bootable backups. It simply creates a store of your data and system files. If the startup volume fails, then you must boot from your installer DVD and initiate a restore from the backup. But you cannot get back to business until all the software from the backup has been restored. This is a process that could take many hours.

Both of the above are forms of backup as well as software recovery.