having problems getting Migration Assistant to restore only parts of system
I needed to reload my Intel mini running Snow Leopard. I've been using a 1TB Time Capsule to backup my system for quite a while. I haven't had much of any trouble with restores if I need them, until I wanted to restore only parts of a backup. I can't seem to get Time Capsule/Time Machine to do what I want.
I run two backups (Time Machine via the 1TB Time Capsule and CrashPlan). I thought with the two backups, I should be covered. I didn't want to restore the machine completely back to the way it was since the system wasn't completely working correctly (which is why I was reloading it).
Anyway, I get the machine restored and that's when I realize that Time Machine can't just "attach" to a backup and let me pick and choose what to restore. I have to use "Migration Assistant". I'm finding out that there's a lot of things Migration Assistant does that I don't want.
1) There is no way to pick and choose which applications you want restored. There is just one check box for "Applications". It looks like it restores all of them.
2) There is another category called "All other files and folders" and "Other files and folders on "Disk Name" ("machine name"). I have no idea what that's going to restore.
3) There is a category marked "Settings" that has (Time Zone, Machine, Network), but there doesn't appear to be any description of what those do. Time Zone and Network are pretty self explanatory, but Machine? Wonder what Machine restores?
I would really like to use Time Capsule/Time Machine to restore (since it's a local disk). I know I can restore the files using CrashPlan, but it would take a lot longer since it would have to download it over the internet (although I probably could have had it restored by now). 😉
Anyone else know of ways around this problem or is this just a "feature" of Time Capsule/Time Machine?
I run two backups (Time Machine via the 1TB Time Capsule and CrashPlan). I thought with the two backups, I should be covered. I didn't want to restore the machine completely back to the way it was since the system wasn't completely working correctly (which is why I was reloading it).
Anyway, I get the machine restored and that's when I realize that Time Machine can't just "attach" to a backup and let me pick and choose what to restore. I have to use "Migration Assistant". I'm finding out that there's a lot of things Migration Assistant does that I don't want.
1) There is no way to pick and choose which applications you want restored. There is just one check box for "Applications". It looks like it restores all of them.
2) There is another category called "All other files and folders" and "Other files and folders on "Disk Name" ("machine name"). I have no idea what that's going to restore.
3) There is a category marked "Settings" that has (Time Zone, Machine, Network), but there doesn't appear to be any description of what those do. Time Zone and Network are pretty self explanatory, but Machine? Wonder what Machine restores?
I would really like to use Time Capsule/Time Machine to restore (since it's a local disk). I know I can restore the files using CrashPlan, but it would take a lot longer since it would have to download it over the internet (although I probably could have had it restored by now). 😉
Anyone else know of ways around this problem or is this just a "feature" of Time Capsule/Time Machine?
Intel apple mini, Mac OS X (10.6.3)
