Is full restore from SuperDuper to wipe/replace HD safe?

Question

Is full restore from SuperDuper to wipe/replace HD safe?

I have an older MacBook Air running 10.10.5 (Yosemite). I use SuperDuper to do regular backups. I had an issue with my MS Outlook 2011 and followed MS support protocol for a Safe Mode boot. Unfortunately that wiped my Outlook emails, contacts and accounts.

My question is: if I do a restore with Superduper (i.e. complete disc wipe and replacement), is there any danger at all that I could cause a worse problem than what I currently have? Everything with the exception of Outlook runs very well, and I'm not keen on making matters worse.

On the other hand, if I can just get my machine back to the way it was before the Safe Mode boot, it would at least allow me to access my contacts and important archived emails which I need for work.

I'd be very grateful if someone with tech savvy could re-assure me that doing a SuperDuper restore won't have any unexpected nasty side affects.

Thanks!

Posted on Feb 12, 2018 1:44 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BobHarris

Level 9

56,933 points

Feb 14, 2018 2:27 AM in response to EmilyBabbelhund

Safe mode should NOT have affected any of your Outlook data. Unless there was some problem with your system. And by problem, it could be hardware or software, such as a corrupt file system.

Yes you can restore SuperDuper. You can do it as many times as you like.

As Kappy says, we cannot promise nothing will go wrong, but generally speaking SuperDuper will restore your boot disk from the backup.

If a restore does not solve your problem, maybe because file corruption was also backed up, you could do a clean macOS install and then when asked if you wish to restore user data from a backup, you can point to the SuperDuper backup disk to restore your user data. That would give you a clean macOS install and your data restored.

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 14, 2018 2:27 AM in response to EmilyBabbelhund

No one can assure success because we have no knowledge of your machine from before, during, and after whatever it is you did that put you in this spot right now.

If you restore your backup to your freshly erased disk then any problems that existed at the time of the last backup will be restored, also. If you have a backup prior to when these problems started, then restoring it will be OK. But there are no guarantees.

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Answer 3

Feb 14, 2018 2:35 AM in response to BobHarris

Thanks so much for the reply! As it turned out, something in doing the Safe Mode reboot created a new main identify for Outlook, and that new main identity was blank. I was able to delete that and re-name the old identity (which had been saved) and my data returned. I did end up having to have a technician work (and fix) the Outlook issue, but I did a lot of cleaning up of my hard drive prior, so all in all I'm actually in a better situation than before it all went off.

I appreciate the answers here, after seemingly having "erased" my data with the Safe Mode reboot, I was not feeling all that confident that using SuperDuper to restore wouldn't also have some unintended consequences!

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Is full restore from SuperDuper to wipe/replace HD safe?

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