Restoring files with Time Machine.

[xfusejc]

I did a Archive/Install for Leopard on my iMac and I'm having some problems with it. It's slow when doing certain things where it used to be fast in Tiger. I did a clean install on my Macbook for comparison's sake, and I'm not having the same problem there, so I'm going to go ahead and do a clean install.

My question is using Time Machine to save my information. I have it all set-up and it has backed up my entire computer already. Once I do a clean install and everything is deleted, can I use the information already on Time Machine and bring back all the documents, programs and everything else, or since I'm starting up anew, it won't recognize it as belonging to the same computer? I need to get back everything from documents to applications.

I hope it's a clear question.

[richard.mac]

so are you backing up your imac with time machine or your macbook? if the imac then it will recognise it and you will be able to restore everything that you backed up with time machine. but time machine backs up everything even your system folder so if you do a clean install & then restore a backup done on a system that was archived and installed then it would essentially just be archived and installed again... make sense?

however you can just open the backups.backupdb folder on the time machine drive locate your first backup (organised by date and 24 hour time) and fish out your docs, pics, movies etc. you would be able to fish out apps too but it depends on how many system files they installed and if you know where they are.