Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Wicked1

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 13, 2009
3,283
14
New Jersey
Ok so I have a 2009 Mini which I am giving to my son, and I now have a 2010 Mini. I have been using Time Machine to back up the 2009, and now need to restore the backups to my 2010, both Machines are named MacMini.

1) Is it easy to restore from one machine to another or is there some sort of signature that Apple writes based on hardware when backing up in machine?

2) Once I get the new one restored, can I keep using the existing external drive or should I reformat it so I have a Clean disk for Time Machine.

I have never had to use TM to restore before so I was trying to figure out what I should do.
 

indg

macrumors 6502
Feb 7, 2007
459
12
on the new mini, create a different user account to log in under than the one you're restoring. connect the time machine backup to the new mini and use migration assistant to restore from time machine backup. it should ask you which user accounts you want to restore. once the migration assistant finishes, log in to your restored old account on the new mini. i'm not 100% positive, but you should be able to continue to use time machine with the new mini and it will backup as usual.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.