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What good is Time Machine if I can't boot off it?

California

California

macrumors 68040
Original poster
I don't understand the purpose of Time Machine. If my hard drive fails, it doesn't seem like I can boot off the Time Machine'd external hard drive, so what good is it? I don't get it. I thought Time Machine was a clone program. What is it?
 
it's not a bootable backup. it does what average users need - backups their files. most average users don't know what a bootable drive is and would consult Apple or another repair place if their hard drive failed.
 
If you want a real (and bootable) recovery solution, try Carbon Copy Cloner. It's free, it's fast, and it'll let you clone your drive and boot from it whenever, wherever.
 
I believe that even though you can't do a complete restore, it backs up all of your files so that you can bring them back onto a restored computer. For instance, if your hard drive failed, your settings won't be preserved by Time Machine, but all of your music, documents, pictures, etc will still be intact, which is really what I care about.
 
There are two reasons to backup; hardware failure and user failure. CCC/SuperDuper take care of one and Time Machine the other.
 
California said:
If my hard drive fails, it doesn't seem like I can boot off the Time Machine'd external hard drive, so what good is it?
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You can do a clean install of Leopard to a new drive and at the end of the install routine it will bring all your users/settings/files over from your TM backup.

kajitox said:
For instance, if your hard drive failed, your settings won't be preserved by Time Machine, but all of your music, documents, pictures, etc will still be intact, which is really what I care about.
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Actually, it keeps all your settings as well. I did a clean install of Leopard with a good Time Machine backup on an external drive. It brought over everything.
 
kajitox said:
I believe that even though you can't do a complete restore, it backs up all of your files so that you can bring them back onto a restored computer. For instance, if your hard drive failed, your settings won't be preserved by Time Machine, but all of your music, documents, pictures, etc will still be intact, which is really what I care about.
Click to expand...

I think you can do a complete restore boot off your leopard CD i am pretty sure its in the menus i will double check this right now though.....😀
 
Just to follow up i just took pictures with my camera phone because i am too lazy to pull out my SLR.

EDIT: random thought....would it be possible to make time machine editing with system links? Will EFI follow syslinks?
 

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So i gave it a shot. I got it to the point where it would recognize it when holding down the option key or in system preferences. However, when i try to boot it has issues loading the kernal....i suspect permission issues. It could be the syslinks though. As i a made a complete copy of the mach kernal files. And i am not sure if i want to go copying permissions around.....i am very tempted to give it a shot. 😱 But i think its possible for apple to make it bootable without a whole lot of work.
 
Ok, the Powerbook has died....

It simply doesnt boot off the internal. It was going anyway.

However, I do have a Time Machine back up... bit bumed that i cant boot off it...

I do have an idea though... I have another external, so could i simply pull out the folders off the backup folder... then do a CCC to my other external? simply then creating it a bootable backup?
 
Willis said:
Ok, the Powerbook has died....

It simply doesnt boot off the internal. It was going anyway.

However, I do have a Time Machine back up... bit bumed that i cant boot off it...

I do have an idea though... I have another external, so could i simply pull out the folders off the backup folder... then do a CCC to my other external? simply then creating it a bootable backup?
Click to expand...

If it wasn't a bootable backup to begin with, not even CCC will be able to turn it into one. I'd just copy the data off, reinstall, copy it back on, and use a real backup solution from then on (like CCC).
 
Willis said:
Ok, the Powerbook has died....

It simply doesnt boot off the internal. It was going anyway.

However, I do have a Time Machine back up... bit bumed that i cant boot off it...

I do have an idea though... I have another external, so could i simply pull out the folders off the backup folder... then do a CCC to my other external? simply then creating it a bootable backup?
Click to expand...

Yes you could do that. Just have both externals plugged in. Boot off the OS X install do a bootcamp restore to the other external drive. 🙂
 
trainguy77 said:
Yes you could do that. Just have both externals plugged in. Boot off the OS X install do a bootcamp restore to the other external drive. 🙂
Click to expand...

ahh... smart...

thing is, what im going to do is do it on the Mac Pro (more firewire 400 ports then)

so really, could do it that way too...

thanks =)
 
Well... heres a nice little addition.

Bought a MBP 2.4 15" today, when I started it up, it came up with the transfer file options, in the list... 'transfer data from Time Machine Backup'

Everything that was on the PB is now on the MBP...

Fantastic! (kinda)
 
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