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secretpact

macrumors 6502
Original poster
My computer has been slowing down lately. I want to do a clean reformat of my hard drive on my MBP. I don't want to use archive & install. Could I backup everything to an external Time Machine drive, wipe my laptop and install OSX, then pull just the files I want from Time Machine? Will Time Machine self erase its old backups when I plug it into a fresh installation? Thanks in advance!
 
My computer has been slowing down lately. I want to do a clean reformat of my hard drive on my MBP. I don't want to use archive & install. Could I backup everything to an external Time Machine drive, wipe my laptop and install OSX, then pull just the files I want from Time Machine? Will Time Machine self erase its old backups when I plug it into a fresh installation? Thanks in advance!

Yep, I think it will use everything but the system files.

EDIT: Sorry, read it wrong. You can do it during installation. I once had an old time machine backup and a new install of OS X and it did not recognize it. So you might want to do it via installation.
 
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