Best way to copy over files from TimeMachine after fresh Lion install?

[msmth928]

I recently did a fresh Lion install after burning the installer to disk, and then browsed my TimeMachine backup and 'restored' most of the folders in my home folder, mainly:

Picture
Music
Movies
Documents

And then manually went into the Library folder and restored these folders:

Mail
Keychains

But then I noticed that the permissions seemed a bit screwed up (first one kept saying 'searching....'), so had to 'Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs' as per this link.

And then manually installed the programs I use.

Anyway, my question is.... did I mess up and do it the wrong way?

Is there a better way to do a fresh install? I don't want to do a migrate, as I really would like a fresh install with just my important files copied over.. which I thought I had done until I ran into the permissions problem, hence thinking perhaps there's a better way? While everything seems to be working ok now - I just want to be sure (as I'm hoping to get an SSD and so will do another fresh Lion install).

 

[Detrius]

If you "restore" through the actual Time Machine interface, then the screwy attributes and ACLs that are on the actual Time Machine copy get removed. If you did it by navigating in the finder and copying by hand, they probably got kept. If you used ditto, they definitely got kept.

Migration Assistant really is a great way. To some degree, you can even pick what folders you want to keep. You can't pick and choose applications, as their installations are a bit too complex, but you can pick top level folders in your home directory.

If you aren't doing stuff like haxies and modifying system files, you really don't have anything to worry about. This isn't Windows. A lot of the "clean OS install" stuff is really just placebo. Yes, a clean install results in fewer fragmented files, but that's where most of the benefit comes from--free space and a defragmented file system.

 

[msmth928]

If you "restore" through the actual Time Machine interface, then the screwy attributes and ACLs that are on the actual Time Machine copy get removed. If you did it by navigating in the finder and copying by hand, they probably got kept. If you used ditto, they definitely got kept.

Migration Assistant really is a great way. To some degree, you can even pick what folders you want to keep. You can't pick and choose applications, as their installations are a bit too complex, but you can pick top level folders in your home directory.

If you aren't doing stuff like haxies and modifying system files, you really don't have anything to worry about. This isn't Windows. A lot of the "clean OS install" stuff is really just placebo. Yes, a clean install results in fewer fragmented files, but that's where most of the benefit comes from--free space and a defragmented file system.

Hi Detrius,

When I restored the files/folders I clicked on the timemachine icon and then 'browse other backup disks...' rather than going to options and setting that disk as the TM disk (as I didn't want it to accidentally mess up/start backing up to that disk - as I had another spare disk to use instead).

I've just plugged that same TM disk back in and this time have set it as the TM disk in options, and am copying over a folder that I know had screwy permissions the first time it was copied over... ...results in... same thing!

Any ideas what's going on there?