getting a mac soon, had a few questions

[jordanf1end]

im speaking as a future macbook user here. i plan on buying a external hard drive for my time machine back ups and i wanted to know does it make sense to partition the drive into 2 volumes? like one for regular files such as music docs moviesetc and one for time machine? or no? because what im thinking is when you back up files using time machine you can access them from the external hard drive i would use for time machine and access the files from there and add more files to it as i please or is that wrong?

also suppose your mac has hard drive failure and everything gets erased and you boot it up from the cd and restore using time machine. does time machine restore all the apps you had before like photo shop, logic, pretty much the apps you had to install with a cd?

alsoo suppose a year goes by and i decide to buy a new mac can i restore the data from old mac to the new one with time machine? if so how?

 

[spinnerlys]

im speaking as a future macbook user here. i plan on buying a external hard drive for my time machine back ups and i wanted to know does it make sense to partition the drive into 2 volumes? like one for regular files such as music docs moviesetc and one for time machine? or no? because what im thinking is when you back up files using time machine you can access them from the external hard drive i would use for time machine and access the files from there and add more files to it as i please or is that wrong?

Yes and no, you can do both, as Time Machine only creates one folder in the root directory, "Backups.backupdb", so there is plenty of visual room on the external HDD for lots and lots of folders.

also suppose your mac has hard drive failure and everything gets erased and you boot it up from the cd and restore using time machine. does time machine restore all the apps you had before like photo shop, logic, pretty much the apps you had to install with a cd?

Yes.

alsoo suppose a year goes by and i decide to buy a new mac can i restore the data from old mac to the new one with time machine? if so how?

Yes, like with a broken HDD, you can re-install Mac OS X and use the Setup Assistant or use Migration Assistant with an already setup Mac.


Information Overload

MacOS X 10.5, 10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

ProTip of the Week: Move All Your Stuff to a New Mac — Quick​

MigrationAssistant - Use Migration Assistant to Copy Data from a Previous OS​

6easy steps to migrate your Mac using Time Machine​

TargetDiskMode​

Also have a look at the following links, as the information presented there might be helpful in your future endeavours into Mac OS X and could clear up initial confusion and may even prevent harm to your system or your files.

Mac OS X Basics

Switch 101 - guide with articles made by Apple on how to accustom yourself, after you switched to Mac OS X from Windows​

Mac 101 - How to get started with Mac OS X​

Find out how - tutorial videos made by Apple on how to do certain thing in Mac OS X​

Pro tips - tips made available by Apple for easier ways of doing certain tasks​

Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts - Learn about common Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.​

Mac OS X Beginner's Guide by MacRumors - learn about software, media players, shortcuts and some useful tips, tricks and hints​

Mac Guides - tutorials, product guides and more​

Mac Guides - Finding Mac Software​

MRoogle - a very effective tool to search these fora using Google and made available by edesignuk, introductory threads: 1, 2 and 3​

"How to maximise your MacRumors troubleshooting experience" created by mad jew in 2006​