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Has Time Machine saved anyone's rear end yet?

queshy

queshy

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 2, 2005
3,690
4
I was just wondering. So far, I haven't had to use it (for serious, real purposes haha). I'm hoping it stays that way. But I love having the peace of mind knowing that if something does happen, it's all there. I've even tested it with deleting some files and seeing if I can recover them with TM - and I was able to promptly do so (the files were backed up somewhere else anyway...).

So, any success (or failure) stories?
 
Have not had to use it yet, but I think you hit the head on the nail. It is having that peace of mind of just knowing " I'm ok"

It is possible that a lot of people will never have to use it, but for those desperate times when someone will it makes it all worth it.

To be honest, I just enjoy showing friends/family the cool effects of TM, opening and closing, zooming back in time, etc. Especially the windows users.
 
Somewhere along the line some of my notes disappeared in a Word document so I decided to try and find them with Time Machine. What was weird was that I could see the notes I was looking for with QuickLook, but when I restored the file the document didn't have the notes I was looking for. :confused:

It's going to come into good use in the future for my mom though: her MBP decided to display colors like it's the 70s so we'll be using her TM backup to restore her new system (if Apple wipes the hard drive or gives her a new one).
-Chasen
 
didn t really saved saved me but it did help me when i decided ot erase some iphoto pictures in the library and i deleted many pictures thinking they were duplicates..
 
erandall38 said:
To be honest, I just enjoy showing friends/family the cool effects of TM, opening and closing, zooming back in time, etc. Especially the windows users.
Click to expand...

lol, so true.

I actually had to use the vista PC we have in our house (not mine, it's in someone's office), and it's running home premium. I thought vista had a similar type of automated back up? Couldn't find it anywhere. Time machine is brutally simple. The only annoying thing is that my present drive sounds like a lawn mower so I always have to plug/unplug it. Hopefully that will be solved when my new drive gets here soon...

Point is, I love just knowing that if for some reason I delete the file, I'll be ok. I remember 2 years ago writing an entire, 4 page english essay and then by accident I pressed (on windows) control-A, then backspace, then control-S, all subconsciously, and I completely erased everything. Couldn't undo the action. I had to start over...
 
queshy said:
lol, seen that one before. But what has it to do with TM?
Click to expand...
I think he was responding to this person below....

rendezvouscp said:
Somewhere along the line some of my notes disappeared in a Word document so I decided to try and find them with Time Machine. What was weird was that I could see the notes I was looking for with QuickLook, but when I restored the file the document didn't have the notes I was looking for. :confused:

It's going to come into good use in the future for my mom though: her MBP decided to display colors like it's the 70s so we'll be using her TM backup to restore her new system (if Apple wipes the hard drive or gives her a new one).
-Chasen
Click to expand...

queshy said:
lol, so true.

I actually had to use the vista PC we have in our house (not mine, it's in someone's office), and it's running home premium. I thought vista had a similar type of automated back up? Couldn't find it anywhere. Time machine is brutally simple. The only annoying thing is that my present drive sounds like a lawn mower so I always have to plug/unplug it. Hopefully that will be solved when my new drive gets here soon...

Point is, I love just knowing that if for some reason I delete the file, I'll be ok. I remember 2 years ago writing an entire, 4 page english essay and then by accident I pressed (on windows) control-A, then backspace, then control-S, all subconsciously, and I completely erased everything. Couldn't undo the action. I had to start over...
Click to expand...

Ya there back up program is crap. It is not much of a user chosen back up it is just a straight up restore. So if you want that paper from last week then you get exactly how your computer was last week.
 
I don't think I've ever needed a backup before, but a couple days after I installed Leopard, Photoshop decided to corrupt a $500 PSD. I was kind of excited because I had a chance to use Time Machine. But, my external drive is small so I have all my system and application folders excluded because I can just download them again if something happens. Turns out my "Projects" folder was in an application folder. Had to start over. :(
 
That-Is-Bull said:
I don't think I've ever needed a backup before, but a couple days after I installed Leopard, Photoshop decided to corrupt a $500 PSD. I was kind of excited because I had a chance to use Time Machine. But, my external drive is small so I have all my system and application folders excluded because I can just download them again if something happens. Turns out my "Projects" folder was in an application folder. Had to start over. :(
Click to expand...

That sucks... but, you should definitely go out and buy a big external drive.
 
iQuit said:
Try pressing

Apple+option+ctrl+8
Click to expand...

If only it were so simple. Almost everything was oddly colored, but the reflection in the dock appeared correctly as did the colors of windows under the transparent menus. Some colors decided to display just fine while others shook on the screen. It was really strange.
-Chasen
 
Absolutely!

Not long after installing Leopard, the file system on my HD got corrupted and completely locked up my iMac. Could not reboot using the primary volume, Drive Utility could not repair the disk, and the Tech Tool utility that comes with the Applecare CD (which I used to repair the file system when it got corrupted previously) has not been updated for Leopard.

But, I did have a Time Machine backup available on my external drive, so I booted up using the Leopard DVD and used Time Machine to rebuild my drive volume. Aside from the time required (about 2 hours to restore 140GB), the operation couldn't have been simpler. Time Machine's a very compelling feature because the setup and recovery steps are so simple and run unobtrusively in the background. All the other backup programs I've used require considerably more user intervention.

The rest of my Leopard experience has been somewhat spottier, but still largely troublefree.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/382864/
 
yepper, just now!

Yep, saved my butt.

Here is the story. I am still not TOO happy with the upgrade, speed, some interface issues, firewall, etc. But, it is a .1 version, right.

I had done the install, and done some cleanup, printers I didn't use, and monolingual to reduce languages that I should NOT have installed in advance. I DIDNT do many architecture removes, and CERTAINLY didn't do any PPC architecture removes. But,

I could not longer PRINT from Word or Excel, which is BAD!

I found over at the apple forums, that monolingual is doing something bad and removes something that the PPC side of the OS requires, to print from previous PPC version only applications.

And then I remembered, I had done a Time Machine backup RIGHT after install. So, to the printers folder I went, clicked on the folder, hit RESTORE, and boom, I was back in business printing.

So, TM certainly made it easier for me to repair this issue. Was it a leopard problem, maybe not, but it was something that could have taken a long time to repair.
 
Another big thumbs up for Time Machine here! When I did the initial install of leopard I created a single boot software raid array of all 4 of the disks in my Mac Pro. Only problem was, I then decided I wanted to use Bootcamp which won't work on the software raid array (doh!). So, after being a bit hesitant for a few days I decided to go for it and re-install again. I booted from the install disk, then repartitioned the disks how I wanted them (with a non-raid boot partition). I then rebooted again so the installer would see the new partitions and selected "restore from backup" from the installer menu. It found my Time Machine disk, asked which time I wanted to restore to, and then asked where I wanted to restore to. Did this and left it running while I went out. I came back a few hours later and everything was restored and my machine was back at the login dialog. Couldn't be easier and it worked absolutely perfectly. Everything is back and working exactly as it was when I rebooted prior to the re-install. I read in the register today a review of leopard and the reviewer said the restore from backup didn't work for him. It certainly worked for me and I didn't have to install OSX first : It was straight from the install screen. That was effectively a complete disaster recovery scenario and I was up and running within 3 hours (160GB of backup) :D
 
If you do a full restore of your system from the install disk, does TM delete all the entries after the date you restore to? Meaning, if you system dies, on wednesday, and you restore it to sunday, will it just throw away the backup from monday and tuesday?
 
For the past year I've been worried about my music collection (250+ gigs worth). If I lost it, I'd be wickedly upset. Now that I have Time Machine, I have a very good peace of mind.

I haven't had a *need* to use it yet, but I did play with it to test its limitations. i.e. I installed new software version, and reverted back to previous installs just to see if it would work...it does. That is the most realistic need I could see using it for.
 
I deleted a mail account without realizing I'd lose all my emails too, but was able to recover them with time machine. was a bit of a pain at first though.
 
I used it to save my own existence

imageuploadimagepm8.jpg
 
That-Is-Bull said:
I don't think I've ever needed a backup before, but a couple days after I installed Leopard, Photoshop decided to corrupt a $500 PSD. I was kind of excited because I had a chance to use Time Machine. But, my external drive is small so I have all my system and application folders excluded because I can just download them again if something happens. Turns out my "Projects" folder was in an application folder. Had to start over. :(
Click to expand...

Needed it again a minute ago. MAMP wasn't working in Leopard so I downloaded the newest version and installed it. That replaced my htdocs folder with a new empty one, so I lost a lot of websites I was working on. Oh boy, I get to use Time Machine! Whoops, htdocs is in the MAMP folder, which is in the Applications folder. I'm such a retard.
 
That-Is-Bull said:
Needed it again a minute ago. MAMP wasn't working in Leopard so I downloaded the newest version and installed it. That replaced my htdocs folder with a new empty one, so I lost a lot of websites I was working on. Oh boy, I get to use Time Machine! Whoops, htdocs is in the MAMP folder, which is in the Applications folder. I'm such a retard.
Click to expand...

Dude, you really need to backup your whole system. What's keeping you from doing that?
-Chasen
 
One problem with TM is that it doesn't back up your iDisk. I keep my most important stuff on my iDisk, so if I accidentally delete or overwrite something there, I'm screwed.

But I like the off-site backup capability of iDisk. Any suggestions for how to use iDisk and TM together?
 
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