How to do Time Machine Restore Correctly W/O Issues

[1rottenapple]

So I am sending my Air to Apple for a warranty, and of course I need to wipe the HD prior to sending it. Now how do I do a time machine backup and restore (when I get it back) of my air to have a correct copy of the previous mac without hints that his was a previous install.

The reason why I am asking this is I've done TM restores before, and they would duplicate the files. Like there would be an "old mac" folder where all the old applications are. I also don't want to have itunes lose my settings and all that, so if anyone can help me please let me know.

 

[madog]

You can stop TM, wipe your backup drive, and start TM again. It will then be a fresh, new TM backup, with none of your old files (if you're confident that you have everything you need at this point), and when restored will have just that current data.

You can also make a one-time use clone of your drive with DiskUtility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or the other utilities out there (it's best when done to an empty, clean drive), which essentially makes an exact, bootable clone that can be restored similarly to TM with the Migration Assistant utility (it activates after a system install). The only major difference is that a clone is bootable, whereas a TM backup is not (and then you don't get all the nifty features of TM). Once the data is restored, you can wipe the backup and activate TM again.

Both of those options would take equally long, so it's just a matter of preference. If you are comfortable with TM, then stick to that, although I imagine that the only way to have a current TM backup without copying over those old files is to just start over.

 

[1rottenapple]

So with the disk utility, and migrations assistant, will there by weird little issues that are gonna pop up with that method?