Question about Time Machine

[Slothapotamus]

OK, Time Machine is pretty great, even though I rarely use it. But I have a question. If I were to do a reinstall of Mac OS X (a full format and reinstall rather than keeping old files) what would happen to my old Time Machine stuff? Basically, I would like to do a format sometime then be able to plug my Time Machine HD in and get back all my old music and video files. Would this be possible? Or would Time Machine not recognise my Backup drive because of the fresh install?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Eidorian]

Time Machine will make an entire new backup. You can still migrate over your user data and/or applications using Migration Assistant.

 

[Slothapotamus]

Time Machine will make an entire new backup. You can still migrate over your user data and/or applications using Migration Assistant.

Hmmmm, I thought so. Probably best to back up my files onto a different HD then so I don't lose them. Thanks for the info.

 

[YMark]

OK, Time Machine is pretty great, even though I rarely use it.

Why do you rarely use it? I use mine every hour when it makes an incremental backup.

 

[Slothapotamus]

Why do you rarely use it? I use mine every hour when it makes an incremental backup.

I rarely use it in the sense that I never really need to retrieve a backed up file. And I've stopped using it completely now. In the event that I need to do a format all my files would be lost because Time Machine would need to do a new backup, as was explained by Eidorian. It's more convenient for me just to copy over, onto a cleanly formatted backup drive, the files I want to keep backed up.