Replacing My HD Backup Question

[Scott Botkins]

Apple is coming out to my house to replace my hard drive later this week. I qualify for a free new one since my Seagate one was recalled.

My question is this: I'm currently backing up my HD right now on time machine. Once they install my new hard drive do I reinstall the OS X that it came with on the dvd and then go to time machine to select 10/22/2012? or do I have to reinstall OS X 10.7 as well and then go to time machine to choose 10/22/2012?

 

[mannyo1221]

I believe all you need do is an internet recovery. Hold CMD and R and the system will download the recovery image from apple. From here you can select to restore from Time Machine, select this and do a full restore from the latest backup. No need to install OSX of any version at all.

 

[Weaselboy]

Apple is coming out to my house to replace my hard drive later this week. I qualify for a free new one since my Seagate one was recalled.

My question is this: I'm currently backing up my HD right now on time machine. Once they install my new hard drive do I reinstall the OS X that it came with on the dvd and then go to time machine to select 10/22/2012? or do I have to reinstall OS X 10.7 as well and then go to time machine to choose 10/22/2012?

Download this utility from Apple and buy a 1GB (or larger) USB key and make yourself a recovery USB key.

After the new drive is installed, just plug the USB key in and hold down the option key when booting then select the USB key as the boot source. Once the recovery screen shows up start Disk Utility and format the blank drive in the Mac OS Extended format. Then quit Disk Utility click Restore from Time Machine. Point the restore to your Time Machine disk and this will reinstall the entire OS and all your data.

I believe all you need do is an internet recovery. Hold CMD and R and the system will download the recovery image from apple. From here you can select to restore from Time Machine, select this and do a full restore from the latest backup. No need to install OSX of any version at all.

I believe the data range of those Seagate recall machines will make it too old to have Internet Recovery.

 

[fastlanephil]

I'm assuming that your internal Hard Drive is still functioning.

I would use Carbon Copy Cloner and create a bootable clone of the internal drive with your external hard drive . Then make sure it's bootable by selecting it in Startup Disk in System Preferences and booting from it. You can then switch back to your internal hard drive.

After they install the new internal drive you can again boot from your external Hard Drive using Startup Disk and run Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your external Hard Drive to your internal hard drive.

You then again use Startup Disk to select your internal hard drive as your boot drive.

After that you can erase the external hard drive if you wish and use Apple's Time Machine or do periodic back ups with Carbon Copy Cloner to your external hard drive.

There are easier ways to back up your Hard drive but this way gives you a bootable backup if your hard drive starts to go bad. No down time.

 

[Macman45]

Download this utility from Apple and buy a 1GB (or larger) USB key and make yourself a recovery USB key.

After the new drive is installed, just plug the USB key in and hold down the option key when booting then select the USB key as the boot source. Once the recovery screen shows up start Disk Utility and format the blank drive in the Mac OS Extended format. Then quit Disk Utility click Restore from Time Machine. Point the restore to your Time Machine disk and this will reinstall the entire OS and all your data.



I believe the data range of those Seagate recall machines will make it too old to have Internet Recovery.

If it's ML, you will need a USB stick larger than 4GB for the image...Diskmaker will create it for you, then you can selectively restore files etc from the TM backups.

 

[Scott Botkins]

I'm confused and perhaps it's because of the way I posted it. I'm backing up my hard drive on my 1TB Time Capsule using Time Machine. I was under the impression that all I would need to do is install OS X 10.6 which came with my late 2009 iMac and then select from time machine today's backup. Is this correct?

 

[Weaselboy]

If it's ML, you will need a USB stick larger than 4GB for the image...Diskmaker will create it for you, then you can selectively restore files etc from the TM backups.

This is not a OS installer.... this is just the recovery key and only requires 1GB.

From my link:

----------

I'm confused and perhaps it's because of the way I posted it. I'm backing up my hard drive on my 1TB Time Capsule using Time Machine. I was under the impression that all I would need to do is install OS X 10.6 which came with my late 2009 iMac and then select from time machine today's backup. Is this correct?

In your first post you said you are on Lion now... yes? There is no need to reinstall the old version OS (10.6) from the DVD. Follow my instructions in post #3 to make the 1GB recovery key. You can boot from that and use your Time Machine backup to restore everything back like it was on the old drive. This will get you back to Lion with all your data.

 

[Scott Botkins]

In your first post you said you are on Lion now... yes? There is no need to reinstall the old version OS (10.6) from the DVD. Follow my instructions in post #3 to make the 1GB recovery key. You can boot from that and use your Time Machine backup to restore everything back like it was on the old drive. This will get you back to Lion with all your data.

Okay thanks. This sounds pretty easy.

 

[Weaselboy]

Okay thanks. This sounds pretty easy.

I'm curious now what the Apple dude does for you when he comes out? I can't imagine they would put in a new, blank drive then just wave goodbye. One would think they would do all this restore for you. Can you post back an let us know.

 

[Scott Botkins]

I'm curious now what the Apple dude does for you when he comes out? I can't imagine they would put in a new, blank drive then just wave goodbye. One would think they would do all this restore for you. Can you post back an let us know.

He came out today. I actually forgot he was coming. Anyways, he opened up my iMac and replaced the HDD and cleaned my screen which took about 20 minutes maybe. Then I plugged in my flash drive so he could check that the HDD was installed properly. Then I booted up my latest time machine backup from last night which took about 90 minutes. It's like nothing happened, went smooth and great.

 

[Weaselboy]

He came out today. I actually forgot he was coming. Anyways, he opened up my iMac and replaced the HDD and cleaned my screen which took about 20 minutes maybe. Then I plugged in my flash drive so he could check that the HDD was installed properly. Then I booted up my latest time machine backup from last night which took about 90 minutes. It's like nothing happened, went smooth and great.

Thanks for the follow up. Glad it went well.