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Restore Points on a Mac like in Windows

fstigre

fstigre

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 12, 2008
158
1
Hi,

I was wondering if there something like in Windows where you can create Restore Points and you can basically restore your system setting from previews restore points?

I'm currently using time machine and I don't know if something like this can be done with TM.

Thanks
 
you can with time machine click the menu bar and hit enter time machine, it will give you a break down of every back up it's done ;)
 
If you want to restore your system to a certain point, you need to use the discs that came with your Mac. From there, go up to the Utilities menu and select "Restore from Time Machine Backup". Select the date to go back to, and it will restore your machine to that point.

Note that this will get rid of any saved files past that point. So if you go back two weeks, anything you've saved on the computer following those two weeks will have been lost. In most cases, people only do the restore if they've got a new hard drive or something along those lines. Thankfully it isn't needed as often as Windows needs it.
 
WarVibeMD said:
But what if you just want to go back in time before you deleted a certain file...
Click to expand...

IIRC OS X handles file deletions very differently than Windows. On OS X it's quite difficult to recovery a file post deletion unlike with Windows.
 
WarVibeMD said:
But what if you just want to go back in time before you deleted a certain file...
Click to expand...

You can always go to the trash and pull it out :D

Seriously though everyone has said it, Time Machine is the way to go. Daily back ups (incremental) so only changed files get updated daily once the full back up is done. Which IMHO is better than Windows Restore Points since RP's are only (from what I remember) created at certain points if something major is done or you can manually "Create Restore Point" which is kinda 'point'less :eek: unless everytime you sit at your machine you create a restore point.

Not to mention, Time Machine has way more functionality as you can pull individual files or a full system restore. Plus from my experience with RP's is often not all your files are restored since it's not a 'real' back up.
 
WarVibeMD said:
But what if you just want to go back in time before you deleted a certain file...
Click to expand...

Time Machine updates the machine incrementally once an hour. You can go back to virtually any point in the history of your machine on an hour-by-hour basis and restore from that point, or you can just recover the deleted file, if you prefer.
 
No one has answered the original question. The answer is no. Restore points in Windows is completely different than what Time Machine does. Restore points are for applications only. Time Machine is for data only. The beauty of Restore Points is that you can go back to before a system change was made. Data is completely unaffected. So you can go back before an update or before you installed an app. You would still need an external backup for data in Windows. I think many would answer here that you don't need something like Restore Points in OS X since the installation of apps don't screw up the system as easily as they can in Windows. Things are segregated a little bit better. I still think it would be useful for undoing updates.
 
JayInNJ said:
No one has answered the original question. The answer is no. Restore points in Windows is completely different than what Time Machine does. Restore points are for applications only. Time Machine is for data only. The beauty of Restore Points is that you can go back to before a system change was made. Data is completely unaffected. So you can go back before an update or before you installed an app. You would still need an external backup for data in Windows. I think many would answer here that you don't need something like Restore Points in OS X since the installation of apps don't screw up the system as easily as they can in Windows. Things are segregated a little bit better. I still think it would be useful for undoing updates.
Click to expand...

dude u have no idea what you're talking about. windows just restores your files from an earlier point in time, they then create another restore point from where u just were incase u want to go back. so if u got a virus, then restored to an earlier point in time. you still have the virus. on time machine it completely wipes your mac os x partition and loads everything that was on your time machine partition of the external hard drive. or you can plug it in, click on the external disk and pull out the file u want. time machine is much more secure.
 
Surprised no-one has mentioned something like Carbon copy cloner or similar.
Using an external drive (larger capacity than the internal HD helps) - you cna then make snapshots. These are basically disc images of the state of the computer at that time. It's a useful 2nd backup to have. Carbonite/Time Machine helps with your day to day files, but having a disc image could help save some time initially if that's what you truly want.
 
pcs are junk said:
dude u have no idea what you're talking about. windows just restores your files from an earlier point in time, they then create another restore point from where u just were incase u want to go back. so if u got a virus, then restored to an earlier point in time. you still have the virus. on time machine it completely wipes your mac os x partition and loads everything that was on your time machine partition of the external hard drive. or you can plug it in, click on the external disk and pull out the file u want. time machine is much more secure.
Click to expand...

No, you missed the point. Time Machine restores data only. Restore Points is for applications. Both are good for different things and really they are mutually exclusive.
 
JayInNJ said:
No, you missed the point. Time Machine restores data only. Restore Points is for applications. Both are good for different things and really they are mutually exclusive.
Click to expand...
You can restore your entire hard drive from any of the restore points in Time Machine.
 
JayInNJ said:
No, you missed the point. Time Machine restores data only. Restore Points is for applications. Both are good for different things and really they are mutually exclusive.
Click to expand...

I think it's your terminology that's was confusing. By data, you mean EVERYTHING (inclusive of applications).
 
I was just trying to help a friend today who's Windows system is hosed...

There is a message at boot time that a certain HAL.DLL is missing or corrupted. As soon as you press any key, the system just reboots & returns to the same message. There's an error about the CD-ROM drive too & he cannot boot from it. His BIOS won't allow booting from a USB drive. He cannot reach his restore points = Windows FAIL!

It left me thankful to have OS X / Time Machine! :cool:
 
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