Restoring Time Machine Files to new External Drive

[drgrafix]

My Time Machine external drive is flaky so I'm replacing it. What I did was copy my backups folder to my iMac's main drive temporarily because I was unsure of the process. Will I be able to move that folder to the new drive and restore Time Machine or not? If there's another process, please advise me. I don't trust the old drive another day... its working intermittently and making clicking noises of death for a week now.

BTW, how many are using USB vs FireWire for a Time Machine Backup Drive. Would a FW (for whatever reason) drive be more reliable than a USB one? Or vice versa?

 

[CaptainObvious]

Mac 101: Time Machine

Would a FW (for whatever reason) drive be more reliable than a USB one? Or vice versa?

I've heard FW can be faster... buts thats all I've heard. I didn't even know what FW was until a little while back... I always use USB. *shrug* Personal choice. USB is pretty much everywhere.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

BTW, how many are using USB vs FireWire for a Time Machine Backup Drive. Would a FW (for whatever reason) drive be more reliable than a USB one? Or vice versa?

I"m using USB. I find it hard to see why it would be less reliable than FW, after all its used for nearly all peripherals. Slower, sure, but as TM works in the background thats probably not an issue

 

[drgrafix]

OK... the FW vs USB is obviously a non-issue then. But what about restoring a Time Machine backup? Anyone have a clue?

 

[drgrafix]

As noted above, prior to my old TM drive totally dying on me, I moved a number of backup files (which I assume were its Time Machine files) onto my root internal drive. I didn't get everything, but I got about 18 months worth I think. They wanted $600 to get everything off the drive and that was too much for me to handle. So I just got a new 1TB Lacie Quadra which I'd like to be my TM drive, but I'd also like to store other material there... mainly graphics files.

So rather than formatting as one large partition, do I need to format to two (2) partitions, one for TM and one for data files? Also, since I have a lot of old backup files, how _DO_ I incorporate those backups (back to 2009 I think) into Time Machine or is that a lost cause. Do I just move them from the root drive to the Time Machine drive (or partition)? The old drive did die and it won't even spin up now.

Last question... I'm trying to grasp Time Machine's usefulness and exactly what it's backing up. Is it backing up _everything_ on my root drive or just OSX versions or OSX versions and applications, or what? Is it backing up my iTunes, my pictures, my email, and anything else?

Thanks in advance for the help.