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Time Machine restore question

M

mtnDewFTW

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 26, 2009
905
198
San Francisco, CA
Hey guys, so I have been keeping my computer backed up for a while now. And my iMac's HDD was being a big loud, so Apple checked it out, and apparently it needed to be replaced. So that's great, however I will be getting my computer back, with nothing on it.

So, my question is, if I were to restore it from my Time Machine backup, would stuff like my finder shortname/username + password, still be attached to the restore?

Or is there a way of me just getting my settings/software back? But keeping my new password and making a new user/shortname.

Thanks very much :)
 
BlueRevolution said:
That's right. Personally, I prefer to just clone with Carbon Copy Cloner, but that works too.
Click to expand...

I take it the CCC file is a simple clone (like true image) of the original HD including OSX updates? So once reloaded you you would'nt have to run the system updater to get back to where you started from in the first place (like timemachine)?
 
That's right. Carbon Copy Cloner creates a bootable backup, so unlike Time Machine, you can run the system from the backup if you run into problems replacing the drive or whatever. However, it doesn't keep versioning information like Time Machine does, so my day-to-day backups use Time Machine, while I only backup with Carbon Copy Cloner when I'm replacing or formatting a hard drive.
 
BlueRevolution said:
That's right. Carbon Copy Cloner creates a bootable backup, so unlike Time Machine, you can run the system from the backup if you run into problems replacing the drive or whatever. However, it doesn't keep versioning information like Time Machine does, so my day-to-day backups use Time Machine, while I only backup with Carbon Copy Cloner when I'm replacing or formatting a hard drive.
Click to expand...

Right I'll do that next time I replace a hard drive after the fun I've had with time machine.... See my other post How did this go so wrong? And eat up so much time?

Andy
 
Massnegro said:
I take it the CCC file is a simple clone (like true image) of the original HD including OSX updates? So once reloaded you you would'nt have to run the system updater to get back to where you started from in the first place (like timemachine)?
Click to expand...

So does Time Machine fully restore your settings even if it does not install the updates?

So it's kind of like a clean-install, right?
 
rekhyt said:
However do things like Adobe CS4 and application settings and save-data (For example game-saves in Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War or 1Password) and default wallpapers, etc, save?
Click to expand...

Yes.

AV8TOR said:
To restore from CCC do you need to first boot from your system CD then reload CCC to run the restore?
Click to expand...

No. Carbon Copy Cloner can clone the running partition to another drive/partition, so there's no need to mess with system disks. When replacing a drive, I'd either:

  1. Remove system drive A and install replacement drive B
  2. Put drive A into an enclosure
  3. Boot to (now external) drive A
  4. Clone drive A onto drive B
  5. Boot to drive B
  6. Format drive A and use it for backup or whatever
or
  1. Boot to system drive A
  2. Clone drive A onto external backup drive C
  3. Boot to drive C or to the computer's restore disk
  4. Format and zero drive A for security
  5. Remove drive A and install replacement drive B
  6. Boot to drive C
  7. Clone drive C onto drive B
  8. Boot to drive B
  9. Format drive C and make it into a Time Machine backup
 
Thanks BlueRevolution
If drive A is my main computer drive and drive B is my CCC backup drive, how do I force it to boot to drive B?
So now that it booted from drive B will the dock and all of the programs load/look just as they did when the CCC was run last so then you simply run CCC and run the restore?
 
AV8TOR said:
If drive A is my main computer drive and drive B is my CCC backup drive, how do I force it to boot to drive B?
Click to expand...

Well, I called it drive C in my description, but whatever. You can boot to a cloned backup just by holding option on startup and selecting the drive.

AV8TOR said:
So now that it booted from drive B will the dock and all of the programs load/look just as they did when the CCC was run last so then you simply run CCC and run the restore?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
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