To Clone Or Not To Clone, that is the question!

[VideoBeagle]

So, my iMac had to go to the Apple Store for a bunch of days to have The Mechanism™ repaired/replaced.

Before sending it, I made a complete back up of the drive, then erased it.

I should be getting it back in the next day or so.

My request for opinions is this: Should I just clone the backup back to the iMac drive, or should I just do a fresh image, and rebuild from scratch..maybe clearing up random minor glitches I may have been encountering. (none I could point to, just a general scrubbing though).

 

[bradl]

So, my iMac had to go to the Apple Store for a bunch of days to have The Mechanism™ repaired/replaced.

Before sending it, I made a complete back up of the drive, then erased it.

I should be getting it back in the next day or so.

My request for opinions is this: Should I just clone the backup back to the iMac drive, or should I just do a fresh image, and rebuild from scratch..maybe clearing up random minor glitches I may have been encountering. (none I could point to, just a general scrubbing though).

If you do a fresh install, I believe Migration assistant could use another drive for its source for things you want to pull over. I know it can do that from Time Machine backups, another mac, or Windows XP SP3 or newer.. But doing it from another drive may be possible.

Worse comes to worse, if you have another Mac, you could boot it from your cloned disk, and use that as Migration Assistant's source.

BL.

 

[VideoBeagle]

Hmm..might be worth trying that.

I like the idea of a fresh install...but the thought of all the reinstalls I'd have to do is a bit more than I necessarily want to go thru

 

[NoBoMac]

How did you make the backup? That might be a limiting factor re: being able to clone back to machine.

And might be impediment re: Migration Assistant.

As for reinstalling apps, in theory, just need to drag them from the backup drive to the returned machine. Done and done. Ditto user account. System & user settings might be the tough nut: what version of OS was the machine at and what is it at after reinstall (MIGHT have some incompatible settings/files)?

 

[Weaselboy]

Hmm..might be worth trying that.

I like the idea of a fresh install...but the thought of all the reinstalls I'd have to do is a bit more than I necessarily want to go thru

If you do a clean install then use Migration Assistant to import data and apps you have completely defeated the purpose of doing a clean install. If there are bugs and old software etc, Migration Assistant will put then right back.

A true "clean install" is an erase of the drive with OS reinstall then a manual reinstall of all apps and data and a manual config. of all settings. If you have a lot of custom app settings it can be a lot of work for little to no benefit. IMO if you were not having identifiable problems before, don't bother.

 

[VideoBeagle]

How did you make the backup? That might be a limiting factor re: being able to clone back to machine.

And might be impediment re: Migration Assistant.

As for reinstalling apps, in theory, just need to drag them from the backup drive to the returned machine. Done and done. Ditto user account. System & user settings might be the tough nut: what version of OS was the machine at and what is it at after reinstall (MIGHT have some incompatible settings/files)?

Straight out clone with CCC. OS would be identical. A lot of it is the whole "find the installers, serial's etc" stuff. I mean, it's organized and not too hard to do...just ..ugh.

 

[bradl]

Straight out clone with CCC. OS would be identical. A lot of it is the whole "find the installers, serial's etc" stuff. I mean, it's organized and not too hard to do...just ..ugh.

That actually may be the best way to handle it. If you clone back the disk you copied, you may just be simply recreating the problem again. If you use Migration assistant to migrate everything back, you may also be recreating the problem.

What you may want to do is clean install, install your programs (yes, that means finding the serial numbers, etc.), then use Migration Assistant to migrate your personal data from the cloned disk. That will bring back your personal data on top of a fresh install of both the OS and apps.

BL.

 

[VideoBeagle]

Well for some reason, my !@#!@# cloned backup isn't booting, so i have to go manual anyway.. All the data is good..it id's as a startup, but as it starts booting from the drive...it just turns off.

Words can't describe how annoyed I am with all this right now.