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Weird TM restore?

D

deerfaced

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2012
119
0
I'm not sure if this is normal, but I just received my replacement rMBP yesterday. As I was at work, I turned it on, set it up and proceeded to check for any defects with the screen.

So, when I got home, I booted into the recovery thing to do a Time Machine restore (rather than doing it during first setup) and It seems to have missed a load of my settings (tap to click, scroll direction)...

My concern is, without opening everything, that I'll format and send back the old one, only to find out that it's not just a few preferences that didn't transfer across.

My understanding was that time machine backed up everything, or is this not the case?

Cheers,

A.
 
deerfaced said:
I'm not sure if this is normal, but I just received my replacement rMBP yesterday. As I was at work, I turned it on, set it up and proceeded to check for any defects with the screen.

So, when I got home, I booted into the recovery thing to do a Time Machine restore (rather than doing it during first setup) and It seems to have missed a load of my settings (tap to click, scroll direction)...

My concern is, without opening everything, that I'll format and send back the old one, only to find out that it's not just a few preferences that didn't transfer across.

My understanding was that time machine backed up everything, or is this not the case?

Cheers,

A.
Click to expand...
I do realize that there are a bunch of huge Time Machine zealots on this forum, so I'm probably going to touch off a firestorm... but Time Machine is really not the best option for migrating from one computer to another.

If you still have both machines, the best approach is to use Apple's migration utility. If you don't have a Thunderbolt cable, you can do it over your lan (wired is much faster than WiFi). If you DO have a Thunderbolt cable, start the original machine up in target disk mode and migrate from there. It's VERY fast. It'd probably worth the $50 for the cable.

Another very good alternative, which I use often, is to clone your original machine to an external drive and then migrate from the external drive connected to the new machine. This has the advantage of giving you a bootable clone backup, which I always keep one of. Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. CCC will clone your recovery partition as well.

I use Time Machine to back up and restore individual files. I actually use a QNAP NAS running it's own Time Capsule software, so backups happen automatically whenever I'm on my home network. It works just like Time Capsule with the advantage of being a 4TB RAID 6 array. I don't consider Time Machine an adequate disaster recovery or migration strategy on it's own however. I ALWAYS keep a bootable clone around. I also keep my user directory on a separate partition, but that's a story for another thread.
 
Last edited:
Interesting... well I'd either have to get 2 thunderbolt > ethernet adapters to migrate the 2 (I guess) or as you say, a thunderbolt wire...

I'll investigate further.

I just found it really odd that everything else seems to be there, and right!

----------

Actually, to save myself the £40... If I make a genius appointment, do you think apple would let me borrow one to do a transfer?

Once that's done, I guess I can make a disk image at my leisure.
 
Right, apple told me to buy a cable then just get a refund later.

So, as I've already got a partially transferred mac... do I need to re-instal lion, then use the migration assistant?

I tried just using MA, but it said as they're both the same named accounts, I can't replace one with the other - and I certainly don't want 2 user accounts.
 
deerfaced said:
Right, apple told me to buy a cable then just get a refund later.

So, as I've already got a partially transferred mac... do I need to re-instal lion, then use the migration assistant?

I tried just using MA, but it said as they're both the same named accounts, I can't replace one with the other - and I certainly don't want 2 user accounts.
Click to expand...

There's another issue to throw in too....ML..Today. Maybe you'd be better off waiting?
 
I figured if I get it right with lion, then just update to ML it would be 'safer' than going straight to ML?

Or is that a stupid idea?
 
But am I better doing a clean format / instal ML then migrate everything over, or doing an instal of L > migrate > update to ML?

Or is that just an unknown at this point?
 
deerfaced said:
I figured if I get it right with lion, then just update to ML it would be 'safer' than going straight to ML?

Or is that a stupid idea?
Click to expand...

Once in a while updates cause issues when upgrading. To avoid that possibility I think in this case it is better to simply fresh install ML, considering it is only a few hours away.
 
So, with that in mind - what's the best way to do a fresh instal of ML?

Redeem my code, download it from the app store, and just instal it? Or is there a way of formatting the drive first?

(I'm at work, and don't have access to much other than both rMBP's and a thunderbolt lead!)
 
Anyone? I really need to get cracking - TNT are coming to pick up the other one tomorrow!
 
Ahh tits to it... I'm going to just install over what I've got and hope for the best.

I've got a back up at home if things get hairy.
 
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