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bender644

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 23, 2008
45
0
As the title says, I'd like to wipe out my hard drive entirely do a clean OS X install.

In the past, I used to just manually copy all my files to a hard drive and then manually copy them back, along with settings and stuff. This was feasible a few year back, but not so much anymore.

I'm quite certain the answer is a simple "yes" but since I've never done this, I want to be certain I'm not missing anything.

So, if I have done a TM backup onto an external, am I free to just completely wipe the hard drive? Will restoring from the external time machine backup bring things back identically as they were before? Will all applications work, or will I need to reinstall some and reenter serial codes?

Thanks for the help.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,241
12,388
What follows is my opinion only.

If you're planning to do a re-initialization, and then re-install, I would recommend that you use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a FULLY BOOTABLE cloned backup of your internal drive onto an external drive.

Why do this?

Because if anything goes awry during the re-install, you will STILL HAVE a bootable drive with "everything on it, ready to go" -- all your files, instantly available.

You can even boot from the cloned backup, then re-initialize your internal, and run a "clean install" of the OS on the internal drive.

Once you get the internal drive rebuilt, just erase the clone if you don't wish to keep it.

But in my opinion you should NEVER "let go of" a fully bootable version of the OS, until you have the new one "in place and known to be working well"...
 
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