# Time Machine : Complete restore?



## Eric0 (Nov 22, 2007)

Was thinking about reformatting my hard drive.

In the past I have cloned my drive using SuperDuper. However, I was wondering if I could just use Time Machine instead? 

Cloning returned everything perfectly to where it was so I'm just curious if Time Machine will do the same or whether it only back's up critical data and files and not certain preferences. 

Thanks in advance for any help.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Time Machine should do the job without much of a hitch.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

You can even find the instructions on how to restore here:
Mac OS X 10.5 Help: Recovering your entire system


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Eric0 said:


> Was thinking about reformatting my hard drive.
> 
> In the past I have cloned my drive using SuperDuper. However, I was wondering if I could just use Time Machine instead?
> 
> ...


It backs everything up and you can restore from it but unlike SuperDuper it does not create a bootable disk that you can boot the system off of In the event of catastophic startup disk failure. To me that is a serious limitation and I have no plans of switching from using SuperDuper (just wish they would hurry up and make it Leopard friendly already) to using Time Machine.

Without a bootable back up how are you even going to begin to see if the original startup disk can be repaired? Seems to me to severly reduce the possiblity of DIY when it comes to diagnosing and possibly repairing a drive on your own. Maybe that is what they are after, trying to get get you to take your f***ed up drive in for servicing (I don't really think that). 

But seriosly it says on the Apple Mac OS X 10.5 Help page, "If you’re restoring your system because of a problem with your startup disk, make sure the disk has been repaired or replaced." Well if you can't boot the system and use third party software for diagnosis (because we all know that for serious drive muckups the Disk Utility just doesn't cut it) you are SOL for repairing the drive yourself. That can mean significant down time while you are waiting for a tech to see if it can be repaired or while you are shopping around for a new hard drive. With Super Duper not only can you boot the system up for diagnostics but if you are in some sort of deadline situation you can keep working and get the darned thing fixed when you have more time.

That's the way I see it for me anyhow.


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## Carl (Jun 7, 2003)

Totally agree with screature. I use Carbon Copy Cloner and have a bootable backup of my machine. Time machine may keep copies of stuff, but if my drive goes down, I want to be able to boot into something I can use. Booting from a DVD to do a restore just seems like a bad practice to me and relies to heavily on a restoration process. Just my 2 cents. I think Time Machine is good for people who dont backup, and so they have something to fall back on.
That reminds me. Time to make a backup.


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

Eric0 said:


> Was thinking about reformatting my hard drive.
> 
> In the past I have cloned my drive using SuperDuper. However, I was wondering if I could just use Time Machine instead?
> 
> ...


Boot from your install DVD and select "Restore from TM" in the Utilities menu.
It works very well, I tested it when I first installed Leopard, and I've used it twice since.
One thing I have done is to clone the install DVD to my TM drive using Disk Utilities "Restore" command.
Now if if want access to my TM backups for a system restore, I just need to reboot while holding the "alt" key, and select my TM drive, no need to use the install DVD any more.
Originally it was thought necessary to create a separate partition for this DVD clone, but not so, it and the TM folder coexist quite nicely in the same Partition.
jb.


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

screature said:


> It backs everything up and you can restore from it but unlike SuperDuper it does not create a bootable disk that you can boot the system off of In the event of catastophic startup disk failure.


If you want to create a bootable disk, on lets say an external FW drive, it's quite simple.
Using the install DVD, from the utility menu select "Restore System"
at the prompt for a destination drive, just follow the instruction to connect your external drive.
Your TM backup will restore to the external, giving you a fully functional bootable backup.
Just another case of thinking "outside the box" 

jb.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

jamesB said:


> Boot from your install DVD and select "Restore from TM" in the Utilities menu.
> It works very well, I tested it when I first installed Leopard, and I've used it twice since.
> One thing I have done is to clone the install DVD to my TM drive using Disk Utilities "Restore" command.
> Now if if want access to my TM backups for a system restore, I just need to reboot while holding the "alt" key, and select my TM drive, no need to use the install DVD any more.
> ...


Doesn't that assume that your main hard drive is still usable?

Or does that somehow make the external backup now bootable?

The other question is "Did you try all this with USB 2.0 as well as with Firewire externals?"

I don't really understand why TM does not create an external bootable backup. Seems easy enough to do and being able to just start up on your external and continue working when your internal drive crashes is invaluable.


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

krs said:


> Doesn't that assume that your main hard drive is still usable?
> 
> Or does that somehow make the external backup now bootable?
> 
> ...


That post refers to getting the system to boot so you can run system utilities and do a system restore from TM. All it does is do away with the need to locate, insert and boot from the install DVD.

Now my second post is a different approach, this actually creates a bootable clone of your system on an external drive.
If your hardware supports booting from USB, then this should work, but I personally have not tested it.
I don't have that much longer to live that I can waste it on waiting for USB data transfers. 
jb.


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