12-26-2007, 07:41 PM

I decided to do a clean install. I was getting bogged down, and I was enjoying the blue screen of death on my 4 week old MBP. Well...good old time machine only gave me back the apps that didn't need serial numbers...and my email...preferences? NOT.....my favorites on Firefox? NOT! What the heck!!!

12-26-2007, 07:49 PM

Umm... sorry to tell you this, but that isn't what Time Machine is intended for. You could have done an Archive and Install to preserve all of your settings/applications, etc. Or, use something like CCC or SuperDuper!. Time Machine is really more about getting back that file that got deleted, rather than a real system backup in my opinion. I currently use CCC and Time Machine to make sure I'm covered.

12-26-2007, 08:08 PM

I'm confused what situation would cause a 4 week old Mac to crash, cause you to mess about with reinstalling stuff and farting about with Time Machine to try and bring stuff back.

12-26-2007, 08:25 PM

Not that I can help with this, but what the heck! I'm comfused. What did and didn't get restored? How about constructing sentences that are not so confusing.

12-26-2007, 08:44 PM

Also that Blue Screen is not an ERROR screen like a Windows Blue Screen. It's a Loading screen. The OS is not getting a Trap error or a Kernel Panic.

12-26-2007, 09:18 PM

Oh, for the good ol' days, when stuff like QuarkXpress fit on two floppies — one more than the entire system.

jacintosh, you could keep it simple and back up stuff like your bookmarks and other files (and even your library folder) by burning them to a DVD or CD or two or three. Let the apps/OS take care of themselves with their install disks.

Reinstalling, though, is an education in itself, and the more often you do it, the easier and faster it goes (you can experiment by not doing a so-called easy install. Pick and choose to save space, like not checking off Lower Slobobian and Greek Linear B, or whatever.

So if you have the time and the inclination, do it all again. But this time, partition the disk, and put all your saved files of whatever persuasion on the other partition, better isolating the system files and apps (in their own partition) from possible corruption, because that partition would be hardly written to by you (and it would help to keep system-file fragmentation to a minimum).

FWIW, I've done it that way since System 7, though fragmentation was a bigger deal before OS X. But backing up would be easier, too, for example if you keep your mp3s or whatever on the second partition. If iTunes goes south, it's far less likely your music files will, too. Using mp3s as the example again, it's far easier to drag a folder full of them to a backup, then back to the second partition than it is figuring out where they are and chasing them down — if they still exist — after an iTunes meltdown. But if that happened, they'd be untouched on the other partition, anyway. (In this case, don't allow iTunes to move any files into its own folder.)

12-26-2007, 11:25 PM

Whoa!!!! The gurus come out of the woodwork. Macs are supposed to be EASY. I left the pc after many years to find life easy. I downloaded a couple of apps and I was playing around with iMovie, and it hung up big time. Yes, the blue screen wasn't like the pc...but it was hanging up for over a minute. I wasn't aware, that, by bringing back my apps from prior to the clean install, the preferences weren't included. God only knows I had trouble tinkering with the "library". And which library at that? And...I got the...you don't have the privilege to open thingy.....complicated for this pc user. Where's the Commodore 64?

12-27-2007, 01:27 AM

Macs ARE easy, but tinkering around with the library, doing unecessary clean installs after only a month's usage, trying to bring back things that were there BEFORE the clean install and messing around in general will make it harder for yourself, especially when you have not learned the basics.

Not sure why you would get a "bogged down" system after only 4 weeks, and why you would need to clean install and then expect to recover things before a clean install?

Did you archive and install or did you actually do a clean install?

12-27-2007, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by jacintosh

And which library at that?

Well, there are four of them. What could be simpler? One in the System folder, which is off-limits and read-only; one for the hard-drive, one somewhere else (sorry, I've been too long away from OS X & I'm asleep at the keyboard); and one in your log-in folder, which is the one you can fiddle with.

And...I got the...you don't have the privilege to open thingy

That might have been the System folder library, or even the disk drive's. Not likely your log-in folder library.

complicated for this pc user.

I know. I ran into that problem, but reversed, using Windows 2000 at work. Unfortunately, it wasn't my machine, so I couldn't rip out its still-beating heart and throw it under a truck.

Where's the Commodore 64?

Na. The tape heads clog. Can you obtain Pogue's Missing Manual?

12-27-2007, 02:53 AM

Time Machine is awesome. I bought a new iMac last month and it restored everything from my old Mac onto my new one (it did take 6 hours, but hey it worked)!

12-27-2007, 11:00 AM

Well....my bad. I was using iMovie, and something bad happening...I don't know what....but the whole computer froze and I couldn't get it to open. Also...it was hanging on boot time with the blue screen. I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand the partition thing, but I'm done tinkering. My next problem is....I'm tried to get my wireless connection back to my printer...and it is asking for a passwor. I give my Mac password, and it says that it is bad...I don't know what is going on.