Time Machine restoration

Hello everyone,

Since Time Machine is integrated into OSX I figured this was the right section of the forum to post.

I have an external USB HD with Time Machine backups on it. I am about to get a new MacBook Pro and I would like to restore my documents, settings and applications from the Time Machine backups to the new machine. My questions are as follows:




Thanks in advance! You guys are great.

Hi again everyone,

It may help if I provide some more detail regarding my situation.

I had a MacBook Pro for about a week or so. The MacBook Pro came with the basic software that ships with any OSX MacBook. I ended up installing WoW and a few small applications on the MacBook Pro.

I just returned the MacBook Pro and am eagerly awaiting its replacement. I was able to swing the cost of a few additions to the basic OSX installation (namely Final Cut and iWork '09).

Will I be able to restore my WoW installation to the new machine from my Time Machine backup without wiping out the new Final Cut and iWork applications?

Any thoughts on this?

Time Machine will not erase any new applications you have, but will be able to restore any old apps / documents / photos / music etc using the backup from your previous Macbook.
When you first start up your new machine you will be given an option to restore from a Time Machine backup.

From then on if you want to use the same hard drive for backups, I believe Time Machine wil need to format the external HDD and start afresh, so I would check everything is present and working before allowing a new backup.
I could be wrong so maybe someone with a little more experience will come along and help.

Cheers

Hugh

Hello everyone,

As a quick update, hugtheslug was right on in that restoring from a Time Machine backup did not erase the new applications that were already installed on the new machine.

Thanks for everyone's input!