Doesn't Time Machine have whatever bugs made my computer crash in the first place?

I recently updated my MacBook Pro with Maverick, and also changed my password for logging onto the computer. I started having all kinds of problems with keychain. Eventually I couldn't log in at all, and soon after that I just got the flashing question mark file when I turned on the computer. So I used Disk Utility to erase the hard drive and reinstalled OSX.

Now, I could use the time machine backup from my external hard drive, but wouldn't that contain whatever buggy problems caused this whole mess in the first place? I just dragged my documents and photos over from the external HD, and I'm fine with just forgetting about the rest of it - except for Rosetta Stone. I don't want to buy it again, but when I drag the app over from my external HD it doesn't work. So... Any ideas on how I can get my old stuff onto the newly cleaned up computer without dragging the problems along with it? Or, is there a way to pick what I want to keep from the back up in a way that it'll still work?

(P.S. My OS is now 10.7.5)

First... you can't drag and drop applications such as Rosetta Stone or MS Office 2011 because they are copy protected and require activation with a valid serial number. I don't understand why you didn't use Time Machine? Didn't you make the Time Machine backup prior to installing Mavericks? It seems to me that you have gotten yourself into a worse situation with the reinstall. Mavericks is an easy upgrade and for the most part has not caused problems. As an aside... changing your password should not have caused a keychain problem. Obviously something wrong there.

Start over with a clean install and use your Time Machine backup. That will probably be better than what you have now.

The thing is, I don't really like the way it was before. I had trouble getting tabs to close when I wanted them to. There was some kind of work around with iPhoto that someone helped me set up on my old computer which was inherited by my new one when I used time machine to set it up that I'd rather not have again. A bunch of crap collected over the last couple of years that I don't use any more... So I don't really want to go back to that.

No one knows of a way to start over with just my docs, photos, and music and an app or two that I want to keep? Can Migration Assistant do that?

Just the docs, photos and music data isn't hard - it is all likely in your user's home directory under the respective directory. The apps are problematic depending upon the app. There are things like preference (config) files that are located in different places for different applications and different users. Perhaps if you did a clean installation, and then reinstalled the applications, you could then re-import you data (dosc, photos, music, etc...) and get closer to where you would like to be?

Even using Migration Assistant, larger suites such as Adobe and Office as a rule require re-activation because of this copy protection chscag mentioned.

Thanks.

So far so good. I've installed Maverick, and everything seems to be working more smoothly than it did before. Rosetta Stone wasn't really a problem either when I reinstalled from the discs and entered the key. I guess it is satisfied that this is the same computer that it was registered to in the first place.

The only snag I've hit is with iPhoto. I reinstalled iPhoto '09 from an old iLife disc, but because I was using iPhoto '11 before, iPhoto '09 says it can't use my library because it's from a later version of iPhoto. iPhoto '11 is $15 in the app store, and I don't want to pay for something that I should already have. When I check for updates in the app store it gives me some options for updating '09, but not for switching to '11. I'd be happy just using '09, but it doesn't do me any good because I can't see my pics. Any ideas?

Think I got it. I just found iphoto in a backup from earlier this month on my external hard drive. I dumped iPhoto '09 in applications and replaced it with the one from the backup ('11). I found my photo library in the backup and used it to replace the blank photo library in "Pictures" and it looks like I'm good!

I figure I can probably do the same with move, and garageband is a free download so that should be even easier.

Thanks again.