Snow Leopard, Time Machine, clean install without losing ability to roll back to the snapshots of the previous install.
June 13, 2010 2:30 AM Subscribe
Snow Leopard, Time Machine, clean install without losing ability to roll back to the Time Machine snapshots of the previous install or add new backups to the same sequence of backups.
I want to do a clean install (format disk, etc) of Snow Leopard, but after the reboot I want to reconnect my current Time Machine disk and retain the ability to browse through all of the backup snapshots on it (i.e. for the purposes of Time Machine, all that happened was that the disk got remarkably slimmed down between backups) and have backups of the new install remain part of that same continuum of backups. Are there any particular steps I need to take in order to make this happen? Thanks.
I want to do a clean install (format disk, etc) of Snow Leopard, but after the reboot I want to reconnect my current Time Machine disk and retain the ability to browse through all of the backup snapshots on it (i.e. for the purposes of Time Machine, all that happened was that the disk got remarkably slimmed down between backups) and have backups of the new install remain part of that same continuum of backups. Are there any particular steps I need to take in order to make this happen? Thanks.
Response by poster: Yup, same version of Snow Leopard (10.6.3).
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 4:16 AM on June 13, 2010
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 4:16 AM on June 13, 2010
Response by poster: Also, to be clear, I haven't done it yet - this is a planning question.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 4:31 AM on June 13, 2010
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 4:31 AM on June 13, 2010
I've never done this myself before, but I know that during the install routine you are asked about previous time machine disks if you have any. Actually, here we go. Problem solved!
posted by Biru at 6:52 AM on June 13, 2010
posted by Biru at 6:52 AM on June 13, 2010
Response by poster: Hi Biru,
Thanks for googling, but that discussion and the one it links to which contains the real instructions are for 10.5, and if you read them to the end, the results don't seem 100% unmixed. I googled before posting and saw various divergent instructions on methods for doing this, but they often had the whiff of voodoo and the reason I posted is that I'm interested in hearing whether there is anyone with firsthand experience doing this in 10.6 with a method that didn't turn out to be fragile after long-term usage.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 7:11 AM on June 13, 2010
Thanks for googling, but that discussion and the one it links to which contains the real instructions are for 10.5, and if you read them to the end, the results don't seem 100% unmixed. I googled before posting and saw various divergent instructions on methods for doing this, but they often had the whiff of voodoo and the reason I posted is that I'm interested in hearing whether there is anyone with firsthand experience doing this in 10.6 with a method that didn't turn out to be fragile after long-term usage.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 7:11 AM on June 13, 2010
Every time I use TM to restore (which thankfully has been always as a result of getting a newer computer) I get stuck with the next TM run being a full backup and it ignoring the entire backup history set that already exists. I can restore just fines, it works with respect to that, it just ignores everything once the restore is done. I do know that MAC address is somehow tied in, but even when messing with that, I never had success.
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:29 AM on June 13, 2010
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:29 AM on June 13, 2010
Response by poster: Right, that's the scenario I'm trying to avoid. The MAC address will naturally be the same since nothing about the machine has been changed, and I don't mind if it does a full backup of the new system after it's been created because I have enough room on the Time Machine disk, but it's very important to me that I be able to browse back through to the pre-clean-install snapshots instead of fragmenting my backups (i.e. backing up the current backup onto another medium or disk and then starting a new Time Machine backup series on the current disk that has no continuity to the old one). This is a different issue from whether I want to also make other backups of certain stages of the backup, in case anyone is getting ready to jump in and tell me not to just rely on Time Machine.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 8:49 AM on June 13, 2010
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 8:49 AM on June 13, 2010
« Older tattoo to remind you of something? | Long haul flight advice for travelling with young... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Biru at 3:52 AM on June 13, 2010