Hey, so i have a quick question about the time machine feature on my mac. I have a macbook and just got it back from repair (had cracked palmrest) and the genius was nice enough to put 10.5 on it (had 10.4 before) This was great so i picked up a copy of 10.6, but before i install it i just need a question answered. This laptop was bought via craigslist and does not have the disks, so can i reinstall the 10.6 os via time machine if i upgrade the harddrive? The sales associate at the apple store said it should work no problem, but at the same time he seemed distracted by bright colours as well so I am not so sure in him. Any help or answer would be great, i am googling it now and am just looking for help from a smart community!

Thanks

Hey, so i have a quick question about the time machine feature on my mac. I have a macbook and just got it back from repair (had cracked palmrest) and the genius was nice enough to put 10.5 on it (had 10.4 before) This was great so i picked up a copy of 10.6, but before i install it i just need a question answered. This laptop was bought via craigslist and does not have the disks, so can i reinstall the 10.6 os via time machine if i upgrade the harddrive? The sales associate at the apple store said it should work no problem, but at the same time he seemed distracted by bright colours as well so I am not so sure in him. Any help or answer would be great, i am googling it now and am just looking for help from a smart community!

Thanks

Time Machine backs up everything, including the OS, so if you have a TM backup, and you restored it to any drive, it would restore the OS that was backed up.

awesome! thank you for the quick answer. Once i throw some upgrades into this macbook it will have been an awesome trade!

Check your TM preferences when you do the initial backup; I believe that system files are optional. It shouldn't matter anyway; as the Snow Leopard upgrade disk works just fine by itself, you don't actually need 10.5 to install 10.6.

Check your TM preferences when you do the initial backup; I believe that system files are optional. It shouldn't matter anyway; as the Snow Leopard upgrade disk works just fine by itself, you don't actually need 10.5 to install 10.6.

System files aren't optional.

You can reinstall everything, exactly as it was on the date and time of the backup you chose. You obviously need the OS 10.6 disc, but other then that its incredibly simple.

Yea, i understand now how the time machine backup works, however one other question, can it restore onto a blank drive or does it need a copy of osx running in order to access the time machine backup?? I only have the 10.6 upgrade disc to go from 10.5 to 10.6 not the 200 dollar set.

Yea, i understand now how the time machine backup works, however one other question, can it restore onto a blank drive or does it need a copy of osx running in order to access the time machine backup?? I only have the 10.6 upgrade disc to go from 10.5 to 10.6 not the 200 dollar set.

Blank drive. No OS required to be pre-installed. The 10.6 disc will install on any supported Mac, regardless of the pre-existing OS version, or no OS at all (yes - the non Box Set v10.6 disc).

wow really, this switch from windows is really awesome, it just seems to be to easy to be true.

System files aren't optional.

You can optionally exclude System Files, here is a screen shop of the prompt you'll get when you select to do so.

http://homepage.mac.com/jabarley/.public/TM-pref.jpg

You can optionally exclude System Files, here is a screen shop of the prompt you'll get when you select to do so.

http://homepage.mac.com/jabarley/.public/TM-pref.jpg

The poster implied that the system wasn't included by default - this is untrue. You would have to manually exclude it. I'm not debating that you can exclude the system files.