Thank you Time Machine!!!

For those of you who hope "it won't happen to you"...

OK, so I thought I'd write a special thank you to Apple's Time Machine, and really encourage everyone I know to "back shit up!!!" I mean honestly, a great deal of our lives are saved in gigabites on a computer, so it's really important that we look after it. Even though what I'm saying here relates to Mac uses, the same goes for my PC friends out there. Back up, back up, BACK UP!!!

I recently had a melt down on my old G5. It's a pretty old machine, like 6 years, it's a power pc, not an intel mac and it runs on OSX.

(These event were over the last 2 weeks)

My computer wouldn't start and I couldn't even start it up on my install CD. I couldn't even load it on to my laptop in Target Disk mode. I tried several ways to get the disk to load and at one point, I got the disk to show up in Disk Utility but it didn't have anything nice to say except that it was seriously damaged and that I should try reformatting it, but that was difficult to do, because the installer CD wouldn't even load fully. I finally thought that the battery on my logic board may need replacing, so I bought a new one in the hopes that it was the main cause...

Firstly, I do quite a bit of freelance work on my computer. Because of that, I figured it was sensible (2 years ago) to get Time Machine set up so that in the event that something like this ever happens, I'd be ok. I use an external hard disk for this. I also have a second hard disk in my computer where I save additional music, photos and stuff, so that frees up space on my main hard disk for my programs to work efficiently.

Now, I decided that in the event that my main hard disk was truly beyond repair, I would have to use my second hard disk as my new main. So I got a new external disk to transfer everything I had on it so I could use it. Luckily, I was able to use Target disk mode to load my second hard disk to my laptop and transfer all my stuff to the new External.

Now how often do we pray backups are actually being backed-up? Especially, when Time Machine runs in the background... and you're not physically having to do anything day to day, to make sure it's backing stuff up? You take it for granted it's doing what it's supposed to right? Ok.

Now, all the stuff that was on my second hard disk was transfered to my new external, so I was ready to use it as my new main hard disk. I cross my fingers that everything that was on my old main hard disk was safely backed up via Time Machine to my other external.

Now, back to my battery... I put the new battery in and started the computer... It didn't work. I tried starting from the install CD... nope! I tried target Disk mode to my laptop... it didn't show up. Basically, I simply had to accept that my main hard disk was really damaged.

In order to install OSX onto my second hard disk, I had to physically remove my damaged hard disk and swap it out with my second hard disk in order to get the install CD to even start running. Which it did!!!

So now, I install OSX to my new main hard disk. Done. Next, do all the necessary system software updates for OSX. Done. Now I was ready to restore everything I had on my Time Machine to my new main hard disk.

Do not use Time Machine. That's just to set up a new time machine back up for you computer.

What you need to do is use Migration Assistant (in your utilities folder). It will ask you if you want to use your Time Machine back up and what you want to restore, including applications!!! Basically, if you are intending to buy a new computer, and you wanted to transfer everything from your old computer to your new one... if you had Time Machine set up on the old one, you can use Migration Assistant to transfer everything!!!

Now what I was super pleased with is that setting, fonts, applications... everything was as it was before my melt down!!! It took about 4 hours for the transfer, but once it was done, my old computer was completely back!!! I didn't have to reload fonts, I didn't even have to reload any applications, adobe CS', everything was done. OMG!!! what a relief!!! No scrambling for CDs of applications to reinstall, or fonts to upload or any of that!!! It was all there!!!

Thank you, thank you Time Machine!!! Seriously!!!

One thing it will do after all your system and files and folders and applications are restored, is your mail... Mail will pop up, and ask you to restore you mail. You don't need to set up your mail accounts. That's all done, but you will need to get the mail from those account back and update any new mail from the online servers.

Until you have a melt down people, you have no idea...

Even if you don't do work on your computer, let's face it, you still have a lot of personal stuff on the computer, pictures, movies, music.. whatever, it's your stuff. Trust me, if it means anything to you, you gotta back it up. And if you're a Mac like me, Time Machine is the one thing you simply have to have.