Restore Question

[leecee]

Let's say I've made a full, bootable backup of my system onto my external firewire hard disk.. the next day my system behaves badly to the point where I can no longer use it properly..

So I start up from my firewire hard disk, and fire up SD. To get the system back to how it was, do I Smart Update from the backup to the original, or do I use the Erase and Copy option ?

I've read the manual but am confused as to which option I should use.

Thanks for any comments.

[dnanian]

Either way is fine: Erase, then copy is probably what I'd use if the problem was due to disk damage (since I'd want to erase and zero the source), smart update if it was just a "Minor" restore.

[leecee]

Thank you, Dave, for your quick reply. Points noted.

Lee.

[leecee]

Just one more quick question: given the scenario above and booting from the backup firewire disk, wouldn't this be "altering" the data on the backup disk in some way ?

How could I ensure that Smart Updating the main system disk from this backup would give me an exact replica of the backup at the time it was made, not at the time it was booted from ?

I hope that makes sense..

[dnanian]

You'd need to boot from something else and restore from there (this could be your OSX install DVD, for example). But, in general, there's no reason to take this step.