What does time machine back up?

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What does time machine back up?

What exactly does time machine back up? I’m having trouble reinstalling macOS Catalina. I’m wondering if it might work restoring from time machine?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 29, 2021 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

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muguy

Level 10

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Sep 29, 2021 9:42 AM in response to Maxxx38

Time Machine backs up everything that isn't part of the MacOS installation. Learn more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250. So, if you have a good backup, you can do a fresh install of Catalina and then restore from Time Machine.

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Answer 2

Maxxx38 Author

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Sep 29, 2021 9:56 AM in response to muguy

OK, thanks for the information. I’m asking because something went wrong with my computer and it wouldn’t boot up. I tried doing a soft reboot and reinstalling Catalina from both the built-in reinstall and the online reinstall. Neither of these things worked (it still wouldn’t boot up ) so as a last resort I’m trying to restore from Time Machine. I don’t know what’s wrong. You seem fairly knowledgeable, any clues?

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 10

81,241 points

Sep 29, 2021 10:03 AM in response to Maxxx38

If it's not booting up at all a Time Machine reinstall is unlikely to help.

I'm assuming that it turns on/off given that you've been able to reinstall software....

This is a great article that walks through all the steps to try: https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/wont-turn-on-boot-3423817/

You could begin with step 4, booting in safe mode. You may have already tried recovery mode. And, resetting the PRAM/NVRAM SMC often works wonders.

Short of any of that ... I'd make sure that you have a good backup of your files (sounds like you do). If you don't, try the target disk mode to copy files as soon as possible. You may be suffering from hardware issues that should be looked at.

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Answer 4

Maxxx38 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 29, 2021 12:53 PM in response to muguy

Hi,

Thank you so much for the info. It turned out that using time machine to restore worked - at least it’s working now (programs are updating and verifying). I’ll keep my fingers crossed ha ha. I only lost a couple weeks worth of data (homework assignments, etc) which I can retrieve. I will check out the article you referenced, just in case. I think I need to maybe re-organize files or something because prior to this happening the computers performance was degraded. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s old, or what. If you have any tips on that, any information would be appreciated if you have time. Thanks again

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What does time machine back up?

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