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How do I restore files backed up using the "Backup everything" method? |
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If you need to restore just a file or handful of files, simply browse the backup drive in the Finder and copy those items back to your original drive to restore them. If you need to restore a larger subset of files, but not the entire volume, click here to learn how to restore files with the "Incremental backup of selected items" option.
To restore an entire volume, for example your boot volume after a disk failure, you will need to boot from an external Firewire or USB hard drive. Ideally, you will simply boot from the external hard drive that you backed up to using CCC. Launch CCC, select the drive that you backed up to as the source, select your original (or replacement) drive as the target, choose to "Backup everything", then clone. If the target drive must be bootable, you must use the "Delete items from the target that don't exist on the source" option (see below for the explanation).
Why must you use the "Delete items on the target that are not on the source" cloning option to make that volume bootable?
Back in the Mac OS 9 days, it was OK to have multiple operating systems on the same hard drive or partition. With Mac OS X, that is no longer the case. Additionally, it is not a simple task to merge one OS with another. Not only is there the potential for conflicts if the OS versions are different, but you also run into the potential to corrupt the user accounts database. You may use either the "Backup everything" or "Incremental backup of selected items" cloning methods, though to ensure that the resulting volume is bootable, you must use each method's associated option to delete items on the target.