I'm going to need to erase my hard disk and reinstall a clean version of Mavericks, then restore things to as they were before.

I have backups of most things in QRecall, certainly the Applications folder and primary (only) user a/c.

What's the process for restoring from QRecall following a clean OS install...

The Applications folder will be there already, so do I just select the folder within the QRecall archive and 'restore' it over the top of the Applications folder on the target disk, or do I select the contents of the folder in QRecall and restore them inside the Applications folde on the target disk?

For the user a/c, I'm assuming that I need first to create the user with the same name as previously before restoring the account files. Again... do I then restore the account folder over the top of the newly created account on the target drive, or just the contents?

Lastly, do I need to boot from an external drive in order to do this (especially the user a/c), as I would be logged in as the user in question.

if I'm running from an external boot drive then will 'restore' put things back on the main drive (from where they were originally backed up), or does restore put them back on the boot drive?

Hope that's clear.

Thanks in advance

Rob

Rob Schumann wrote:The Applications folder will be there already, so do I just select the folder within the QRecall archive and 'restore' it over the top of the Applications folder on the target disk, or do I select the contents of the folder in QRecall and restore them inside the Applications folde on the target disk?

Hopefully, you've simply erased your boot volume and installed a clean version of Mavericks. This will help, because QRecall will still recognized the volume as being the one you previously captured. If not, you'll need to modify these instructions by manually selecting and recalling items, rather the restoring them—restore automatically locates the original item on the original volume for you.

You'll want to selectively replace just the items you've captured, leaving the Mavericks version of Apple's apps in place. Here's how you do it:

Download and install the QRecall app.

Preauthorize it to use administrative privileges.

Open your existing archive and navigate to the Applications folder.

Make sure View ⇒ Hide Invisible Items, Hide Deleted Items, and Hide Package Contents have been chosen.

Choose Edit ⇒ Select Existing Items.

Choose Edit ⇒ Invert Selection.

Choose Archive ⇒ Restore....

This will select and restore all of the applications that do not exist in your new Applications folder. If you're cleaning house, review the list first and unselect any applications you don't want to reinstall. Repeat with the Utilities subfolder.

I would suggest repeating these steps for each major subfolder in your root-level /Library folder. (You'll have to turn on Show Invisible Items to get to that.) You'll want to restore any Fonts not already installed, Preference Panes not already installed, Preference files not already installed, and so on. Again, review each list before restoring and consider unselecting really old items and folders/files that appear to belong to applications you're no longer using. If you guess wrong, you can always delete anything you restored or later restore anything you missed.

For the user a/c, I'm assuming that I need first to create the user with the same name as previously before restoring the account files. Again... do I then restore the account folder over the top of the newly created account on the target drive, or just the contents?

You'll want to simply replace your entire home folder. If you've created your new home folder with the same name, and it happens to have the same user ID (typically 501) as your original, the easiest solution is to select your home folder (inside the Users folder) and restore it.

If your new home folder has a different name, drag the contents of your captured user folder into your new home folder. Make sure you have Show Invisible Items turned on and include your ~/Library folder in that set.

If, for some reason, your new user has a different user ID than your previous account, then things get a little sticky. You can see what your new uid is by opening up a Terminal window and entering the id -u command. It should be 501. In QRecall, select your home folder (or anything inside it) and use the Inspector palette to find the owner. It should be yourshortname(501).

If they don't match, I'd suggest un-pre-authorizing QRecall and tell it not to use administrative privileges when restoring those items. QRecall will then restore those items using your new user's account. You'll have to ignore the thousands of warnings your going to get as QRecall complains that it can't completely restore the ownership and permissions of those files, but for the most part that's OK. It could be a problem for some special files (like the contents of the hidden ~/.ssh directory which requires very specific ownership and permission settings to function properly).

Lastly, do I need to boot from an external drive in order to do this (especially the user a/c)

No, but I'd suggest restarting immediately afterward, especially after restoring the root /Library folder.

Hi,

Thanks for the guidance... much appreciated.

Could you please clarify the following:

>> Make sure View ? Hide Invisible Items, Hide Deleted Items, and Hide Package Contents have been chosen.

It's not clear... The 'View' menu has these three items listed as "Show", not "Hide"... Should the respective items be visible or invisible in the archive?

If hidden then the menus should read as "Show Invisible..." etc..., if the items are visible in the archive then the menu would read "Hide Invisible..." etc...

Please clarify/confirm whether these items should be visible or invisible in the archive.

The rest seems clear enough... I think.

Thanks

Rob

Rob Schumann wrote:Could you please clarify the following:

>> Make sure View ? Hide Invisible Items, Hide Deleted Items, and Hide Package Contents have been chosen.

I know, it's confusing.

If the menu item says "Hide Invisible Items," then invisible items are currently being shown. If it says "Show Invisible Items," then the invisible items are currently hidden.

When restoring most things, you'll want to hide deleted items, invisible items, and package contents. You'll have to show invisible items to dig into the /Library and ~/Library folders, and you might find other invisible items in your home folder of interest.