Is restoring a Time Machine backup on a clean install of OS X Mavericks still a 'clean' install?
I would like to upgrade to OS X Mavericks. Also, I think it would be a good chance to clean up my system.
My question is: If do a clean install of OS X Mavericks and then restore my machine from a Time Machine backup, then…
- would this still be "clean"? …or would this just be the same as upgrading my system the regular way?
- will I lose any data/settings/apps?
Thank you guys for your help!
If you reinstall 10.9, don’t choose "Restore from Time Machine Backup". Make a simple install after you reformatted your drive with Disk Utility.
After the install, the setup process will start and you can choose if you want to restore from Time Machine. I would recommend you to deselect the System to restore, just your home directory and your applications. So you will just restore your data (docs, music, pics), your applications settings (~/Library) and the application bundles from /Application.
This the closest you can get to a "clean" install, without manually migrating your data and setup again every single app.
Absolutely. A clean install is one where the core OS comes from a valid installer. Past that, you can test the system for whatever level of "fitness" you require and only move users, user data and third party apps from a backup in a controlled manner if desired.
I like to look at the loss of data in the opposite direction. When that installation goes badly, the loss has typically already happened. If you don't have a backup and restore system where by you can get back to the pre-upgrade status, you might not want to change anything on the system as you can't really recover from a random failure at that point either - let alone have a good option if the software you have installed isn't compatible with the new OS.