After using TM restore 45 GB added

Question

In January 2011 I had 84 GB on my hard drive that was used and 75 GB available on my iMac.  I had already installed Snow Leopard, upgrading from Tiger, and started using Time Machine on an external hard disk.  I have not added that 45 GB of material to my hard drive since January.  But after doing a restore of the hard disk from Time Machine on April 15, 2011, I now have used 130 GB used and have 30 GB available to use when I click on Get Info for the hard drive.  What has happened?  There is no way I have put 45 GB of stuff on this machine.  It seems as though doing the restore from Time Machine has made the HD think I have used 45 GB more than before.  Is there a fix?  Where are the 45GB coming from?

Answer 1

Thank you for your reply.  You are correct, Apple does not make the restore clear.  In fact, I will go one step further, the Apple support people might not know, either.  When I did my first restore, topic of my post, the Apple representative told me to go to Finder, highlight the HD and then hit restore in Time Machine.  I remember at the time specifically discussing with him whether or not my disks that I bought to update from Tiger were complete install disks for Snow Leopard rather than just an update.  I did call Apple again and this rep told me the first one made a mistake, the way you are describing it is the way it should be done; in other words, put in the Leopard install disk and work from there.  When you do it the wrong way, the way I did it first, you are just copying the OS twice onto your computer.  It is there in the first place running and then you are copying the other files from the TM as if they were data files, not OS files (or something like that, that's my perception)  So the next time I called Apple they told me to do it with the Snow Leopard install disk, the way you are describing it. 
You know, most of the time, Apple support is superior and worth paying for.  I feel in this instance, such a basic thing, the first rep must have known.  For whatever reason, he gave me the wrong info.  So be careful when you call support.  If you get someone who, no matter how nice they are (they are all nice), that you sense might not exactly know what they are doing, get off the phone and call in again.  Eighty percent chance you'll get a better rep.