Mac OS X Lion to OS X Mountain Lion w/ erasing all data

Question

Hi 2 all, I have MacBook Pro with Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 and when Mountain Lion will be introduced I want to ERASE all information including all partitions from my HDD and install Mountain Lion on fully cleared Mac. And there is a question. I created Time Machine backup and I think that this backup include in itself my  previous (Lion) operating system. But on my NEW system (Mountain Lion) I want only to restore apps and photos from iPhoto. How can I restore from Time Machine backup only some informations like apps and photos?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

TimeMachine doesn't have a highly selectable restore option, it's really a all or nothing approach.
I assume you want to do this for hard drive performance and privacy reasons, because if you have a SSD there is no need for performance, just privacy reasons.
It's because 10.7 will only be removed and 10.8 put into it's place if you choose to upgrade to 10.8, likely on the slower part of the hard drive, Applications and User accounts will be left alone.
So if you wish to proceed, I advise having two external backups of your personal data. One on TimeMachine or bootable clone as well as your personal data backed up on a external drive. Once you have those then proceed.
Most commonly used backup methods
1: Hold command r keys while booting, use Disk Utility to Erase (hard drive use secure erase option #1, middle selection) the Macintosh HD partition.
2: Reinstall 10.7 from Apple's severs using your AppleID and password.
3: Reboot and setup using the same user name (so your iTunes playlists etc will work) different password is fine.
4: Log into App Store and update to 10.8 and reboot, setup and don't use Filevault.
5: Install 10.8 compatible programs as much as possible from original sources BEFORE returning user files.
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
6: Choose to connect the external storage drive with only your files and return into same named account(s) (preferred)
7: Keep your hard drive (SSD no need) below 50% filled for optimal performance, not more than 80% filled for any storage device.
This method will give you clean install of 10.8, optimized and remain performing well for a long time if followed as instructed.
If you chose to restore from TimeMachine or Filevault, your drive performance will suffer most likely because your going to lose the optimization factor, you want your applications (and OS X) to be near the top of the hard drive for performance.