Time Machine doesnt restore system exactly

Looking around, Apple claims TM restores the system to exactly how it was before the restore - so at least that's what I'm trying to aim for.
-I had the a harddrive clicking noise last night and luckily I had backed up hours before the clicking noise began. As soon as I restart, I could no longer boot up the OS as the clicking would begin as soon as the MBP turned on. Bummer.
-I popped in a laptop hd I had lying around while waiting for the RMA replacement on the dead one, and did a remote restore in Snow Leopard Dvd utility using my latest TM backup (used mount_afp afp://user:pw@host/ etc etc etc in terminal).
-I also looked over at the User Tips post by Glenn Carter on Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine.
Now that I mentioned that, my photos are intact and my files I guess, but what irks me is that my system isn't restored "exactly" the way it was before the hd failure. My wallpaper is the default. My screensaver is the default. My dock is the default. The apps that run in my Menubar are gone. My widgets are defaulted. And my settings in PathFinder, Transmit, Curio, Steam, etc are all gone. They've also defaulted. Very annoying to configure every app installed. Simply put, my system as it is now after the restore looks exactly like a fresh install of SL and "not exactly" as my desktop-before-hd-failure which is what Apple suggests TM can do.
Am I doing something wrong? Any further tips? Should I restore again?

Beardpapa wrote:
-I popped in a laptop hd I had lying around while waiting for the RMA replacement on the dead one, and did a remote restore in Snow Leopard Dvd utility using my latest TM backup (used mount_afp afp://user:pw@host/ etc etc etc in terminal).
Did you do a full system restore, per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum)?
If so, everything should have been restored, just like they say, unless things were excluded from Time Machine (there's some very bad advice about that on the internet).
All the things you describe are in +*<home folder>/Library/Preferences.+* If you used +Migration Assistant+ instead, you may have an extra user account, that has the restored preferences.
-I also looked over at the User Tips post by Glenn Carter on Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine.
That applies to Leopard only.

Similar Messages

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    aussie,
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    Daniel Greeney wrote:
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