Using existing backups after Mac Book Pro replacement?

Question

I have been using Time Machine backups for several months and now much swap out my MBP. I plan to basically clone my user directory onto the replacement MBP. Is there a way to continue to take advantage of the backup history I have in place from time machine?

Answer 1

BigBuzz wrote:
I have been using Time Machine backups for several months and now much swap out my MBP. I plan to basically clone my user directory onto the replacement MBP.
There's a much better, easier way. When you start up your new Mac, the +Setup Assistant+ will ask if you already have a Mac, and want to transfer your settings, users, apps, and/or data from it. There's a brief video towards the end of the Time Machine Tutorial
Is there a way to continue to take advantage of the backup history I have in place from time machine?
Yes, assuming your new Mac is running Snow Leopard. Go into TM Preferences, and select the old Leopard TM backups as your TM drive. When your first backup starts, you'll get a prompt asking if you want to "re-use" the backup or start a new one. Take the "Re-use" option.
Your first backup will, of course, be fairly large and lengthy (the new version of OSX at a minimum). In addition, Time Machine may very well do a new, full backup of everything, or, as a few folks have reported, say it will, and delete a lot of old backups, and take a very long time, but end up only backing-up the new version of OSX and a few other things. We haven't figured out yet just why it sometimes does one thing, sometimes another.