ML Clean Install and Time Machine restore - Opinions Please!

[windowstomac]

Hi there,

I have a 2011 MBP-

I have upgraded from SL to Lion and then to ML, all as upgrade installs. I also have full disk encryption enabled.

I am perfectly happy with ML, other than the fact that I seem to get a fairly regular kernel panic and forced reboot about 3 times a week, usually shortly after switching back on after the battery has run out (something's not quite right with how it suspends and restarts).

I am tempted to do a clean install of ML and a Time Machine restore, but wonder whether the latter will restore whatever it is that is wrong and causing the crashes.

The alternative, of course, is to do a manual backup of files and reinstall all my apps from scratch, but that will take days (multiple VMs, GBs of historical mail, and over 100gb each of music and photos :-(

Any opinions?

Many Thanks
B

 

[robgendreau]

Try to find out why your machine is misbehaving.

Erasing and reinstalling may or may not do anything; it's a crapshoot. And yes, restoring restores...so corrupted stuff just gets moved around.

And even manually reinstalling all your applications may not help. There are ways to diagnose your problems and your time would probably be better spent doing that.

 

[Weaselboy]

Try looking in the console app for a crash report at the time/date of the last lockup. Often times that log will give you clues about why this is happening.

 

[Benbikeman]

I'd agree with diagnosing if you can.

Having been through this process many times this week (hard-to-diagnose RAM faults), if you can't get a diagnosis I'd wipe the drive, do a clean install of OSX and then do a Migration rather than a Restore. According to AppleCare, no system files are copied by a Migration, but you do get back all your apps and almost all of your settings (there are a few things you have to reconfigure manually but not much).