running from a backup?
 

i got a new internal drive so backed up the old one to an external firewire drive to transfer back over once the new drive is installed.

i only have the free version of super duper so the 'restore' option is not available, so i had to just 'backup' again to the new internal drive once installed.

everything seems to be working fine, but i guess there must be some difference between a restore and a backup, so what is it? and am i likely to encounter any problems running from the backup?

Restore is only needed when you've backed up to the same volume you have a time machine backup on. Since that's not possible with the free version, you should be fine.

excellent, thank you.