Quote:
Originally Posted by dnanian
Well, Smart Update pretty clearly says that it's "exactly like erase, then copy", and -- as it says -- all other directories and files will not be copied. Since it's erase, then copy, that means that only those files will be there... and if you use Copy Different or Copy Newer, those files won't be erased.
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I had a similar problem recently using Smart Update. I backed up to a new external drive shortly after allowing Software Update to install a new security update on my computer, and before realizing that the new install had really screwed up my system. My newest backup had the corrupt system so restoring from it was of no use. Luckily, I had an older drive with an older backup on it. I thought I would use Smart Update to move just the user files from the new drive to the old drive, thus creating a compilation which had a usable system and all my user files freshly updated.
It was late, I'd been troubleshooting for hours, and I guess I didn't read carefully enough. I somehow thought this would mimic "Erase, then copy" only for the targeted files, in this case the user files, not for the whole drive. Anyway, I wiped out the older system.
I'm not writing this only to announce my late-night stupidity. It seems to me that it would have been great if I
could have used Smart Update as I intended. To have used Copy Different or Copy Newer would not have resulted in having my user files be a perfect mirror of the latest backup -- instead, I would have retrieved what was different or newer, but would have had my user files littered with all the files I had cleared out since that older backup. [Not to mention that if I had decided to do the reverse (i.e., used Copy Different or Copy Newer to back up the older system to the newer drive) who knows what sort of weirdly corrupted system I would have ended up with.]
It sure seems to me that having the option of asking Smart Update to only update the selected files and to
not touch anything else, would sure be a nice and useful option to have.
Just a suggestion.
Thanks.