Aunt now wants me to wipe the drive and install a clean OS. Does Time Machine do a full backup? Could she find her stupid pics and mp3s on there after a full format or do we have to copy the HD somewhere? Thanks!
Yes you can use Time Machine to restore a computer. Launch the Migration Assistant and there's an option to restore from a Time Machine backup.
Thanks, but I want to wipe it clean. I want to wipe the drive, install a new OS clean, and then re-install certain files. Basically I'm wondering if I can navigate a time machine backup folder / file / whatever as a folder and just pull individual files out?
You can but good luck finding them. Inside you'll find a folder for the machine's drive and within that a bunch of folders with dates. In each on of those the layout is like it would be on the hard drive normally (Applications, User, System folder etc) but within each of those are only files that were changed that day/time. So you'd have to know the last time each of the files was changed and goto that specific backup. It'll be a lot easier to backup the current machine to another drive and then pick from there once doing the clean install. You could also checkout this new program just released today. http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10904362