1. Yes.
2. That drive was not damaged. However, there is no trace of any SD backup. I have not yet re-installed SD and that may allow it to be found.
SD happened to be running when the internal drive crashed.
From what I understood, Time Machine should have been able to use the previous backups since it identifies it by the hardwired, MAC info of each machine.
In another brain disconnect, I didn't realize that the new drive had Tiger installed instead of Snow Leopard. Whether that had anything to do with the lack of it recognizing the TM backup, I don't know. TM shows the timeline all the way back into 2008, but it will not show anything before the return of the repaired iMac. The TM backup is on an external drive and the items
can be viewed in a Finder window. And I have moved a few items back onto the new drive with a simple drag 'n drop in Finder. However, I don't think that is an approved method, but so far, so good. I definitely know that erasing or renaming items in the TM backup via Finder is
not safe!
Speaking of "brain disconnects," I am ashamed to admit that I also managed to wipe all my Contact data off my iPhone. I had always told iTunes to sync the data by using what is on the computer as I seldom add any info to the iPhone first. Of course, when I saw the opportunity to sync, I used my old method...which quietly erased all the data on the iPhone since there was nothing on the repaired drive!
Of course, it wasn't
my fault, it was the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and I had already used up too many of them! If there had been more time, I would have had time to actually engage my brain!
3. No. The first sign of trouble was the "progress bar" in SD not moving. Then other apps started freezing. Since much of any apps code is only loaded when needed, any request for a task for which the code was still on the drive resulted in a freeze of that app. Eventually, nothing was working, including Finder. That finally got my attention and I said, "That's not right. I think there is something wrong?" And, once again, I was right! That, by the way, was the
last time I was right...
Amazingly, I got an email from an elderly friend asking if he should take his wife's continuing suggestion that he get a backup drive! I think my stupidity has scared him away from any more advice...
I gotta go enter some more info in Address Book...
