My mid-2009 17" Macbook running Mavericks is running really slow and constantly freezes. I went to Disk Utility and ran "Repair Disk," but after about 3 minutes it said: "Disk utility can't repair thsi disk, Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
I have already ran Time Machine for back-up but I'm afraid that some expensive Applications, specifically Adobe Master Collection CS5, Max/MSP, and Ableton Live will lose their product keys / licenses when I whip my drive? I don't have any of that information written down, so I'd have to find it on my Macbook somewhere.
Will Time Machine back that up, or do I need to find the product keys and serial numbers? If so, where are they stored?
Best Answer
You might lose them. According to this thread on Adobe's forums, other users experienced issues with restoring an entire drive from Time Machine. It looks like, from some cursory research, that the plist files or FlexNet folders don't get restored (even if they are present in the backup), and that Adobe's recommendations are to delicense before restoring and then relicense it after restoring.
You will need to locate your original licenses and identify each manufacturer's process for relicensing after a restoration.