[sheepishly] Ok, so my iphoto library is not in the pictures folder because…it's on my second external hard drive, where I put it. Duh. But, therefore, TimeMachine was not backing it up. So, I learned this which may help someone here.

With the external HD connected, when you invoke TimeMachine, under preferences, you are given the option to back up the external as well (more precisely, you are given the option to un-exclude it from backup, which is how it is set by default.) Now, I do not want TM backing up my entire 2nd external drive, so I opened the drive within the TM preference panel, selected everything on it and then deselected my iTunes folder and my iPhoto Library. Now, as long as both externals are connected (the 1st which contains the TM backup folder, and the second which contains iPhoto and iTunes) when I run TM, it does in fact backup those 2 folders from the external!

In learning this, I also learned this: If iPhoto is the foremost open window when you "enter" TM, then what you are shown is all the previous iPhoto backups, any one of which, or any PART of which you may then restore. Likewise, if you have Mail as the active window when you enter TM, you are shown all your mail backups and are given the easy option of restoring any mailbox or any subfolders or messages you desire from the backups!

Yay!

I bought the newer TC, and a portable HD. Time Machine will only back up to one hard drive, so I use Backup to backup my cannot-lose files to the portable HD as well. As Dan noted, hardware will fail.

It seems that File Vault will not open, or allow a restore, to a new machine. It has to be the original hard drive, the original computer, that File Vault encoded.

Fortunately, I had Mac's Backup program, auto saving my files to my .Mac (now MobileMe) account. I also had an old DVD that was not File Vault encoded (I saved my files prior to utilizing File Vault, just in case).

Whatever your thoughts, there is a Law founded by Murphy. Whatever can go wrong, will.

Again, whatever files you cannot, or will not, want to lose, have backed up via several different methods.

Backup is backup.

As Dan just said, Time Machine is all nice and dandy until your HD craps out on you. HDs are hideously unreliable and unless you have a solid backup plan you WILL lose data.