I have an iMac running Time Machine which is backing up to a pair of LinkStation 420s. That works fine. However I cannot use Disk Utility to install the operatins sytem image from the Time Machine backups because Disk Utility cannot see NAS drives (although it can see a Time Capsule). It will see an external USB drive however.
Can I copy the TimeMachine SparseBundle from the LS420 to an external USB drive and then use that with Disk Utility? Not clear if there's anything different about the TimeMachine format on a NAS device.