Dodgy Mac

[Landae]

Now excuse if im in the wrong place here but I am a newbie to this site and infact any mac forums. I have been having a reoccuring issue with my mac. When it loads it flashes this world picture (OS9 style) for about 5 minutes and then it will flash a folder with the old macos logo. Eventually it will start but sometimes when it loads the dock wont show or the desktop isnt there. Now this is similar to what happened before it crashed last time, so I was wondering if anyone knows how to fix it. If I can just use the disk utility how would I backup my documents? I mean I only have a CD burner and theres gigabytes worth. I would send it to my other mac, but the DVD burner has died on it and it needs to go in for repairs. It would be suicidal wouldnt it to burn gigabytes onto CD? The way I read it is you could use an external HD, so does anyone know a good cheapie?

[jsw]

I'm not expert enough to help you fix the other problems, but I have a few suggestions:

First, any external HD that will connect to your system should be adequate for backup purposes. Some are louder, or slower, or more cheapy made, but, in the end, all you need is a drive large enough to hold your stuff.

Second, if there's room on your other Mac, I'd at least send the files there ASAP, or the most important ones. If your system's about to die, it's better to save some of it than none of it.

Third, CDs suck for major backups. That said, they suck infinitely less than losing the data.

Finally, have you used Disk Utility to try to diagnose things?

I'd backup what you can, then try to recover the drive with an OS re-install after trying Disk Utility (which you can do before and/or after backing up your files).

[Landae]

I kind of gathered that would be the case. I would transfer files over but both computers where due for cleaning so there isnt much room at all. Its a pain really. I might just need to see if I can find a cheap external HD and then give it another full wipe. Im still not sure what caused it, but it could have been multiple things I tried to do with it. Its had problems for a long time though :( .. Ah well.. Thanks for the reply anyway. Im sure to be back to look at this site.