Tiger-SnowLeopard, backup?

[theironist08]

Hey, so I'm gonna try this

"it is possible to completely erase a hard drive and install Snow Leopard without a pre-existing operating system in place, enabling users to bypass the possible headaches of an upgrade and go with a clean install instead. Wired said many users upgrading from Tiger should probably consider backing up their files from Tiger and doing a clean install instead."

I don't have an external harddrive. What other backup options do I have? Any precautions I should take?

Cheers,

[theironist08]

Can I download time machine or something? I really don't know where to start!

[NewMacbookPlz]

Burn the stuff off to a DVD?

Time Machine is part of Leopard, so no, you cannot download it. Time Machine also needs an external drive, or a partitioned internal drive to run; using an internal kind of defeats the purpose of a "backup" though. If you have another computer or another mac, you could use your network to transfer off files or use FireWire to run in Target Disk Mode (another mac only).

I'd say either pick up a cheap external drive, they're <$100 for 320-500GB now, or just use DVDs.