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Lots of back up questions with 10.3.9? I'm selling my laptop. please help.

I

i make movies

macrumors regular
Original poster
Hi folks,

I'm selling my laptop (iBook G4 1.2 running 10.3.9) to get the newest iMac and I want to back up my hard drive. I have a lacie 320 GB external hard drive. Could I just select all folders from my hard drive and copy them to my external hard drive? Why or why not? To me, it seems like copying those folders would be alright.

If it were this easy, then why purchase backup software? Is there a benefit to those programs, other than scheduled backups or one button backups? I'm pretty sure I don't want to back up the system files because I'll be using a new operating system.

Any help or tips on this would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to buy any software if possible. Thanks.
 
i make movies said:
Hi folks,
Could I just select all folders from my hard drive and copy them to my external hard drive? Why or why not? To me, it seems like copying those folders would be alright.
Click to expand...

If all you want to do is copy your data, dragging your Home folder to an external is fine. If you want to preserve your system settings and any third party applications, then you must clone. There are thousands of invisibles in the system that will not drag, some of them may be registration databases.

IMO, better to use a utility like SuperDuper (free for cloning) to make a clone, then when you get the new Mac, use setup assistant to port over all the stuff from the external clone.

The proper way to "clean" a computer before selling it is to zero the hard drive. This will make all your data irretrievable.

Steps for zeroing the drive Disk Utility:

1. Insert your Mac OS X CD-ROM disc or Restore DVD disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key until you see the spinning gear.
2. Once started up from CD or DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from disc to access Disk Utility.
3. Choose the entire disk (top icon).
4. Choose erase tab.
5. Click on Options
6. Choose "write zeros".
7. Erase
This will take a bit of time because the computer is physically writing zeros to each block.

You should then re-install the original OS from the system disks and deliver the Mac to the new owner with the system disks that shipped with it.

-mj
 
i used migration assistant in 10.4.6 to migrate a clone i made with superduper after a reinstall. gave me nothing but problems. application crashes. the installer crashed while "optimizing the system" when installing updates from software update. and the whole system just seemed sluggish. did another reinstall and just dragged my freeware apps, media, itunes & iphoto library, docs, preferences etc while booted in the clone and all worked fine! IMHO migration assistant does not handle a clone very well. might be different in 10.4.7+ (im not sure)
 
richthomas said:
i used migration assistant in 10.4.6 to migrate a clone i made with superduper after a reinstall. gave me nothing but problems. application crashes. the installer crashed while "optimizing the system" when installing updates from software update. and the whole system just seemed sluggish. did another reinstall and just dragged my freeware apps, media, itunes & iphoto library, docs, preferences etc while booted in the clone and all worked fine! IMHO migration assistant does not handle a clone very well. might be different in 10.4.7+ (im not sure)
Click to expand...

Had you booted off the clone first to confirm everything was working?
 
macjack1 said:
The proper way to "clean" a computer before selling it is to zero the hard drive. This will make all your data irretrievable.

Steps for zeroing the drive Disk Utility:

1. Insert your Mac OS X CD-ROM disc or Restore DVD disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key until you see the spinning gear.
2. Once started up from CD or DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from disc to access Disk Utility.
3. Choose the entire disk (top icon).
4. Choose erase tab.
5. Click on Options
6. Choose "write zeros".
7. Erase
This will take a bit of time because the computer is physically writing zeros to each block.

You should then re-install the original OS from the system disks and deliver the Mac to the new owner with the system disks that shipped with it.

-mj
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice everyone. I really appreciate it. And super-thanks on the writing zeros. I'll definitely be doing that. I'm still debating on using the utility because I'm not sure if I want all my old programs. I'd rather get the programs that are universal binaries since my switch will be from PPC to intel.

Now, one more questions: What happens after the writing zeros? Or I guess what happens when I try to start up the laptop with a blank hard drive? Do I leave the install disks in the drive to do a fresh install? The only disks I have are the iBook Software Install and Restore discs (there's 2. they came with the iBook). Those are the system disks you're speaking of, correct?

Sorry, I just want to make sure I do this properly before I go all crazy and wipe my hard drive.
 
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