Reliable Backup Methods?

gastroboy said:

I experienced a really nasty lockup of Jaguar. Only the cursor was mobile. I ran Diskwarrior and it tells me the desktop file is too damaged on one of my 2 internal HardDrives and to reformat it.

Unfortunately this is the bigger of the 2 (120Gb vs 10Gb) and held my Panther install.

I am backing up everything non-system to CDs.

What concerns me most is what do I have to do to secure all my preferences, email etc and things I have probably forgotten, that is probably buried in invisible files.

Can anyone suggest the best method and what to look out for?

Is this a case of going through everything with a notebook in hand recording installs, serial numbers, networking, settings etc?

Click to expand...

Sorry no one answered you sooner, but the best method is to have one before you need one. I personally have a file server and send any important files over to it when I edit them. I also use Backup that comes with getting the dot mac membership. I send a backup to my iDisk that Apple hosts for me and to my fileserver, and that runs every night and backs up everything I find important.

I believe that its plist files, that should be in your Usernames Library file (open home folder and you should see Library in there), that hold the preferences for your applications.

I hope you have your serial numbers somewhere and the install CDs/files for the software that you have. Or you could just copy the software to the other drive, that is if the program was just a drag and drop to install, and didnt need an installer.

carbon copy clone

carbon copy clone is a free app. You can download it from www.macdownloads.com. It copy's every file, even the invisible files, from one disk to another. You can even burn a bachup this way from your system.

Another nice app. is -Synchronize pro-. It's backs up all files you want (visible) from one disk to another and can be put on a time scedule.

grz, martin