Backup/Archive help

[bcleland]

Ok, so I bought an external hard drive. I want to back up all my data, applications and so on from my powerbook. What is the best way? Should I just copy it and paste or is there a program to use. btw I bought a d2 160GB, 7200RPM, External FireWire Hard Drive. It comes with some software but I am not sure if it is the best thing to use.
Also I am thinking about formatting my powerbook and starting over with a freash copy of panther. Will it work to drag everything over once I have done a fresh install?

Thanks for your help

 

[bluemonkey]

If I were you, I would back up on either CD or DVD as well as the ext. HD. My company bought me a MaxTor External 250 GB Hard Drive about 6 months ago. I was pretty happy as I only had about 4 free Gigs on my Mac, so I dragged all files 6 months old or older to the MaxTor, and trashed them from my computer. Guess what, the MaxTor craps out on me, (somehow it's a PC drive all the sudden with a warning that in order to mount the drive I had to re-format), and all was lost...for a little while.

With about $1200 paid to an IT guy, we were able to salvage all the data, which was now for some reason seen as PC data with a seperate file inside each folder containing the Resource Fork. Now, when I want to open a file, I have to add the file extension to the file name, open it in my Mac application, and resave it to re-christen it as a Mac file. What a pain!

We also had a Tape backup, but It was incomplete, and took forever to get anything back.

It seems like a big hassle to back up to 40 CD's, but not nearly as much of a hassle as what I went through...

-Jason
<><

 

[davecuse]

I'd be interested to hear of any programs that people are using. I have a Maxtor OneTouch, but the software they shipped with it "Retrospect 5.6" doesn't support Panther....

 

[wPod]

i use LaCie SilverKeeper. . . its freeware and does not require a LaCie drive, i have used it on two non-LaCie firewire drives and it has worked very well. it basiclly coppies all your folders you select. once you do a full back up it will update only the files that have been created or modified. then you can either drag the files from the backup or use the program to recover them (i find it easier to just drag any files i need from the backup) its simple and free, but it gets the job done. i think you can also schedule backups but not much more beyond that. i think it works great! (and its free!!!)

 

[bcleland]

Cool silverware was already on the hard drive when I hooked it up.

 

[jeremy.king]

so I dragged all files 6 months old or older to the MaxTor, and trashed them from my computer.

Isnt the point of a backup to have the data in two places? Sounds to me that your pain was self inflicted for poor planning.

As for backup applications, I use disk utility to make an image of my entire hard drive. Note that in my own setup, I have an entire drive dedicated to my home folders. So no application or system files exist on it (which is why I just back the whole thing up).

 

[Sparky's]

I'd be interested to hear of any programs that people are using. I have a Maxtor OneTouch, but the software they shipped with it "Retrospect 5.6" doesn't support Panther....

Dave, when I upgraded to OS 10.2.8 I had all kinds of issues with Dantz about Retrospect. (I ended up just booting to OS 9 and using Retrospect 4.3) but here is an article that may explain a few of your concerns

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=28093

Also I found out that Dantz has very little support for external firewire drives, so I use Toast 6 that came with my LaCie DVD-R CD-R external burner, and I have been very satisfied with it for burning CDs DVDs, and doing Data backup.