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Back-up UMBP? + Spotlight Question...

CitiXen

CitiXen

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 9, 2009
98
0
First of all, I am new to Mac and I have a few problems, questions...

I have been looking through the Spotlight settings and have heard that if you disable it, it can drastically improve your battery life. After disabling it through System Prefs> Spotlight> Privacy and removed all... I have decided I want it back, but can't seem to get it working again, help?

My other dilemma is that Apple is replacing my new UMBP due to a faulty keyboard... thing is I want to back-up the current state of my UMBP so I can load it during setup on my UMBP replacement and keep all my files. My current external 1TB was used for PC only with windows, does it need to be formatted? What is the best/quickest way to clone or back-up my current UMBP? How do I load it on my replacement UMBP right away? Thanks for your help!
 
You can easily reformat the external hard drive using the "Disk Utility" app. And then you can use it with time machine to make a backup. And when you get the new computer, you can reconnect the hard drive after setting up the OS and restore from Time Machine backup. :)

oh, and also when you get the new computer it will get a fresh copy of the OS so it should fix any problems you have with your Spolight.
 
If you disabled Spotlight, Time Machine won't work, since Time Machine uses your Spotlight index to locate and back up all the files.

You can delete, force Spotlight to reindex, by first disabling all the "exceptions" you put in; then go to your boot volume's root and delete the .Spotlight-V100 file. (You may have to use Terminal for that—> rm -rf /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/.Spotlight-V100 ; replace 'Macintosh\ HD' with whatever you boot volume is named)
Restart your machine and Spotlight should reindex.
 
CitiXen said:
I have been looking through the Spotlight settings and have heard that if you disable it, it can drastically improve your battery life.
Click to expand...
Wonder how that works?

AFAIK, the only time Spotlight does anything that would really work a battery is when it does the initial index, or is forced to re-index (which is fairly infrequent).
 
alphaod said:
If you disabled Spotlight, Time Machine won't work, since Time Machine uses your Spotlight index to locate and back up all the files.

You can delete, force Spotlight to reindex, by first disabling all the "exceptions" you put in; then go to your boot volume's root and delete the .Spotlight-V100 file. (You may have to use Terminal for that—> rm -rf /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/.Spotlight-V100 ; replace 'Macintosh\ HD' with whatever you boot volume is named)
Restart your machine and Spotlight should reindex.
Click to expand...

How do I go about doing this? Like I said, I'm new to Mac sorry. What's terminal? How can I find my boot volume?

Is Time Machine best? What about carbon copy cloner? Thanks
 
jmann said:
You can easily reformat the external hard drive using the "Disk Utility" app. And then you can use it with time machine to make a backup. And when you get the new computer, you can reconnect the hard drive after setting up the OS and restore from Time Machine backup. :)

oh, and also when you get the new computer it will get a fresh copy of the OS so it should fix any problems you have with your Spolight.
Click to expand...

Also will all my OS X preferences like expose and tap click and other thing copy with my back-up? Safari bookmarks too?
 
CitiXen said:
How do I go about doing this? Like I said, I'm new to Mac sorry. What's terminal? How can I find my boot volume?

Is Time Machine best? What about carbon copy cloner? Thanks
Click to expand...

CitiXen said:
Also will all my OS X preferences like expose and tap click and other thing copy with my back-up? Safari bookmarks too?
Click to expand...

Terminal is found under applications>utilities.
 
chrono1081 said:
What the heck is a UMBP?
Click to expand...

I'm hoping you're being sarcastic but in case you're not it stands for Unibody MacBook Pro.

Since we're talking about disabling spotlight and what not I was curious if there was a way to disable or hide the finder icon, I hate that thing and I never use it.

Edit: Darn Vicious beat me too it. LOL oh well.
 
UniPro said:
I'm hoping you're being sarcastic but in case you're not it stands for Unibody MacBook Pro.

Since we're talking about disabling spotlight and what not I was curious if there was a way to disable or hide the finder icon, I hate that thing and I never use it.

Edit: Darn Vicious beat me too it. LOL oh well.
Click to expand...

Finder is always - ALWAYS - active. It's not a single 'application' like everything else on the dock. It's ultimately the Mac version of Windows Explorer. If you get rid of the Finder icon, then you will not be able to open any folders; you know the window that appears when you click on the Macintosh HD icon? That's Finder. The 'app' you use to browse your files and folders? That's Finder. Finder manages anything and everything to do with the files on your Mac, so basically if you try and remove that you'll be better off just not using your Mac at all. Your folders and your desktop will be absolutely unusable.
Somehow I think your statement of "I never use it" to be an exaggeration. If you've ever placed a folder on your desktop or moved, browsed, copied or deleted files you will have used Finder.
 
Ivan P said:
Finder is always - ALWAYS - active. It's not a single 'application' like everything else on the dock. It's ultimately the Mac version of Windows Explorer. If you get rid of the Finder icon, then you will not be able to open any folders; you know the window that appears when you click on the Macintosh HD icon? That's Finder. The 'app' you use to browse your files and folders? That's Finder. Finder manages anything and everything to do with the files on your Mac, so basically if you try and remove that you'll be better off just not using your Mac at all. Your folders and your desktop will be absolutely unusable.
Somehow I think your statement of "I never use it" to be an exaggeration. If you've ever placed a folder on your desktop or moved, browsed, copied or deleted files you will have used Finder.
Click to expand...

Hmm well I seem to have misphrased what I meant and I apologize for not being clear. I understand what finder is and how it works. What I never use is the icon itself and would just like a way to take it off my dock. That's all I meant.
 
I thought thats what was meant but I figured it would be written

UBMP for Uni-body Macbook Pro. Learn a new abbreviation every day :D
 
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