Backing up everything

[illegalprelude]

Well, I believe something is wrong with my Logic Board, (I was at the genius bar today) so ill be taking in my G5 into them tomorrow so they can look at her. I want to make a backup all my files and the person working there told me to just drag my Home folder into my external and it will do the trick....well that dosent really work....

then I copy pasted into there and it starts copying files and it suddenly stops saying "One ore more items can't be copied. Do you want to them and copy the remaing items?" and I can either click Stop or Continue and when I push Continue, it just stops doing it. same thing when I click stop.

Whats the best way to get a copy of all my stuff so i can still have my pref. and my Photos and music and all that jazz?

 

[faintember]

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html makes a wonderful, bootable copy, and it is free.

 

[illegalprelude]

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html makes a wonderful, bootable copy, and it is free.

i have that program downloaded. I couldnt tell because of my lac of knowledge with Macs and OSX if it also got my music, and photos and such. I had everything clicked that it has so it said it would but i was skeptical.

Alos, another problem i had with it was that I had my external HDD hooked up and its formated so i can backup both PC and Mac files on it. that program would not detect it..

 

[faintember]

So the drive is formatted via Fat32...well then that can not be used as boot drive (i dont think) so maybe someone else can give you a better idea other than trying to copy over fewer items at a time.

And CCC will copy everything (basically it copies your whole HD to another HD) so all your documents, preferences, music, etc. will be where they were at the time of the copying. It also creates a bootable copy, so that you can boot a mac via the external HD.

 

[illegalprelude]

So the drive is formatted via Fat32...well then that can not be used as boot drive (i dont think) so maybe someone else can give you a better idea other than trying to copy over fewer items at a time.

And CCC will copy everything (basically it copies your whole HD to another HD) so all your documents, preferences, music, etc. will be where they were at the time of the copying. It also creates a bootable copy, so that you can boot a mac via the external HD.

its something temp that i need to do right now so i might reformat that hard drive. my question then would be, lets say i get my new logic board by weeks end and things happen to be deleted off my hdd but i did make that copy so i can more or less boot things off of it, can I just open that hard drive and copy my iTunes folder or iPhoto folder and I would be all set?

and also, do I want to do OS Extended, OS Extended (Case Sensitive), OS Extended (Case-sensitive, journaled), OS Extended (Journaled) ....not sure witch one to pick.

(edit)
hay0. got what i had to set it as.

 

[JDar]

CCC is a dependable utility and will give you that bootable clone; it is also a bit arcane to figure out and tell exactly what you want and takes forever.

Consider downloading a free copy of Silverkeeper from LaCie. It will make a bootable drive for you IF it's a firewire drive and IF you tell it to and IF the drive is empty to start with. You can Exclude files if you wish;otherwise the hard drive and all users are Included.

 

[illegalprelude]

CCC is a dependable utility and will give you that bootable clone; it is also a bit arcane to figure out and tell exactly what you want and takes forever.

Consider downloading a free copy of Silverkeeper from LaCie. It will make a bootable drive for you IF it's a firewire drive and IF you tell it to and IF the drive is empty to start with. You can Exclude files if you wish;otherwise the hard drive and all users are Included.

yea, i ended up just reformating that drive and having CCC dump everything into it (via firewire of course ) and today, I take my Mac in for surgery.

A week or so without a Mac? somebody hold me

 

[jeremy.king]

...can I just open that hard drive and copy my iTunes folder or iPhoto folder and I would be all set?

Once you get it back simply connect the drive with your backup to your (hopefully fixed) machine and run the Apple Migration Assistant. There you can choose exactly what is restored...pretty nice way of cleaning your slate but keeping your files/programs.

 

[illegalprelude]

ok. I ended up doing a complete clean install. I did all the updates. reinstalled all the old programs. got most of my stuff back from my .Mac account and then just copied my Music, Videos, Files and photos over.

almost everything is excellent except my iTunes. How do I get my old playlists back or I cant?

 

[BearRanger]

<snip>
almost everything is excellent except my iTunes. How do I get my old playlists back or I cant?

Do you still have them on your iPod? Have you tried using Senuti or another iPod to Mac program to retrieve them? I don't know if that will work for sure, but it's probably worth the effort if you have a large number of playlists.

 

[illegalprelude]

Do you still have them on your iPod? Have you tried using Senuti or another iPod to Mac program to retrieve them? I don't know if that will work for sure, but it's probably worth the effort if you have a large number of playlists.

I dont have any of that stuff on my iPod but i do have a clone of my hard drive before i reformated everything so im guessing its somewhere in there right? Im just not sure where to dig it out from

 

[faintember]

You can copy over your iTunes database file (or iTunes directory file) from your external HD. Username->iTunes-> then copy iTunes library and iTunes.xml if you have it...i think this is how i did mine before

 

[illegalprelude]

You can copy over your iTunes database file (or iTunes directory file) from your external HD. Username->iTunes-> then copy iTunes library and iTunes.xml if you have it...i think this is how i did mine before

i did that exact thing and I have all my songs and how i had them arranged and such but none of my playlists where brought over

 

[faintember]

^^^I thought that was all i did, and i think it still retained my playlists, but i am a disorganized individual, so i cant remember if it actually did transfer the actual playlists or if i just re-created them...