Backing Up Question

[bill4588]

I've just downloaded superduper! and I was reading the users guide where it says that if there is any data on the desired destination drive, then it may be lost when you use superduper!, and it recommended partitioning the drive to ensure data security. I have a lot of Movies on my external HDD that I didn't want taking up space on my MacBook's 60GB drive, and a LOT of family photo's that I would cry over if lost. So here's my question. How do I partition my external HDD? I went to Disk Utility but don't know how to use it. Will I have to worry about data loss on my external HDD?

UPDATE: I'm running superduper right now and began to wonder something....something critical. Once I get my computer back from apple with a wiped HDD, how do I get all of my backed up files to my internal drive? Do I just drag and drop the whole thing into the HDD icon on the desktop?

 

[bill4588]

Sorry, I assumed you were using a normal internal hard drive in an external case (caddy). If that was the case, you could buy another drive and swap them when you needed. How much data do you have on the external at the moment?

I have about 20 gigs on the external at the moment. It's an 80 gig drive that I got for really cheap (it's a Western Digital My Book), and I really don't want to buy another drive since my main purpose for buying this one was to use superduper! but I found another use for it in the past couple weeks (putting all my movies and pics). I would just put the data back on to my macbook but I only have 17.48GB left on the MB internal drive.

 

[brsboarder]

i believe you will always lose your info if you repartition, some programs might allow you to do it w/ data written to the disk but I'm not sure, best way is to back that up on dvd's then repartition

 

[SpookTheHamster]

To go back on myself entirely; partitioning an external drive is an easy task.

Open disk utility and choose your external drive. Click partition and choose how you want the drive split. If you're going to be using it in OS X only, choose HFS+.

The only problem is that you'll have to move everything from the drive before you partition it, as it'll erase anything on there. After it's done you can put everything back on.

 

[bill4588]

I think I can do that now, as I've deleted some old movies from the external and now it only has ~13GB, which I can move back to my MB's internal drive temporarily and then move it back to the external once it's been partitioned. does this sounds like a good plan?

 

[SpookTheHamster]

Go for it.

 

[bill4588]

sure will. thanks for the help. I'll post later with an update.

 

[bill4588]

what is HFS+? where can I find the option for it?

 

[bill4588]

UPDATE: I'm running superduper right now and began to wonder something....something critical. Once I get my computer back from apple with a wiped HDD, how do I get all of my backed up files to my internal drive? Do I just drag and drop the whole thing into the HDD icon on the desktop?

 

[bill4588]

how do I get all of my info from my external drive (using superduper) to my MB internal drive?