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derajfast

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 24, 2004
784
0
i have backup scheduled to run once a week and it backs up to an external lacie drive

i have a few questiosn about this

i open up the backup folder on the drive, and it shows all the backups from each week....so say my internal HD fails......what do i do to restore it with this backup folder? just double click the icon? each one? how come the first backups icon is of a soild orange umbrella while the others are alternating orange and white striped umbrellas

also, eahc backup is like 2-5gb except for the first one which was 60....can i delete say the 2nd backup and s till have all those files which would be on the most recent backup? i find it rather confusing
 
Backups are good, but yeah, they're even better if you know how to restore :)

What backup software are you using? Is it the .Mac Backup? Have you set up your external drive so that you can boot from it, just in case?
 
yeah i use the one from .mac

and yes i set up the external HD so i can boot off of it as well in case of emergency, although i rarely do
 
derajfast said:
yeah i use the one from .mac

and yes i set up the external HD so i can boot off of it as well in case of emergency, although i rarely do
Suggest, do a backup, then do a restore right from that backup. So you know its working properly, and then you will know how to restore. With the .Mac Backup, its quite easy.
 
derajfast said:
also, eahc backup is like 2-5gb except for the first one which was 60....can i delete say the 2nd backup and s till have all those files which would be on the most recent backup? i find it rather confusing
In general, no, you cannot delete an intermediate portion of an incremental backup file safely. Incremental backups save only what is newly created or changed.

Illustration: the first full backup has files ABC

The 2nd backup (first incremental) You create D and modify B, so #2 has only BD

The 3rd backup, you change A and create E, the rest is unchanged. So #3 contains only AE

If you were to delete #2, you'd lose D altogether, and you'd lose the changes on B, 'cause it would only exist in the original #1 version.
 
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