I'm sure this has been asked thousands of times but i'm looking to format my iMac hard drive so i want to clear a few things up. Is it absolutely crucial that i backup my hard drive before i format it? Because i don't have an external hard drive to backup to. If i don't backup, will *everything* be gone? Will it delete any essential system files and render my iMac completely broken and useless?
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Formatting iMac (Late 2007) hard drive
- Thread starter snapzzz3
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macrumors G5
Formatting the hard drive will wipe everything on it. *everything will be gone*
Fortunately, the cost of external drives is rather cheap. Best Buy should have ones starting at $50, large enough install an operating system on it (for use as a external boot drive) and to do a time machine backup on it.
I used a USB thumb drive (with a Yosemite upgrade image installed on it) and migrated from a one of those Best Buy drives with a time machine backup on it. Still had some problems getting the user back on my iMac 2007.
Got everything running, but took a bit extra time to get some files permission issues sorted out for my user account.
Fortunately, the cost of external drives is rather cheap. Best Buy should have ones starting at $50, large enough install an operating system on it (for use as a external boot drive) and to do a time machine backup on it.
I used a USB thumb drive (with a Yosemite upgrade image installed on it) and migrated from a one of those Best Buy drives with a time machine backup on it. Still had some problems getting the user back on my iMac 2007.
Got everything running, but took a bit extra time to get some files permission issues sorted out for my user account.