How to backup and restore (OSX 10.5)?

[macstatic]

My Powerbook has been running quite slow for a while and despite running Disk Utility and AppleJack I haven't found out what's causing it so I'd like to try to wipe the drive clean and reinstall OSX from scratch to see if that helps.

I do Time Machine backups and also know how to clone the drive using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy cloner, but I've never done a full restore and assume that simply cloning the drive, then copying it back will just put all the same files back (overwriting a newly installed MacOSX with the old files). I've never used Time Machine for restoring a whole drive, and am worried that not all my files will be copied back (meaning all the files each app installs in addition to my own images, text documents, preferences etc.) -I believe I read this in some forum somewhere.

So what do I do if I want to reinstall MacOSX from the system DVD, but not wanting to reinstall every piece of app and taking care to copy all associated files back to where they're supposed to be? I'm on MacOSX 10.5.8 on a PowerBook G4.

 

[satcomer]

If you clone a drive you can boot from that drive when it is attached to your OS X. Just launch System Preferences->Startup Disk and choose the drive. Aslo you can hold down the 'option' key while booting up to choose what disk to boot from.

 

[macstatic]

Yes, I know, but that still doesn't answer my question: how should I reinstall everything? Can I simply put the whole "home" folder back after a fresh install (risking that preference etc. files are corrupt) or do I need to reinstall every single app from scratch (very time consuming)?

 

[Fishrrman]

"Yes, I know, but that still doesn't answer my question: how should I reinstall everything?"

Step-by-step:

1. Use CarbonCopyCloner to create a full clone of the internal drive to an external drive.

2. Once the clone is finished, boot from the cloned external drive. To invoke the "startup manager", restart, and as soon as you hear the startup sound hold down the "option" key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN. In a few moments the startup manager will appear and you can select the external drive as your boot source.

IMPORTANT!
The desktop of the "cloned" drive should look EXACTLY like your boot drive. Make sure you are booted from the external BEFORE you take the next steps. To ascertain which drive you are booted from, check "About this Mac" right under the Apple menu.

3. Once you know that you are booted from the external (clone) drive, launch Disk Utility and select your internal drive. Then, re-initlaize it by clicking the "erase" button in DU.

4. Once the internal drive is re-initialized, launch CCC from the backup clone, and simply "re-clone" the drive BACK TO the internal drive.

5. Reboot, and you should be "back as you were before" on the internal drive. Except that now, the drive will be defragmented with a contiguous block of empty space "behind" all your system files and data.

I'd also suggest that you periodically "maintain" the backup clone by using CCC's "incremental backup" feature. It's ALWAYS a good idea to have a second, fully bootable copy of your internal drive, for emergencies. If things go wrong on the internal, it's only the matter of a couple of minutes to get back up and running again from the external drive. By the way, you should be aware that you CAN'T BOOT from a Time Machine backup.

 

[macstatic]

That's good advice which I'll keep in mind for later, but it seems that defragmentation isn't the (only) problem and I suspect parts of the OS or applications to be damaged as strange things are happening. I guess I answered my only question since I don't know where the problem(s) lie and would need to reinstall all the apps from scratch after reinstalling OSX. I will make a bootable clone as you suggested though, in case things go wrong.

 

[GGJstudios]

That's good advice which I'll keep in mind for later, but it seems that defragmentation isn't the (only) problem and I suspect parts of the OS or applications to be damaged as strange things are happening. I guess I answered my only question since I don't know where the problem(s) lie and would need to reinstall all the apps from scratch after reinstalling OSX. I will make a bootable clone as you suggested though, in case things go wrong.

This may help: Performance Tips For Mac OS X