How to backup?

[reno55]

I want to do a fresh install of Leopard when it comes and am wondering what the best way to back up my imac would be?

I have all my apps so I can reinstall those but I do not want to lose my itunes playlists, and various other settings.

Can I just copy the userfolder over to an external?

I tried superduper but it wants to erase my entire external lacie to do the backup.

 

[J@ffa]

Can I just copy the userfolder over to an external?

Yep — provided, obviously, that you keep everything in there. Some people save files to the root of their drives, which makes trouble!

One thing to remember when you put everything back is that you must put the contents of the folders (Documents, Music, Pictures, etc) into the new ones, and not replace the existing main folder with the old one; so for instance, you don't replace the old Music folder, just drag the iTunes folder and anything else inside your old Music folder into the new one. The user directory puts special permissions on the main folders, and replacing them with folders you dragged and dropped in will overwrite them as normal folders and possibly cause problems for you. Just worth remembering that.

 

[reno55]

So just copy the folder (your name) or the whole user folder over to the external then replace the contents? Where does itunes store its data so i dont lose my playlists?