Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Borracho400

macrumors member
Original poster
May 7, 2007
39
1
I bought my first external hard drive the other day in order to back up things that are on my macbook pro, such as songs and pictures, and then to be able to use the hard drive for time machine, but i had a question, can i just draw over the iTunes folder for example and will it keep all of my purchased songs? what about my iPhoto library? And once i do a fresh install, can i just drag the files over again and iTunes and iPhoto will recognize them? thanks for the advice!
 

dr_lha

macrumors 68000
Oct 8, 2003
1,633
176
If you copy your entire "Music" and "Pictures" folder to a backup drive, then after doing a wipe and install of Leopard (and iLife), move them back, then they should "just work".

The question I have is however, why not just do an archive and install or an upgrade, and you won't have to worry about that.

Of course, I'd still recommend doing a backup before upgrading.
 

Borracho400

macrumors member
Original poster
May 7, 2007
39
1
I only have about 10 gb left on my internal hard drive and I heard that leopard will take about 9 gb away, so I didn't want to end up with just one left. Another thing is that I would like to clean up my hard drive from all the stuff I don't need anymore. I don't really know what that is at the moment, but I just feel like it is something. Thank you for the help though!
 

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
Easiest way to go it to just clone your drive w/ Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper (both free in this basic mode). This way you have a bootable drive w/ all your info intact if something goes wrong (and it can). It also insures you grab every last file an app might need, including the invisible ones that are harder to manually copy over.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.