Reinstalling Lion from HD Question

[Boogsephine]

I have a late 2010 27" iMac (bought it late October) and downloaded Lion right after I received the unit.

I come home from work today to go on and reply to some of my work related e-mails and realize when I hold down left shift and hit 'o', nothing happens. Shift works with every other key on my keyboard and 'o' works alone or even if I use the right shift.

I contacted Apple and we tried a few things but nothing happened so the guy recommended I reinstall Lion. I'm aware of how to boot into the utility mode and reinstall from there but is this a fresh install (formats first)?

My external is at work right now and I have a ton of music, pictures, work documents and such that I don't want to lose.

So if I reinstall Lion on here, am I going to lose my data on the drive?

 

[flynz4]

I have a late 2010 27" iMac (bought it late October) and downloaded Lion right after I received the unit.

I come home from work today to go on and reply to some of my work related e-mails and realize when I hold down left shift and hit 'o', nothing happens. Shift works with every other key on my keyboard and 'o' works alone or even if I use the right shift.

I contacted Apple and we tried a few things but nothing happened so the guy recommended I reinstall Lion. I'm aware of how to boot into the utility mode and reinstall from there but is this a fresh install (formats first)?

My external is at work right now and I have a ton of music, pictures, work documents and such that I don't want to lose.

So if I reinstall Lion on here, am I going to lose my data on the drive?

Yes, you will lose your data. You should do a Time Machine backup first... then re-install Lion and then restore your files and applications from TM.

/Jim

 

[Boogsephine]

Yes, you will lose your data. You should do a Time Machine backup first... then re-install Lion and then restore your files and applications from TM.

/Jim

Thanks, Jim! Surprisingly my shift + O key started working right before I was about to reinstall it. I'm going to go buy another external tomorrow just for this iMac so I can have more accurate backups on here.

 

[flynz4]

Thanks, Jim! Surprisingly my shift + O key started working right before I was about to reinstall it. I'm going to go buy another external tomorrow just for this iMac so I can have more accurate backups on here.

I would keep the external permanently attached to your iMac and let TM back up to it every hour.

If you get a normal USB drive which is probably formatted NTFS for Windows... first format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using disk utility.

/Jim

 

[Boogsephine]

I would keep the external permanently attached to your iMac and let TM back up to it every hour.

If you get a normal USB drive which is probably formatted NTFS for Windows... first format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using disk utility.

/Jim

Again, thanks for your input! I'm going to pick one up tomorrow and start using Time Machine to back it up on a regular basis. I have most of my information backed up the external I left at work but Time Machine will do those backups that I forget about. I generally shut my computer down when I am gone and sometimes at night but I have always been very anal about making stuff is backed on a drive, if not two!

 

[flynz4]

Again, thanks for your input! I'm going to pick one up tomorrow and start using Time Machine to back it up on a regular basis. I have most of my information backed up the external I left at work but Time Machine will do those backups that I forget about. I generally shut my computer down when I am gone and sometimes at night but I have always been very anal about making stuff is backed on a drive, if not two!

I am not a fan of any backup that requires human intervention. About 99.999% of the people simply forget to do it... and most of the last 0.001% are in denial.

I suggest a dual backup strategy.

1. Primary backup: Offsite using a service such as Crashplan+, Mozy, Carbonine (I use CP+)
2. Secondary local backup: I use Time Machine backed up to a Time Capsule

/Jim