What to backup

[rnbrac]

Yes, I am one of THOSE people. I didn't back up and got bit in the butt. I was doing home work the other night sat my macbook down and it slid off the bed. It worked fine the rest of the night but the next day after using it, it went to sleep and wouldn't wake up. took it to a repair shop and they said the hard drive was dead (flashing folder with a "?" on a gray screen). All my music, photos, documents (including 2 years of taxes) ....gone.
What is the best way to back up a laptop?
What do I need to back up?
Also (I don't know if this should be a different thread), I didn't have the Tiger install disk and the shop had to get them which held up the repair by a couple of days. How do I make a back up copy of the OS? Can I just control click and tell the computer to make a copy? Will it be bootable later?
I have learned my lesson and will back up from now on!

 

[Horst]

Ouch, ... if the harddrive is dead, then that's it, you can't backup anymore.

There are data recovery companies, but this solution can cost you 500-2000$, depending.

Or, you can try and put the harddrive in an external enclosure (or have the shop do it), with some luck the drive is still ok and and some other parts in the MB are broken.

 

[sushi]

Sorry to hear that your HD died.

If the HD is dead, as in not spinning, then you could try sending your HD to a data retrieval center and they may be able to copy what was on the HD. They are an expensive service so it will depend on how valuable your data is to you.

If you want an install disc, you will need to purchase one.

For backing up your new HD, which let's say is 250GB, then I would recommend getting a high quality external HD case that can hold two 3.5 inch HDs. If you Mac supports FW800, then get a case that supports FW800. Get 2 x 250GB to put in the case.

Then use Carbon Copy Cloner on at least a weekly basis to alternately clone to the external HDs.

 

[rnbrac]

Thanks for the fast replies!!
I apologize, I may have been unclear. The hard drive is dead, (replaced with a bigger one !! yeah!!) they gave me the bad news at the shop that everything on it was gone. I like my 80s music but I ain't gona pay $500+ to get it back, its not that good. Going forward, what do I back up and what is the best backup to use?
I spent a couple of hours re-downloading and installing all the 3rd party aps and would rather start over from there if possible rather than a blank slate. The shop was nice enough to go ahead with all the security and software updates for Tiger.

 

[sickmacdoc]

Well I would second the advice of sushi above- rather than worrying about specifically what to backup (in which case something will inevitably get missed), just clone the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner (or the paid version of SuperDuper so you wind up having incremental backup capabilities) to an external on a periodic basis.

First off the advantage to that is that nothing will wind up getting missed, but even more importantly the clone itself will be bootable. Should you have problems with your drive again down the line you can plug in the external and immediately boot from it and run just as if it were your internal drive. That is a real advantage in that you can still use the computer while you obtain a replacement internal drive- something that is not possible with a Time Machine backup which is not bootable.

 

[rnbrac]

Thanks again, yall are great!

 

[someone28624]

Time Machine is one of the best back up methods out there. I would (and do) just use that. You don't even need to think about it.