Backing up a computer

When you take an iMac to be serviced at the Apple store, they make a backup folder of your whole system.
I am considering selling my old iMac and getting a new one. Can you tell me what program I would use
to backup my whole system and how to do it just the way Apple does?
Also. The DVD/CD no longer functions, how much does that lower the price, do you think?

Clone your drive to an external drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Prepare Your Mac for Sale
Boot from the OS X Installer Disc One that came with the computer. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select the startup volume from the left side list then click on the Erase tab. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then click on the Options button. Select the one pass Zero Data option and click on the OK button. Then click on the Erase button.
Note: You can skip the Zero Data option if you are not concerned about removing sensitive personal data from the hard drive. If you choose to skip this part of the process then it is possible for others to recover data from the hard drive. The Zero Data procedure will prevent others from getting access to your personal information.
This process will take 30 minutes to several hours depending upon the size of the hard drive. After formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Now complete the OS X installation. At the completion of the installation do not restart the computer. Instead just shut it off. The next user will be presented with the Setup Assistant when they turn on the computer just as it would if new out of the box.

Similar Messages

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

HT4527 I just had to clear the hard drive on my computer - now I want to transfer all the music and pictures from my ipad back onto my computer. 'Sync' doesn't do it. What do I do?

I had toclear the hard drive of my computer and reinstall Windows 7. Now I want to transfer all the music and photos from my iPad back onto my computer. I authorized the computer (it is the ONLY computer authorized on this account - and this is the ONLY account on this iPad). ITunes then downloaded my purchases...or at least it tried - out of the hundreds of tracks I have purchased, it managed one album that I bought over a year ago and NOTHING else. So I tried to Sync - since on older versions of iTunes (that were SO MUCH MORE user friendly) that would do the job -transferring things that were only on the iPad onto the computer and vice versa. It doesn't do that anymore. So I went from my iPad's summary to the Music tab - the box for Music was not checked but when I checked it said the only thing it could do was erase EVERYTHING from my iPad and replace it with what was on my computer (that ONE album). What is going on?
Why hasn't iTunes downloaded my other purchases since I authorized the computer? (there are over 3,000 tracks...not 18)
How can I download my iPad to my computer?

-Me again - it also won't upload the few new pictures I have on the computer onto the iPad without deleting all the photos that are already there....

I am locked out of my account because my password includes "[" and my computer is set to spanish. In spanish that key doesn't work. How do I gejt back into my computer?

i am locked out of my account because my password includes "[" and my computer is set to spanish. In spanish that key doesn't work. How do I gejt back into my computer?

If the user account is associated with an Apple ID, and you know the Apple ID password, then maybe the Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
Otherwise*, boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window opens.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.
You should now be able to log in with the new password, but your Keychain will be reset (empty.) If you've forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as your login password), there's no way to recover it.
*Note: If you've activated FileVault, this procedure doesn't apply. Follow instead the instructions on this page:
If you forget the password and FileVault is on

When I backed up files on my external drive, I inadvertently dragged my itunes library there. Now I can only play songs on my laptop when my external drive is plugged in. How do I get the library back to my computer

When I was backing up files from my computer to my external drive, I inadvertently dragged my itunes library to the external drive. Now I can only play my library when my external drive is plugged into my computer. How do I get the library location changed back to my computer?

Your drive was used with a PC and formatted NTFS which is proprietary Microsoft format.
You need to install a third party program that will read the NTFS format.
There is various software from PARAGON, Tuxera and NTFS-3G
When you get the data off and have verified it to be good, reformat the drive either HFS+ for Mac use only, or for Mac and PC use then MSDOS (FAT32) for under 4GB files (best) or exFAT (for larger than 4GB files) is proprietary and Microsoft is appling for a patent, which would likely mean OS X won't be allowed to read it anymore without a licensing fee and you'l have to pay another third party software company to read the format, just like NTFS is.
The less you have to rely upon third party sources to read your drives the better, this way if you have a issue and need to read the drive on another machine you don't need the software, and a internet connection and a credit card and...and...and...

How can I get icloud to back up my computer?

I am set up with icloud and had the icloud icon on my desktop, which worked without problems for several months.
Now the icloud icon is gone, and the only way to retrieve the saved documents is in a file entitled "previous local idisks".
I looked under icloud settings, and none of the memory has been used, which means nothing is in my icloud.
Not sure what the problem is! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iCloud will not back up your computer. Only documents you can save in iCloud is photostream photos and documents created with Apple Applications within iCloud itself (pages, numbers, keynote), your Address Book contacts and Calendars. You can also back up iPhone & iPad settings.
iDisk was part of MMe and is going away or has gone away. I'm not sure of the exact date, but the deadline may have expired. If you have documents in iDisk and you did not save them to another location, they may be lost.
In addition check this discussion out:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4079949?start=0&tstart=0
Also:
http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html

How do I move my iTunes library from my external hard drive back to my computer?

Just wondering how do I move my entire iTunes library from my external hard drive back to my computer? It was moved to an external hard drive a few years ago, and now I'm wondering how to move it back to my iMac to increase performance.
Where does it belong in the computer?
Any suggestions?

The library itself is the /Home/Music/iTunes/ folder in its entirety. Did you also change where preference files were stored? Normally, they would be in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder.

How do I move music from iPod back to my computer w/reformatted hard drive?

My computer was malfunctioning and required a reinstallation of the OS. Doing so overwrote my iTunes library. Now the only place the library exists is on my iPod. Is there any way for me to transfer the library back to my computer? Thanks.

P.C. Instructions
Plug your iPod into your computer. Make sure that disk use is enabled. (enable it in iTunes on the main iPod screen; if you manually manage your music, then it is already enabled.) Go to my computer. First, right-click your iPod. Then, select Tools ® Folder Options. This takes you to Control Panel ® Folder Options. Select the View tab. Under "Hidden files and folders," change "Do not show hidden files and folders" to "Show hidden files and folders." Click Apply to All Folders, and now all the invisible files on your iPod will be visible.
To get to your music files, navigate to iPod_Control\Music (meaning click on the iPod drive in My Computer). There you will find a series of folders starting with a letter and ending with a number. Congratulations! You are now looking at your iPod database, where all your music files are kept. As with any other file, you can now copy your music to anywhere on your computer.
On a MAC
Launch the Terminal.application and type:
find /Volumes/[iPod'sNAME]/iPod_Control/Music -print | awk '¬ { gsub(/ /, "\ "); print }'
Substitute the name of your iPod for [iPod'sNAME]. Any spaces should be replaced with underscores (_). This will print a list of all the songs inside the Music folder with \ in place of spaces. Then, simply copy the location to the song you want and type open followed by that location to begin playing that song. You can then use a standard copy command such as cp to copy any file you select to its new location. This is tedious though. To copy your entire iPod's entire Music folder to your local computer, simply open the Terminal and write:
%ditto /Volumes/[iPod'sNAME]/iPod_Control/Music/ ~/Music/iPodTunes/
Again, substitute your iPod's name for [iPod'sNAME], using an underscore for any spaces in the name. This will copy the entire contents of your iPod's Music folder into a new folder inside your home directory's Music folder called iPodTunes.

HT4527 I had a music library of purchased songs from Apple on my computer which had to have the Windows program reinstalled, all of my purchases are gone but they are all on a new IPad, I want them back on my computer, how do I do this????

I had a music library of purchased Itunes on my Windows 7 computer. I had to reinstall the operating system and I have installed Itunes again. My library is gone but it is on my new IPad 2 which I am not sure how it got there, but I do not know how to get it back on my computer where I would like to use it with other programs or to burn discs. What did i do wrong or how do I do this?? Someone, please HELP.

Thank you, I do not know if I have a IPad to computer cable to connect, I have looked and cannot find one but will keep checking. This must be the answer. Thanks so much.

How do I know my external HD backed up my computer?

Using Time Machine, I have "backed up" my computer a few times in the last few years. I would like to free up disk space on my laptop HD, so I did a backup last night- it took all night long. Then, this morning, I tried to test my external HD by searching for the term "2013" and found absolutely NOTHING from this year. I found only a bunch of stuff from 2010- apparently that was the only time I did the back up correctly? Are my files "hidden" in the external HD? Did I do something incorrectly? Anyone know anything about this? Thank you.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Do a test. Open the Time Machine app (in /Applications/Utilities) and look at the right sidebar, where you can select the backup date. Can you select the backup you made yesterday?
Also, choose the Time Machine icon on the menu bar and it will tell you when the last successful backup was created. To get more information about a backup problem, open System Preferences > Time Machine

I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

If the external drive can be seen at all in Disk Utility, follow the instructions for repair here.

How can I sync my iPad to a computer after syncing it to the iCloud? I have the option of setting it up new, or restoring to a sync from many months ago. I dont want to lose any apps but I would like to back up on computer. No auto sync like other devices

How can I sync my iPad to a computer after syncing it to the iCloud? I have the option of setting it up new, or restoring to a sync from many months ago. I dont want to lose any apps but I would like to back up on computer. No auto sync like other devices.

Plug it into your computer. Tell it to sync with "this computer" instead of iCloud. You shouldn't have to remove any apps. Otherwise, you can save the app data by using i-FunBox ( http://www.i-funbox.com/ ) just go to the "devices" tab and select 'user applications' and select all of your apps and tell iFunBox to "copy to pc" you're done! You have them all backed up.

How can I get my music from my nano 5th gen. back onto my computer?

My old comp. got rained on so I had to get a new one. How can I transfer the music? I have a Windows 7 OS.

See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your computer.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

All of the music I imported to my iTunes account on a different computer is gone. It is on my iPad, is there any way to put it back on my computer?

I recently got my computer back from Geek Squad and about three fourths of my iTunes library is gone. All of the music I imported directly to this computer, and all of the music I purchased is here, but most of my library is originally from a family computer. I transferred it to this computer, but since i got it back, iTunes says it can't locate it. We don't have the family computer anymore either.
I do have all the music on my iPad though. Is there any way to transfer it back to my computer?

Katy288 wrote:
It can't locate them, because they originated from a different computer.
This makes no sense. It doens't matter where they originated from.
If they were in iTunes on this computer and this backup is of this computer, they are from this computer.
Look in /My Music/iTunes/iTunes media/Music/ folder and see what is there?

I have home videos on my ipad that are no longer on my windows 7 pc and i need them back on my computer so that I can email them out (can't share from that program on ipad), how do i get them back on my pc?

I have home videos on my ipad that are no longer on my windows 7 pc and i need them back on my computer so that I can email them out (can't share from that program on ipad), how do i get them back on my pc?

Hey JennaPickle,
If you want to get your personal vidoes off your iPad and onto your computer, follow the steps in this document:
iOS: Importing personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083
Take care,
Delgadoh

Can i get all my pictures back on my computer from my totally smashed iPod touch 4th gen?

Can i get all my pictures back on my computer (icloud, itunes, etc.) from my totally smashed (no longer has a screen) iPod touch 4th gen if its locked without going to the apple store? There is absolutely no way to put in my password on my ipod. Its literally in pieces. i have the ipod itself, and the thing underneath it, but no screen, its not like its cracked, its actually gone and i can see the inside of the ipod. Thats what comes up every time i connect my ipod, so i know it works vvv. Please help! </3 i'm gonna die without my pics. My dad wont take me to the apple store. Any help would be great! Thanks!

Photos
- If they are in an iPod backup then restore an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad from that backup. See the restore topic of:
iOS: How to back up
- If they are in the iTunes backup then get them from the backup by:
- Maybe via How to perform iPad recovery for photos, videos
Wondershare Dr.Fone for iOS: iPhone Data Recovery - Wondershare Official
The above programs may also get them from the iPod after you place in recovery mode and restore via iTunes.
- If you used PhotoStream then try getting them from your PhotoStream. See that topic of:
iOS: Importing personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer

Backing up a computer

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for