Backing up to external!? help!

Question

i have a 250GB external HD and i want to backup my settings, apps and pictures, movies, documents etc.
So is there like a step by step or program that is easy to use.
im pretty knowledgable when it comes to macs i just cant seem to grasp this external HD and formatting stuff haha
but i thank you all for the help i really appreciate it!!

Answer 1

As others have stated SuperDuper is the way to go if you want a bootable, complete "clone" of your system as it is on the MacBook.
Now you have a large HD to work with so space isn't a problem. So in this instance you probably would be best served doing a clone but you're on the right track by wanting to back up you personal stuff. In this case the best thing is just dragging your User folder over to the external drive. That will copy all your stuff in your Music, Movies, Pictures, Documents, and all of your settings and preferences. That assumes that you haven't moved stuff to other locations. But most of the time the User folder contains all the things that would be hard to replace. It's where you'd start if you were backing up to a DVD or CD's.
When you use SuperDuper you're getting EVERYTHING. Sometimes that's a bit overkill for some (I actually use it so I'm not knocking it). For the most part if you need to reinstall everything you can just use your discs that came with the MacBook and reinstall all your third party apps either by downloading them or by using their discs.
But again you have a lot of space so you might as well clone. What you need to do is first format the drive. When you plug it in it may or may not be visible on the desktop. Whichever you need to go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility and open it. Select the drive (which should be visible there on the left) and then the "Erase" tab. The volume format should be "Mac OS Extended (either journaled or not). I run journaled. You can also do this in the "Partition" tab and that basically breaks the HD into sections. This is probably what you want so you can put your clone on one part and leave another for extra data, etc. Make sure if you use this option you give yourself enough space. Once you get the sizes where you want just click on the partition button and you should be ready to go.
If you go with SuperDuper you'll be able to see what you want when you run it. Basically you'll be going from Macintosh HD (or whatever you have your HD named) to your external (again whatever you named it).