Help with backing up my hard drive

Hi,
I was considering an upgrade to tiger and want to save my important system files, preferences, etc. However, I don't have enough space on a cd to make a bootable back up. My question is which files/folders should I save in panther so that if I had to reinstall everything I could simply put back my old settings? I am a bit green at this and any help would be appreciated.

The best thing to do would be to get an external firewire drive. Make sure it's able to bootup with Macs (some don't).
Then use a program like the free demo of SuperDuper, to make a bootable clone of your whole machine. Then if something happens, you can bootup on the external and run or repair your Mac. This way you don't have to worry about what or what not too save. I'll all be there.
Make sure you use Disk Utility to repair your startup disk (hard drive) as shown in Dr.Smokes repair thread before you clone.
Cheers!
DALE

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Need some help with backing up external hard drive using Time Machine

Hi all, I'm trying to work out the best way to back up multiple iPhoto libraries using Time Machine.
At the moment I have got an iMac and Macbook Pro, both of which have an iPhoto library (with different content). Currently these are not backed up at all. So what I want to do is back both up to an NAS drive, which I know is straightforward.
What I also want to do is create one iPhoto library on an external hard drive that I can use with my MBP, and then delete the iPhoto library on my MBP to free up some hard drive space (it's running slower and slower and I'm hoping that this might help it run quicker).
So, as I want to have the library on two seperate drives in case one fails, what I want to know is whether I could use Time Machine to back up my external hard drive as well as the internal drive of my MBP? Also, would I need to have the external drive connected at all times for Time Machine to "see" it?
I hope that makes sense, all I seem to be doing currently is going round and round and can't work out whether what I want to do is possible or not.
Thanks in advance

If I understand your goal correctly, you're considering using Time Machine as external storage, and it doesn't work that way. Time Machine keeps around what it can, and older stuff gets flushed as the storage available to Time Machine reaches its lower threshold due to the addition of newer stuff. When the older stuff gets flushed is not predictable.
It is possible to have several Time Machine backups aimed at the same target (this can be done with Apple Time Capsule, for instance), though you might want to partition the disks to ensure that the intended amount of storage is available. Different NAS drives have different features here.
NAS is only as fast as your network connection, and that's almost always much slower than the in-box I/O connections; a local disk will be far faster than a NAS disk, just because of the bottleneck that is wired gigabit Ethernet, and most WiFi is slower and sometimes far slower than wired gigabit Ethernet. FWIW.
If your MacBook Pro is old enough and you have $$ but aren't in a position to spend $$$$$ on a newer model, then consider an in-place drive upgrade.
If your network connection is fast enough to transfer the amount of data you're dealing with in a reasonable time, there are also hosted storage options.
You can use a NAS drive as storage independent of Time Machine, and relocate stuff there. (You'll still want to have backups of that data, as NAS drives — even NAS with RAID — can still lose files, become corrupted or otherwise ruin your data day.
As for your performance, keeping about 10% or so free on the disks is the local preference, but it's worth reviewing the performance of the whole system — Performance Monitor, Console.app, etc — to see if there's something else going on, or if your system load and personal performance expectations are exceeding what your MacBook Pro can provide.

Help with my me external hard drive

Hello everybody. So today i got my new mac 15''. I am using a lacie external hard drive for the time machine and where i have my old back ups from my old mac. when i try to download or install the content into my new mac, i see a red circle with a white line in the middle and is saying that "i don't have permission to view the contents". Somebody help please, how do i fix this?
Thank you

Hello martini84,
If you don't have permissions to access files or folders on your drive you can change the permissions.
OS X Yosemite: If you don’t have the permissions to open a file or folder
If you don’t have permission to open a file or folder, you may be able to change the permissions settings.
Select the item, then choose File > Get Info, or press Command (⌘)–I.
Click the disclosure triangle next to Sharing & Permissions to expand the section.
Click the pop-up menu next to your user name to see the permissions settings.
If you’re not logged in as an administrator, you may need to click the lock icon and enter an administrator name and password.
Change the permissions to either Read & Write or “Read only.”
Note it links to another article for more detail if needed.
OS X Yosemite: Set permissions for items on your Mac
Take care,
Nubz

Help with workflow - out of hard drive space?

Help... not sure the best way to deal with this.
I've got a Quad G5, 2 hard drives... 1 as O/S and the other for storing stuff. Well, my hard drive is full now and I've got a feeling (even if I got a new 500gig hard drive) it would be full again within 6 months. How do I deal with this?
Should I buy external drives and just run the photos off the external drives? When one get's full, go to the next? Is this the best "workflow" method. Does someone recommend something better?
And... if that is the best... won't using external hard drives slow my performance? Time is money...
Thanks,
jp
G5 Quad, 4gig Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I think these are the options, or at least some of them:
* Burn a DVD with a bunch of your pictures. Import that DVD as a folder to Aperture. You will just have references (and versions and modifications) in Aperture, and thereby save some space.
* Take an existing Folder and Export it and put the exported file (with extension ".approject") on a DVD. If you are really short of space, delete the Folder from Aperture afterwards. Once you drag the exported file back from the DVD to Aperture, everything will be restored (I hope).
In the above paragraphs you can of course replace "DVD" with "external harddrive" or something more powerful

Help with repartitioning an external hard drive

I am sorry that this is probably such a simple question, but I am a novice and I am stumped in Northern Thailand.
I have an external hard drive (500g) that I have partitioned way back into 3 - one for my IMac 1 for a Macbook Pro and the other for a MacBook.
The hard drive is always connected via USB to the IMac and only connected with the laptops on oonce in a while.
Anyway my problem is that I am getting a message on my IMac everytime TM tries to backup that there is not enough room - so i wanted to repartition the hard drive since I have allocated too much to the laptops. When I am in the TM preferences and I go to "Change Disk" and click on "Set up Time Capsule" it defaults to the AirPort Utility and looks for an "Apple Wireless Device", of course my external hard drive is not on of them - so I am stuck.
If you do not want to waste the time of others on this discussion board you could email directly.
Thanks in advance
<Edited by Host>

if the drive is connected directly to the imac you have to reformat it using disk utility, not airport utility.
to format a drive you open disk utility. select the whole drive (model, not name) and click on the partition tab. set the number of partitions to 1 (or whatever), click on options and set the partition scheme to GUID. set the format to mac os extended journaled (that's the default) and click "apply". note that this operation will completely wipe the drive. is this acceptable? depending on how your partitions are set up you may be able to delete one partition and increase the TM partition without erasing the data on the TM partition.

Help with recovery on new hard drive

i have a g42 230us notebook which the hard drive read immenent failure please back up as soon as possible so hard drive is no good i purchased a new hard drive the exact one in notebook the wd3200bekt scorpio black,so i plugged it in and turn on pc , now i get a error message that reads no bootable device---insert boot disk and press any key
ive tried this with and without recovery disk and get same error message ,
notebook came with windows 7 now my question is do i need to install windows 7 os before i run recovery disk or is the recovery disk suppose to install windows 7 and features
please help

Hi,
1. The recovery disc set will rebuild the machine back to factory settings for you.
2. Probably you need to change the booting order from BIOS, you need to boot from optical drive first. To do this, reboot the machine and tap F10 to access to BIOS, chang boot order, hit F10 again to save and then recover the machine using the disc sẹt.
3. Remember to change the booting order back at the end.
Regards.
BH
**Click the KUDOS thumb up on the left to say 'Thanks'**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

Help with saving movie (external hard drive)

Hello,
I am using iMovie for the first time and am converting a VHS tape to DVD. I have a cord going from the VCR to a digital camcorder, in turn going to my iBook for iMovie, and then onto a 150 gig external hard drive that has all 150 gigs available.
19:56 into the 110-minute long show, I get an error message that says "disc space is dangerously low" - even though exactly 4.0 out of 150 gigs of hard drive space has been used. I deleted the project and started again - and got the same error message 19:56 in, at 4.0 gigs used.
I tried saving it to my laptop on the third time, and it went past the 19:56 mark and seemed to be going further. However, I don't think I have the necessary space on my laptop and prefer to keep it on the external to do all the work.
Your help is greatly appreciated. Do know that the project is definitely being saved to the external the first two times, I made that check a couple of times.
IBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

You've failed to format the new external to Mac (HFS+) format.
It is Windows formatted now and has a 4 GB file size limit (hence stopping at 19:56) during import.
Disk Utility can format the drive.

Help with Iomega 500g portable hard drive

Hi
I'm not sure I've posted this in the correct place, but...
I recently reached the capacity on my hard drive. I deleted some stuff but instead of just reducing the content, it's reduced the capacity of the hard drive as well, so I am still unable to add more content (including the stuff that I removed in the first place).
Any suggestions? I removed some files that are part of a final cut project - which I intended to put back on once I'd finished moving stuff about, but since I can't put it back on, all the media is now offline when I open the project.
Thanks

I'm not sure I've posted this in the correct place, but...
Indeed, the confusing and inconsistent labeling of the forum areas have claimed another victim. If you are running 10.5.X then your iMac is newer than those in this forum.
Do "About this Mac..." from the Apple menu. If it says you have a G5 processor, the forums for those is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=134
If is says yours is an Intel processor, the forum is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=189
It's not your fault.

Help with icon for external hard drive

I am in need of the AUTORUN.inf File for the toshiba 593400-E 320 Gb external hard drive. I am missing the icon that shows up with the drive.

Just to clarify - when you run Disk Utility (in your Utilities folder) the drive you bought doesn't show up in the window under your boot drive?
If it appears on your desktop, you should see it in the Disk Utility window as this displays all mounted drives.
You then click on the drive (Mybook3.0 or whatever it appears as), and choose Erase from the options on the right.
Best Wishes.

Need help with homemade usb external hard drive

I got a usb external hard drive kit that you can put any hard drive into, and I have a 20gig western digital disk. I cant seem to get it to work on my gateway(333 mhz celeron) with windows 2000, but I am going to order a imac in 6 days. Do you think that the external hard drive would work on a newer computer like an imac? Also What jumper settings would I have to put it on? The current choices are "slave", "single or master", and "master with slave present". There are also 3 jumper settings that could be possible, but it is not labeled on the hard drive.
thanks!

Rob, check the instructions that should have come with your drive kit, or check the manufacturer's website. Normally an IDE drive would be jumpered as 'master' or 'cable select' if it's used in a drive kit. BTW, that setting remains totally inside the drive housing, it is not visible or meaningful to the computer via the USB connection.
Whether or not your kit will work with a new iMac is hard to tell, esp. since you haven't been able to get it working so far. Have you checked to make sure whether or not you need to install a USB driver for your drive kit on your Gateway machine? (Win98 always requires USB drivers, WinXP rarely does, and I'm not sure about Win2K). For what it's worth, MACs rarely require special USB drivers.

Help with setting up External hard Drive?

Hi,
I bought an 80GB External hard Drive and have just plugged it into my MacBook Pro. It lights up and I can hear the Hard Drive running in it's case, but I cannot move any files on my desktop into the External hard Drive icon. A message keeps coming up that the External HD cannot be modified. I've tried going to Disk utility to repair the Hard Drive but no options are highlighted when I select the 'New Volume' External Hard Drive.
Is there a way to set this up on my MacBook Pro?
Thanks in Advance.

Got it sorted, i went into Disk Utility again and went to erase. I erased the disk using the OS Extended (Journaled) option and it worked.

I would like to share music with my Dad we both have ipod classics and i tunes installed, my library is backed up on hard drive helives abroad and we are visiting soon how do we share library content? Can I do it by plugging my hard drive into his pc?

My itunes library is backed onto hard drive, I am visiting a relative soon and wish to share our music, we both have ipod classics and he has i tunes installed onto his pc.
I don't want to take my pc with me but the hard drive may be an option. Can we share music from my hard drive plugged into his pc? and if so how? also can I then copy music from his library onto the hard drive so that i can sync them to my i pod. Or is there a way we can do it with just the i pods and pc? Pls help techno novice!

System Preferences - Sharing. If you cannot find System Preferences, then use Command - Spacebar and type System Preference and when you see it in Spotlight (uper right) hit return.

Please can someone tell me why I cannot reinstall my upgrade from lightroom 4 (lightroom 3 installed off disc with serial no) my hard drive crashed, and I am trying to get lightroom 3; 4 and 5 back on so that I can link my catalogues and continue work. I

Please can someone tell me why I cannot reinstall my upgrade from lightroom 4 (lightroom 3 installed off disc with serial no) my hard drive crashed, and I am trying to get lightroom 3; 4 and 5 back on so that I can link my catalogues and continue work. I cannot install lightroom 5 until the upgrades from 4 are on the pc, (lightroom 3 installed off disc but 4 is a copy of the upgrade download I got when I bought it) These serial no's are legit and are registered under my account with adobe, but it still gives me the Big Red Cross when I put my serial no in! Please can someone help. I am at a loss. Thx Heidi

Please can someone tell me why I cannot reinstall my upgrade from lightroom 4 (lightroom 3 installed off disc with serial no) my hard drive crashed, and I am trying to get lightroom 3; 4 and 5 back on so that I can link my catalogues and continue work. I cannot install lightroom 5 until the upgrades from 4 are on the pc, (lightroom 3 installed off disc but 4 is a copy of the upgrade download I got when I bought it) These serial no's are legit and are registered under my account with adobe, but it still gives me the Big Red Cross when I put my serial no in! Please can someone help. I am at a loss. Thx Heidi

Plerase can someone tell me why I cannot reinstall my upgrade from lightroom 4 (lightroom 3 installed off disc with serial no) my hard drive crashed, and I am trying to get lightroom 3; 4 and 5 back on so that I can link my catalogues and continue work. I

Please can someone tell me why I cannot reinstall my upgrade from lightroom 4 (lightroom 3 installed off disc with serial no) my hard drive crashed, and I am trying to get lightroom 3; 4 and 5 back on so that I can link my catalogues and continue work. I cannot install lightroom 5 until the upgrades from 4 are on the pc, (lightroom 3 installed off disc but 4 is a copy of the upgrade download I got when I bought it) These serial no's are legit and are registered under my account with adobe, but it still gives me the Big Red Cross when I put my serial no in! Please can someone help. I am at a loss. Thx Heidi

BrightBluephotograph wrote:
I cannot install lightroom 5 until the upgrades from 4 are on the pc,
You don't need to have Lightroom 3 and 4 installed on your computer to install Lightroom 5. Just install Lightroom 5 and input your serial number for 3 in the previous version box and your serial number for 5 in the upgrade box.

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data in addition to backing up the hard drive?

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?

Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?
Yes, but if you move the "original" data on your iMac to the Time Capsule....then the "original" data is now on the Time Capsule disk.
When...not if...the Time Capsule disk has a problem, you have no backups for this data.
Perhaps a much safer plan might be to add an external hard drive attached directly to your iMac. Then, move the data to that drive from the iMac.
Now, Time Machine will back up both your iMac and the external hard drive so you have "originals" on one drive and backups on another. Would that plan work for you?

Help with backing up my hard drive

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