How do I go about backing my hard drive?

I want to back up my hard drive in case anything should happen, what would be the best way of doing this?

Hi cgaff;
My suggestion would be to get an external Firewire drive for the backup. Then download either Carbon Copy Clone (CCC) or SuperDuper to backup your system to the external drive. Either of these applications is capable of cloning your system drive so that you can boot from it. Once you have finished backing up I would strongly suggest that you boot from the backup to test it.
Allan

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How do you install a backed up hard drive?

Hi Guys,
I recently had my hard drive expire on my G5
I have a back up of all data and applications that is on an external hard drive.
How do I now install this back on to my G5 and its new hard drive?
Is it as simple as drag and drop? Do I have to reinstall all the applications?
I have wondered with all this talk about back ups, how it actually works.
Can anyone help out ? are there some explanations I can follow?
where should i look
many thanks

You are in the Mac Pro forums. You should post your question in the Power Mac forums.
What you should have done is to copy your entire bootable internal drive to the external (for example, using Carbon Copy Cloner). Then you could reverse the operation to create your new internal.
I can't tell you how to restore what you backed up because I don't know what you backed up. Odds are, yes, you will need to reinstall to recreate registrations, preferences, and other data associated with each application.

How would I go about formatting my hard drive if my macbook is no longer working? Will I be able to do it on an older macbook?

My macbook became gradually increasingly unresponsive a few days ago, and at the moment, when I try to start up I get to type in the password, but nothing further happens.
I took it today to a laptop repair shop. He said the hard drive seems OK, but would like to wipe it and re-install the system. I believe this would indicate a software error. Would there be a way of doing this operation myself? What do I need to do it?
This Macbook was purchased about a year and 8 months ago.
I also have a macbook that was purchased 7 years ago, but are still working. Could I interchange the hard drives and do the job from there?
Any advice is much appreciated!
Kind regards,
Oystein

Formatting a HDD will delete all user data on the drive. Yes you can do it on an older MBP by connecting to it via USB, but do you really want to? If the repair shop says the HDD is functional, there is no need to wipe it and reinstall the OSX. The problem then is something else.
It would be helpful if you indicated the EXACT model/year MBP that you have.
Ciao.

About to format hard drive. How do I preserve I-Tunes?

Hi,
*About to format hard drive. How do I preserve I-Tunes*
Apologies if this has been asked before, but I need reassurance that I will not make an expensive mistake.
I have iTunes installed on my PC, but the library and any original music files are stored on a NAS external device.
What do I need to do in iTunes (or anything else) before I reformat my PC drive?
In addition, I am guessing, but I figure that that afterwards I reinstall iTunes and reenter some settings and I can make connection with my Library again? Is that correct?
Thanks in advance
flobbyblob

Are you certain that the iTunes folder containing you library databases is on the external drive?
If you have the iTunes folder containing your current iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml in My Music on the C: drive, then you need to back that up.
If you are certain everything is on the external drive then all you need to do with your PC is deauthorise it before reinstalling Windows.
You asked something else:
Yes after reinstalling Windows and iTunes, you redo the settings you used to connect to your library on the external drive. You will also need to reauthorise your PC.
Message was edited by: polydorus

How do I access my encrypted User Account files from my Back Up hard drive? Time Machine was used to create the back up disk; File Vault was used to encrypt the files.

How do I access my encrypted User Account files from my Back Up hard drive? Time Machine was used to create the back up disk; File Vault was used to encrypt the files.

Thanks. I will try going through TM. Since my Simpletech is on the way out, I'll be plugging in a new external hard drive (other than the back-up drive) and trying to restore the library to the new drive. Any advice or warning if this is NOT the right thing to do?
Meanwhile, that is a great tip to do an alternate back-up using a different means. It's been tough to figure out how to "preserve access" to digital images and files for posterity, knowing the hardware will always fail/obsolesce sooner or later, and that "clouds" are only as good as their consistent and reliable accessibility. Upping the odds with redundancy will help dull the edge of my "access anxiety", though logically, it can never relieve it. Will look into
Carbon Copy Cloner.

HT1199 I need your help, PLEASE. How can to fix "NO MOUNTABLE FILE SYSTEM" error of my back up hard drive on Mountain Lion OS?

I need your help, PLEASE. How can to fix "NO MOUNTABLE FILE SYSTEM" error of my back up hard drive on Mountain Lion OS?

Did you format the drive for Mac use before you tried to use it as a backup drive?
Are you using Time Machine on the drive? You can't view the contents of its backup database and the only way to access the info is directly from the Time Machine app.

Recovering songs from back-up hard drive etc.

I have an old laptop with small capacity so I backed up my itunes onto a new hard drive. I then deleted the songs from itunes so that I could download more cd's onto laptop. I had set ipod to 'manually manage songs' and thought that this would stay in place until I changed it. I plugged ipod into laptop and it said 'updating ipod do NOT remove/disconnect. I was worried so I removed the the usb cable and unplugged it.
Now I seem to have lost a lot of album cd's from ipod even though they 'appear' to still be there but when I select eg. 'Trick of the Tail' the ipod just searches from track to track and then returns to main menu. Help!
How do I restore cd's from hard drive onto ipod? I have all itunes library on hard drive but not sure how to get this onto ipod as my laptop has little capacity. Is there anyone I can ring and talk to about this?
Sorry very longwinded but hope someone can come to my rescue.
Shedhead

This is directed at shedhead:
Kenneth is absolutely right about removing iPod from the computer when it says not to. It can seriously mess things up and you might be forced to restore your iPod.
But, an external hard drive really works fine. The only thing to watch out for is if your file pathway is directly from that drive, then do whatever it is in your power to ALWAYS keep the external hard drive appear as the same drive. For example, the first time it might have been the F Drive, so your songs have that for their pathway. But if you accidentally had in another jump drive that took up this name, the external hard drive will now be called G Drive. Sometimes it converts back, but sometimes it gets stuck as that even when there is nothing taking up the name J Drive. That totally screws up your library and you would have to manually locate each songs if you want to maintain the current play lists and play counts.

Recovering erased data from a back-up hard drive

Hello,
I erased a folder full of data on my back-up hard drive (Western Digital), and need to recover if it possible. I deleted it and then emptied my Trash, but have not written over it yet. How can I recover this folder? Thanks.

Try using an application such as Data Rescue or FileSalvage.
(29668)

How can I erase (or remove) the hard drive from a dead Time Capsule?

How can I erase (or remove) the hard drive from a dead Time Capsule?

I found this having had the same problem...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=553818
Having removed the hard drive I'm finding I can't reformat it. I manage to mount the HD but Disk Utility crashes when trying to format (HD attached to Mac via Newer Tech. SATA cables to USB) and causes what I think is a kernal panic on my Mac which hard crashes. I see 3 partitions when attempting to mount one of which is AFP. Anyone got any ideas about how to do this? I've dug around but the only progress I've made is to note others have had to work around ACL's when replacing the logic board of the TC. Not sure if this even relates to the problem. However the tool for doing this seems to have been removed from SL. (Forum references to this procedure all relate to 10.5).

I perviously transfered all my iTunes music to an external hard drive. But now when I connect the external hard drive and try to play a song, I get an error message saying that I need to "locate" my music. I don't how to find it on my external hard drive.

I perviously transfered all my iTunes music to an external hard drive. But now when I connect the external hard drive and try to play a song, I get an error message saying that I need to "locate" my music. I don't how to find it on my external hard drive. Please help for I am not that computer savy and don't want to mess anything up.
Thanks!

I called Apple Support and they walked me through it. They told me to basically copy and paste my music to the external hard drive. (I think.) Or maybe it was they had me transfer a folder to the EHD. I don't exactally remember it was a few years back. But I tried to plug in the EHD before starting and...nothing. Still says same thing, "locate file."

Back up Hard drive and I-Tunes

I had a hard drive crash. I had backed up my hard drive, previously. I did not do anything specifically for I Tunes. I got a new hard drive, upgraded the hard drive and went to OS 10.6.8.
Background. I spent the last 10 months in China. I could not use my MacBook so when I came back, I had Tiger 10.4.11 and an outdated I Tunes app. I could not synch my I tunes from what I had on my Tiger 10.4.11 Apple said that I needed at minimum Leopard, got snow leopard now.
Now I have everything upgraded and updated, I cannot get the Itunes library that is on the back up hard drive to the new I tunes app. I think my first mistake is not specifically doing anything with Itunes on my Tiger 10.4.11 back up. I assumed that the back up put all those songs podcasts, audio books onto the back up drive and then when everything is updated that I could just somehow get the old stuff onto the new app. It is not allowing me to do this and I know I am not doing something right.
Also, I asked the updated I tunes to transfer the purchases into my Itunes. It did not do this. I am just learning how to do all this. I may have lost music and I think I can get some of it back. I want what is on my I touch now to go to the app and get the stuff like apps and things like that to open up and I can click on them and get them back onto my I touch. For example, while in China, I did not have wifi, so I unclick apps such as ESPN and the Weather Channel because without wifi, they did not work. So I hope I can get some of my stuff back without losing everything.
The computer in China that had my Itunes on it, I think I trashed it and also deauthorized the computer.
Please help.

All your iTunes media is stored in /Music/iTunes Music/ so if you backed that up onto your HDD then it should be safe and sound there.
You should be able to add your backed up music to your new iTunes by going File > Add to Library and then finding the /Music/iTunes/iTunes music/ folder on your backup drive.
If you want to bring your purchased music/apps from your iPod/iPhone to your new iTunes library you'll need an app. I can't seem to find a good one but:
http://thelittleappfactory.com/irip/
looks pretty good an the littleappfactory make great software. You might be able to find a free alternative.
Best of luck!

How do I restore a failed external hard drive using Time Machine?

I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac that is being backed up with Time Machine. I just realized that should it one day fail and no longer appear as a connected device, I'm not sure how to restore its data to another external drive. When I disconnected the external hard drive (to mimic a drive crash) and entered Time Machine to see if I could verify that the external hard drive was, in fact, being backed up - I didn't know where to find it. Under the Today (Now) information, I didn't expect to see it there as it was no longer connected to the machine. But when I went back a few days, I expected to see its backup appear in the Sidebar. But no!
So - how do I restore a failed external hard drive using Time Machine?
Searches for this information on Google yielded "iffy" results. I'm hoping someone here is able to offer some clear steps to follow. Perhaps I'm missing something silly. Thank you very much!

I came across this discussion after encountering the same problem. Since my internal HD was cose to full I added an additional external HD to my setup. I moved my iPhoto files to an external HD and backed both this external HD and my internal HD up with Time Machine to another external HD. So far the theory. When I wanted to test if this setup worked I noticed that I could only see my iPhoto libraries on the external HD in Time Machine when the external HD was connected to my computer, but not if I turned it off. This led me to search for a solution on the Apple Support Communities discussion board.
The suggestions made Kappy seem right, at least in my experience, in that my Time Machine simply did not back up the external HD until I followed the steps he suggested above. These were the following:
"So, if you want it backed up then here's what you need to do:
1. In Time Machine preferences remove the external drive from the Exclude list.
2. Verify that it is now included with your other drive in the backup list.
3. Do a Backup Now to create a new backup of the external drive."
After doing this, my external HD showed up in the Backups.backupd as a seperate folder. I could clearly see the Time Machine back-up for my internal HD and my external HD. In addition, in Time Machine itself I was able to find the external harddrive by clicking on my own computers name under "Devices". I hope my experience helps to resolve your issue as this discussion board has helped me resolve mine (which I believe to be very similar).
Cheers!

How do i import to a external hard drive

Hi in I movie how to i import to a external hard drive from my video camera as i find it takes to much room on my imac. thanks

Hello there foxcub 6,
It sounds like you want to be able to import your video to an external drive rather than your internal drive to save space.
First, you'll need to create an iMovie library on your external hard drive. Take a look at the "Create a new library" section here: http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov3fa25bae7
After you've created the library, you can import media directly to it, and copy existing projects and events to it as well. You can learn more about importing here:
http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#movbc953953e
Step 6 outlines how to Import to a different library specifically:
Do one of the following:
To choose an existing event to contain the imported clips: Choose the event from the “Import to” pop-up menu at the top of the Import window.
To create a new event to contain the imported clips: Choose New Event from the “Import to” pop-up menu, type a name for the new event, and press Return.
To learn more about events, see Organize your events and projects.
The Import To dropdown is at the top of the Import window that opens when you click File > Import.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,Sterling

How do I take ownership of a hard drive build in windows but installed as an additional disk in my new Mac Pro?

How do I take ownership of a hard drive build in windows but installed as an additional disk in my new Mac Pro?
I bought a Mac and have various HDDs, some Portable some SATA, I can right to them and dont seem to be able to take ownership of them, is this to do with the format or Security seting I can't find?
Any help would be great; thanks.
Stephen

Thanks Kaz-K, this was what I assumed it to be. I have started to move the stuf over to a 4GB internal drive, once done and verified, I will reformat the drive and move it back, blooming nusience.
Cheers.
Stephen

How do I a setup an external hard drive on my Macbook Pro?

How do I a setup an external hard drive on my Macbook Pro to my primary hard drive for my iTunes library?
I ask this because every time I try to do this it my Mac book pro always wants to use the external hard drive I plug in as a time machine back up rather than my primary hard drive. I figured it would be cheaper and more efficient to use an external hard drive rather than have apple charge me an arm and a leg to replace and upgrade my current hard drive in my Mac book pro.

I responded to this in your duplicate posting at: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2690347
I recommend giving a first post a chance before posting a second time, especially since it may result in a lot of duplication in effort from the people volunteering their time here.

How do I go about backing my hard drive?

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