How the heck do I back up my hard drive?!

Question

Sorry if this question gets asked every week, but I searched the "Tiger" forums and still can't figure this out.
I've owned an iMac since last August but haven't used it much, so I have no after-market software and very little data on it. Unfortunately, the little bit of data I have is every family photo we've taken since last August (on iPhoto) and given the fact that it's a PITA to sync those files with my wife's Dell, I really need to start backing up on a regular basis. In addition, the guys at the "Genius Bar" at my local Apple store tell me there's a defect in the hardware, and advise me to back up my computer before I give it to them to fix.
Before buying this Apple, I owned several Windows-based PCs. Windows had a utility that would back up the whole computer, and ordinary data backups were fast and easy. The "geniuses" tell me there's no such utility in my version of OS-X, and that I need to buy an external drive and install the third-party software that comes with the drive.
Okay, I'm sitting down, give it to me straight:
(1) What's the easiest way for me to back up all the data on my computer, and can I back it up onto one or more CDs? I find it hard to believe that Apple's OS doesn't have a utility that Windows has had for a decade or so, and that I need to buy more hardware and software after purchasing this iMac that costs about twice as much as a Dell with more speed and memory.
(2) Given that I'll never add software to this machine (other than NeoOffice), do I need to back up anything but data, ever? I have the CDs that came with my iMac, so do I need a bootable copy of my whole hard drive?
Regards,
John

Answer 1

BDAqua wrote:
It is a simple process, you just chose the wrong HD, the ones with the One-Button touch features, and/or require installing any Software to use are just not good, we just need a Simple Firewire drive to make it simple!
Yes, it's funny, I just had a couple of hours to think about the last questions I posted, and I realized that "KISS" is all I can handle. All I want (all I can handle, really) is a very simple process for backing up data, nothing more.
So it looks like I have two things I need to clarify: hardware and software.
As far as hardware goes, all I'm looking for is something that plugs into the computer like a "thumb drive," but that holds much more data and can transfer it much more quickly. Is that what you mean by a "Simple Firewire drive"? I've looked at the devices on the web page that you linked to, but I can't figure out what the heck they are. Do you remember the first time you looked under the hood of a car, maybe when you were seven or eight years old, and you had no idea what all those hoses and wires and metal things were? Well, that's what it's like for me when I look at that web page.
Now the software part. I used to own a Windows computer at home and still use one at work. I can move and copy files easily on those machines. And I've copied some files from this iMac to my wife's Windows computer via a thumb drive. No problem. But then I read the article at the link that Japamac posted, and I feel like I have no idea what to do.
If you actually read the from beginning to end, it doesn't tell you how to do what it recommends, which is to back up the entire <user> folder:
http://computing.fandm.edu/training/mac/backup.php
First it talks about backing up the entire <user> folder, but before the article describes how to do that, it skips ahead to a discussion of the limitations on the storage size of CD media and never gets back to telling the reader how to back up the entire <user> folder. Near the end of the article, in the middle of a discussion of how to back up onto an iPod, the article says to "locate and simply drag the data you want to backup from its parent location to the disc volume window." Two problems here: (1) what about backing up ALL the data in the <user> folder; and (2) how do I know that dragging will "copy" rather than "cut"? The last thing I want to do is cut the <user> folder off my hard drive and dump it somewhere else!
At this point, I can't believe people keep saying that Apple computers are more user-friendly than Windows computers. On Windows, this would be a piece of cake to do with the pull-down menus on the mouse: (1) select the <user> folder with one left-click of the mouse; (2) right-click to "copy;" (3) move the cursor to the storage drive; (4) left-click to select it; and (5) right-click to "paste." Done.
Please help. All I want to do is find a simple way to back up my data onto an external drive.
Regards,
John