How to properly back up MacMini OS X 10.6.8?

I have had a MacMini for a couple of years and have never really known how I should back up in case of trouble. Now I just lost all my photos from iPhoto, so decided it was time to learn what to do. I have used Dropbox for some files and have used a thumb drive a bit. Need well explained details, please. Thank you.

Basic Backup
Get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

Similar Messages

How to properly back up the iPhone (I clearly did it wrong)

I backed up my iPhone, named it and then restored it to the factory settings. When I went back and right clicked on the phone to "restore from backup", the backup I had just made was not there. Only a backup from September. Now, I've lost everything since September, that was on my phone. I was wondering what I did wrong and how to properly back up the iPhone for future reference. Does it only save 2 backups? I just am not sure why it didn't save my most recent backup, and rather, saved one from September. Sad, I lost a lot of important texts, numbers, notes and pictures. Thanks for any help!

From iTunes, File > Transfer Purchases

HT201318 How do I back up everything that will be lost when I upgrade my software for my Ipod Touch 3rd Generation? Can I just take the information and go into windows explorer and drag it out in2 a separate folder/drag it back?I'm running Windows Vista b

I am trying to figure out how to back up ALL of my apps, games, movies, personal info, etc, that is destroyed when I upgrade ITunes ( I do not know why). If it's all on ITunes in the first place then what's the problem with installing new software after wiping it clean, then adding that software and the original apps, games, movies, tv shows, etc, that are stored on ITunes to begin with"? With that being said, I subscribed to ICloud somehow through the Itunes store, the instructions that they had for using Windows VIsta were incorrect so I signed up with the intention of using it as a tool to backup all of my data. Problem is I only got 25 gigs to start and I need 40 gigs. I also don't know how to properly set up the account or manage it, or the amount of data that it will hold. Please help me!!!! I just recently located my Touch after it being misplaced by my little sister for over a year and I'm trying to upgrade the operating system, after all, it IS over two years old.....Thanks, in advance for any help anyone can give me.
Message was edited by: cdftrim

Hi. The two user tips both describe a sequence of steps that should get your library from the point where it threatens to wipe data from your device to where it is syncing normally, while recovering as much information as possible. It may still be necessary to wipe and reload the device but this should only take place once all the data that can be recovered has been recovered.
Doing step 1 of 8 and then complaining things aren't the way you want them to be yet strikes me as premature...
Since you appear to have all your media content, and we are discussing an iPod classic, not an iOS device, the main worries are already taken care of. What's left is ratings, playcounts, playlist membership and checked status. Since your device holds only part of your library at best you could only recover the missing data for the content that is on the device using third party tools.
Recreating the previous checked/unchecked status of every track in your library from where you are now may not be that easy. Syncing with selected playlists has many advantages, one of which would have been that you would have a named playlist that could have been retrieved by 3rd party software if you had used this method.
You haven't explained what caused your problem in the first place, but if you have a Previous iTunes Libraries folder holding old copies of your iTunes database (generated with each iTunes update) then it would be possible to restore the most recent of these and then update the library with any changes in your media folder.
BTW Apple doesn't offer free support for this kind of issue with iTunes.
tt2

(InDesign CS5)I have created hundreds of InDesign documents incorporating images stored on an external USB connected drive. I did a manual back-up to another drive at regular intervals but far from ideal. I now have a network drive which is properly backe

(InDesign CS5) I have created hundreds of InDesign documents incorporating images stored on an external USB connected drive. I did a manual back-up to another drive at regular intervals but far from ideal.
I now have a network drive which is properly backed-up. I have copied all of the images and folder structure from the USB connected drive to this new drive.
My question is how I get all of the links in my indd files to point to the new drive. I am aware how to do it one file at a time, but is there a way of doing the same thing over many files/folders at a time?

It depends on how you organize your work. If you have one folder for images for a document, relinking one image should alert you that other missing images are in the same folder, but this assumes that images are missing. If the links window sees a clear path to the original location of the images, they aren't missing, so that won't work.
Another thing to try is to select all of the images in the links window and go to the fly-out menu and select Relink To Folder (navigate to the new folder, and you don't even have to select any images by name).
If you store your images in many different folders for the same document, you might want to either package the document to copy all of the images into one folder (you can specify to only copy images if you like) or use the fly-out in the links window (Utilities>Copy Links To…) and select or create a new images folder.

Q: How to properly shutdown part/all of VDI? and question about disk space

Hi again. I was able to get the VDI to work, but yesterday I changed the ARC parameter both in the storage and the xvm server (not sure in which is needed to be changed) and restarted both machines, to my surprise, the templates and the cloned VM had disappeared, so I was wondering if there is a proper way to shut down parts or the whole VDI? is there a sequence? and, of course, how to then turn everything back online ...
How to make things permanent or at least, to export them so one can then import them back after the reboot?
I did not find this in the documentation, the vdi3.pdf, if it is somewhere else, plz provide me with the link.
also...
I was curious that I could not see the space being used in the storage server:
root@australia:~# df -kl
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
VDisksPool 202890010 19 202889991 1% /VDisks
rpool 58603340 78 58603262 1% /rpool
root@australia:~# ls -l /VDisks/
total 0
but acording to the VDI page, the storage is being used at 3%:
Storage:
Number of Storages: 1
Total Capacity:200.32 GB
Usage:3%
how to check this? where is the space being used?
thanks in advance
-Oswaldo
Edited by: Velithion on Jul 8, 2009 8:05 AM

"kmdguy" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:gl852s$oif$[email protected]..
> Hello there,
>
> I'm working on a simple FLEX app which uses the built-in
PHP wizard to
> connect
> to a mySQL database. I'm building the app using MAMP and
so far all of my
> testing is working fine. I have it performing all kinds
of CRUD
> successfully,
> etc.
>
> My question is how to properly go about moving all the
necessary files to
> my
> off-site web host. Namely my mySQL database.
If your database is the same version of mySQL on the MAMP as
on the server,
then you should be able to just export it from one and import
it to the
other. If not, you could try doing something similar to what
I describe
here:
http://flexdiary.blogspot.com/2009/01/lazy-loading-tree-example-file-posted.html
in the steps that start: "Download the rtf translation of the
mySQL database
table..." and "Open the classification.rtf you downloaded
and..."
> And will the auto-generated PHP
> break now that it's not running on my localhost.
I'm not sure, but I think you might wind up having to make
some adjustments
to it. For instance, is the user name and password identical
on your server
and your MAMP installation? If not, you'll have to edit some
of the
connection data.
> I've tried to find a simple
> step-by-step guide to migrating everything here to an
off-site host but
> couldn't find anything specific. Only how to create a
simple release build
> which works fine. I'd like to do some testing before I
get any deeper to
> confirm that I understand how to migrate all the files I
need to my web
> host.
This may well be because the type of person who writes these
guides is
unlikely to be using the automatically generated scripts.
HTH;
Amy

How to properly wrap lenovo power cables

Hello lenovo community! I have a lenovo x230i tablet laptop and despite searching the manual and google I can't seem to find a good answer regarding how to properly wrap lenovo cables for proper storage and long cable life.
I know of the over-under method of winding cables, mine in particular has one long velcro strap on the power brick. Does anyone know the default way lenovo recommends wrapping the cables so that they don't get bent or damaged over time? Please let me know if you do, thanks!

The standard way is to do a back & forth bend, slightly longer than the power brick and use the velcro to wrap them against one side of the brick.
Been working fo me for years and I havent trashed a cable yet!
Come over to the Dark Side...We have cookies!

How to properly downgrade my os leopard to os panther?

I installed the retail os leopard on my power G5 and it messed up with dvd studio pro 3. How to properly downgrade my os leopard back to panther? thank you.

It's usually not recommended to downgrade. The installers are designed to upgrade OSs. You could corrupt the system files. Your other post about dual boot is the way to go. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2597
 Cheers, Tom

How do I back up notes so I don't loose them again

How do I back up notes "properly".
I have lost them twice now.
Both my husband and I use the same mac to update our iphones.
When I backup and restore my iphone it replaces my notes with his.
How do I get MY notes back. It has very important information.

Follow the instructions here or here.
(84073)

How do I back-up my ipod touch 4g?

so I have the white screen of death and I heard that rebooting might help it. but if it doesn't work, I really dont want to lose all of my apps, musics, bookmarks, data, EVEYRHTING!! so will backing-up my ipod(for the first time) before rebooting( for the first time) EVERY SINGLE THING I have on my ipod? if it can: 1) how do I back-up my ipod? 2) once i've rebooted, how do I get those saved data and put it back into my ipod??

Sadly if you have the white screen of death you may not be able to do much, all depending on if it's the screen that has malfunctioned or the iOS. First I would recommended plugging into iTunes and seeing if its recognized to be able to backup. These instructions are listed here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766 including the answer to your second quesiton.
If you are unable to backup, indicating youriOS is not working properly, I would start with a 2 button reset as outlines on the 2nd slide here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
If the iPod continues to boot to a white screen and does not allow you to backup, you may be out of luck and have to follow the rest of the steps here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3281
I hope this helps!

How to Properly Clear CMOS...

Hey Guys,
I’ve checked the MSI manual and I’ve taken a look at the sticky/FAQ’s over here in the forum as well, and I wasn’t really able to find instructions on how to properly clear the CMOS (after a BIOS flash).
So first of all what’s the correct way to clear the CMOS?
1. Should I leave the power cord connected to the PSU and then press the “clear CMOS button” while the battery is still in the motherboard?
2. OR should the power cord be detached from the PSU and the motherboard battery removed and then should I press the “clear CMOS button”? (And if so, for how long should the batter be removed before connecting it back to the motherboard?)
Secondly,
I was looking over the steps in this guide (http://www.msi.com.tw/html/support/bios/note/ntfs.htm) and I’m not sure at which point I should clear the CMOS. After I’ve executed the flash command and the flash has been complete, it says in step 12. “Reboot your system when prompted.”
So should I turn off the machine right after the BIOS flash and then clear the CMOS… or should I reboot the machine right after the flash and then clear CMOS ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I really don’t want to FUBAR my board.
Thanks in advance.

Quote from: Brownbay on 18-June-05, 01:28:24
1. When I enter the flash command in DOS and the flash program completes the flash... will it say something like "flash successful" OR the only way I’ll know if the flash was successful is if after the flash I reboot and the machine posts?
You will have a message like 'Hit F1 to reboot' in principle all is well...
Quote from: Brownbay on 18-June-05, 01:28:24
2. I understood everything in the steps that you listed up until step 4. Should I press the orange "clear CMOS" button first (Now do I have to hold it down... press it a few times... or just press it once) and THEN remove the battery... OR should the battery stay in at all times?
While you press the button the battery must stay in it's place, it's is voltage that will clear the BIOS in a certain pin of the IC...
As for the time to press...could be 1..2..3 seconds, no time defined, as soon as you press the button the Bios is cleared...but give it 3 secs.
And it's not necessary to remove the battery at this point only in extreme cases.
Quote from: Brownbay on 18-June-05, 01:28:24
Finally, is it actually beneficial to clear the CMOS after flashing the BIOS? From what I’ve read... One of the main reasons to clear the CMOS after flashing to a new BIOS is so that you get rid of all the old BIOS options/commands that might be still lying around. So I can only see this as a good precautionary step rather than doing any harm to the motherboard, or causing the risk there of.
It is highly beneficial to clear the Bios after an update, because some settings could be somewhat out of place and mess up your discs or memory or even the processor...one never knows...it is always better to clear for ensurance.
Be well....

How to properly reinstall Aperture

Good morning to you all;
I have been using Aperture for over a year and like the way it works. However, lately one of my plug-ins started acting strange and since me and the developer have exhausted all solutions, I would like to reinstall Aperture and see if it helps. As my library holds 15000+ pictures (98% of them referenced) and is around 60GB in size, I have a lot to lose.Mind you, I have it double backed up, but still would like to do the reinstall properly. *Could you pls advise me as to how to properly reinstall Aperture?* Thank you

Jade; thank you for your reply. I, indeed, only wanted to reinstall Aperture. No reimporting etc. Too much work. In the mean time I found the below info which covered all my questions. My problem is that when I select (cherry pick) several photos (lets say 80+) and try to upload them via Aperture to Picasa Web Plug in from Ubermind, the plug in tries to log in and then freezes. I am talking to their support guys and they are in deed very fast in replying. I just wanted to have a clean reinstall of Aperture to make sure there was no corruption.Any ideas are more then welcomed.
For reinstalling Aperture, I found these tips:
Another approach you might consider is reinstalling Aperture. To do this
effectively, you need to remove the application and its receipts, then
install Aperture and use Software Update to install additional updates. You
don't have to remove everything that was installed with Aperture. Follow
the steps below to completely reinstall a fresh copy of Aperture.
Note: Make sure that you have your installation discs nearby before
starting this.
1. Open the Applications folder.
2. Drag the Aperture application to the Trash.
3. Go to /Library/Receipts.
4. In the Receipts folder, select the "Aperture.pkg" and
"ApertureSampleProjects.pkg" files. Note: If you have Aperture 1.5
also select the "PluginManager.pkg" file.
5. Drag the those .pkg files to the Trash.
6. Insert your Aperture installation disc and install Aperture.
7. When finished, choose Software Update from the Apple () menu to
update your software to the latest version.
For further information on settings or installation, please refer to the
Aperture documentation available on your installation discs.
also see here:
http://blogs.oreilly.com/aperture/2008/01/a-fresh-start-with-aperture.html
also AppZapper is a good tool for this as well ...
Thank you all for help

Hi Support team, somehow my mozilla settings have been changed and it baceme transprenet, now how to change back to normal ?

Hi Support team, somehow my mozilla settings have been changed and it became transparent, now how to change back to normal because everything is transparent, menus, pages etc.

This could be the same problem other users are reporting as a white screen or black screen, caused by an incompatibility between Firefox 33 and some older graphics card/chipset drivers.
Please disable hardware acceleration as a temporary workaround. Step-by-step directions in this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1025438
Does that work?

How to revert back a SAP NOTE? Dump- Field symbol has not yet been assigned

Hi Experts,
We r getting dump(cause: Field symbol has not yet been assigned) in production for ABUMN tx, so, when debugged, it came to know that, the Field symbol is coming from REUSE_ALV_LIST_DISPLAY!!
So, for some reason the system message text is not getting output in ALV-->Dump!!
So, found a NOTE causing this problem!!
So, pls. let me know that, How to revert back this/any SAP NOTE? pls. in detail steps wise!!
thanq
Edited by: Srinivas on Jan 24, 2008 4:32 PM

Hi
In SNOTE tcode, select the Note that you implemented and click on 'RESET SAP Note Implementation'
shylesh

I had to manually download the new version of itunes.. via tools, it gave me 4 items to download and i did not download all 4 compenants. Does anyone know how to get back to the pop up that contains tools so i can redownlaod all of them.

I lost my old iphone and have a new 5s.. i need to sync to itunes. i had to donwload manually via tools but i didnt download all four files. now when i plug my phone into itunes it says there is an error bc i didnt download all the files. so when i go into itunes now and check for updates it says its up to date. the problem is with the phone support file i didnt download.
Does anyone know how to get back to the pop up that has the music player update and itunes update bc this is the only place i have seen "tools" to be able to manually update all four files....
***IF i completely uninstall itunes and reinstall will it still have all my songs, photos, apps etc... bc i need to sync my new phone to get all my stuff back

this is a follow up from the profane post earlier....
i have done this twice in two other posts..
here is my problem.. i started off trying to update itunes, it failed twice and said i needed to install manually via tools.
the only place to get to tools is the pop up box that appears when you click check for updates.. if there is an available update then the pop up shows up with the quick time and itunes files to download. so i finally figured that out. i clicked on tools and manual update, four files were saved to a file. Apple mobile device support, another one similar, itunes, and another one i cant remember. I only downloaded the itunes file seeing as though thats all i needed to accomplish in the first place.
so then i restarted my computer bc you need to reboot and then reopen itunes for update to take effect. once i have itunes back open i plugged in my new 5s which i am trying to sync to my computer to get all my stuff back bc i lost my previous phone over the weekend.. once i plugged the phone in an error stating i needed to unistall the apple mobile device support and itunes and then reinstall. well i dont know where those files were originally stored on my computer AND since my itunes was updated, just not the other 3 associated files, when i click check for updates it says its up to date and then pop up containing the quick time and itunes does not pop up thus i cant get back to the tools tab to manually save the 4 files again.
so i was just going to uninstall itunes all together and then i thought well what happens if it erases all my photos apps songs etc... which would defeat the whole purpose in the first place of me trying to sync my new phone to get all my stuff back.
so i literally have no idea what to do at this point.. if you have read this you are probably just as confused as me...

Email messages now show "To: me" instead of the name or email address and I want to know how to change back to the way it was.

I use several yahoo email addresses and it has always been very convienent to see if it is a personal or business related message by simply seeing the To: line. Now all of sudden all I see is "me" and it is not at all helpful. I didn't make the change nor authorize it to be done. I am not even sure if this is a Firefox issue or a Yahoo issue. I would like to know how to change back to show the full email name or address.

hello shackiraq, you'd have to contact yahoo's support about this issue - firefox doesn't handle your emails but just renders a website like it is provided to you by the server of a webmail service.
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/mail-for-desktop

How to properly back up MacMini OS X 10.6.8?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for