Question about backing up MBP

I purchased my MBP back in August of 2009 and it has been virtually flawless since I have bought it. However I have downloaded all kinds of stuff to it and added all kinds of different things to it, I have a pretty large music library and what I would like to do is just back up everything to my external hard drive and wipe the computer clean and start over from scratch.
This is my first Mac and I was curious what the best way to do this would be?  Also is it like Windows where it will take hours upon hours to reformat the hard drive etc... Anyone who could suggest how to do this or provide a link with step by step instructions I would greatly appreciate anyone who could help me out with this!!!!

You should go out and get a new, now very inexpensive, external hard drive. Preferrably Firewire, but USB2 is ok if you need to save some money.
Use OS X built in TimeMachine. If you choose to go this route, here is Apple's instructions for setting up the new TimeMachine disk, backing up, restoring, etc:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Also, I would highly suggest in addition to Time Machine that you also backup your Home (user) folder to the external disk you already have. This will help save you in case your new drive has any problem at least your data will be safe.

Similar Messages

  • Where to post question about backing up new G580 laptop

    I'm new to Lenovo products and this forum and would like to know where I am to post a question about backing up a new G580 laptop.
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    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    Hi kec234, welcome to the forum,
    the best place would probably be in the Lenovo 3000 & Essential notebooks board; it's the correct board for your system and who knows after searching through it you may find an existing thread on the same subject??
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    Andy  ______________________________________
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  • Please delete my question about backing up. I already found my answer.

    Hi,
    Please delete my question about backing up. I already found my answer. Just wanted to make sure that it was okay to backup the iPod_Control folder. I've read that other people have done this and re-imported back to iTunes. Here's the question I submitted. When I get my iPod back in order I am gonna backup the iPod_Control folder .
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/15836196#15836196
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    Liz

    No urgent reason to delete it. Just reply to yourself as above, if you care to, and then mark your own answer as correct. You won't get any points, but it will be clear you are closing out the topic.

  • Few Questions About Backing Up Files

    Okay, I'm pretty new to this, and have checked the support pages, but I do have some questions about backing up my files.
    I'm running out of room on my computer's hard drive, and am wondering if burning the library to CDs will allow me to quickly restore my library on my computer when I sync my iPod.
    I know that when an iPod syncs with a comp, it will lose any songs that aren't on the library list. (If I deleted some songs to free up room, I'd lose those songs on my iPod when I synced it up.) Is there a way to prevent that from happening? Some way to save a headache continuously restoring my iPod's library every time I want to add a new song or recharge it?
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    Best and easiest solution is to buy an external hard drive. Then simply drag and drop your iTunes folder from your internal onto the external and copy the entire library.
    Patrick

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    3) Any pitfalls that I should be aware of?
    I have already backed up my docs and data to the external, but I have so many programs with plugins installed that getting my apps back the way they are is essential to me.
    Thanks.

    Remember Time Machine is designed to do constant, incremental backups of your HDD. If you delete something from the internal HDD of the Mac it will no longer be backed up to the external HDD and will eventually be deleted from the backup archive as time passes and TM keeps doing its backups.
    What will probably be a better solution is to simply drag-n-drop the entire iTunes folder to an external HDD for backup and use that as the main iTunes library. The drawback to this is that to play the music you'll need to have the external HDD connected. Unless your plan is not to delete all the music from your MBP, just some of it.

  • Never owned a notebook before, questions about my new MBP

    I've never owned a notebook computer before, and I just bought a MBP last week... So far so great, I'm absolutely loving it. I was a PC user and made a very painless switch.
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    Thanks,
    D

    1) If you selected sleep it'll continue to do that. If you selected shutdown or retart then potentially that process can be halted and the system put to sleep right in the middle of it. If restarting or shutting down it's always best to let that finish.
    2) Yes, it'll go to sleep and should be signified by the pulsating sleep indicator.
    To access it via VNC you will need to send the "magic packet" to wake it first. This however requires an ethernet connection and will not work if connected wirelessly.
    3) It's fine, however you should stillstretch it legs on battery. I suggest you use your MBP on average for about an hour per day plus a calibration every 4-8 weeks.
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  • HT4859 question about backing up iphone

    if I back up my iphone/ipad to my computer, then delete a file (say, a picture) from my iphone/ipad, then back up the iphone/ipad again, will the previously deleted file still be backed up, or will it be gone?

    The iphone backup that itunes performs does not include photos or itunes content.  You should be including this content in your regular backup of your computer files/docs/pics/music/etc.
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  • Question about backing up Referenced Iphoto Library

    I was wondering about the best way to back up a referenced iphoto library.
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    Well that's for iPhoto 09 or earlier. In those versions the amount of space used was even greater with Referenced Libraries... (all those aliases take up space too...)
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    Running a referenced Library offers no extra functionality, no extra capability and significant pitfalls. And it takes up the same amount of disk space.
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  • Question about backing up iTunes library to hard drive

    So I was looking at getting a MacBook Pro, and was going to buy an external hard drive (WD My Passport for Mac) to transfer the files to the new computer. I was wondering if my movie / digital copies will go to the external hard drive as well as music & everything. Also how would I go about doing the transfer, I'm sure it will be pretty easy to figure out just want to make sure everything goes to the new computer.
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    it may not be necessary to get an external HD, although you could use it for back up purposes.
    one simple solution to transferring your complete library would be to connect the two Macs with a firewire cable, boot the source Mac in _*Target Disk Mode*_, and copy the entire iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music folder) from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the source to <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the target (overwriting the iTunes folder in place there).
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    It's 4 years old, if you had the "problem" it would have manifested itself by now.
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    Since laptops last about 4 years anyway, your about due for a replacement.
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    Use external keyboards and mice, cd drives. All you can do really, should have been done when you first got it.
    My 26 month old Early 2011 still runs fast as the day I bought it, as I didn't upgrade to the bloated 10.8, nor problemistic 10.7 and it's bad firmwares.
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  • Question about backing up library in iTunes

    Before I post my question, I just wanted to say that I did searches for the answers but couldn't find a concrete answer, so here I am.
    I am using iTunes 7.x for Windows (Thinkpad X41 Tablet, Windows XP Pro, 2GB RAM) and it works fine (except for burning CDs but that's another topic!).
    I just have one major question: I keep my music and library on an external hard drive, and had to perform a restore of a backup from a week ago. Anyway, I lost ALL of the album art, lyrics, and other customizations I had made to the library. I spent the entire day getting everything back the way it was before and I'm now backing up the library to DVDs. Is my album artwork also backed up with the library, or is there an additional process I have to take to do that because I don't want to have to search for and download all that stuff again.
    Thanks!

    When you do your backups, do you back up the itunes metadata library ITL file?
    That holds all your ratings, playcounts, etc.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
    +I lost ALL of the album art, lyrics, and other customizations I had made to the library+
    Where are you storing these? By using itunes defaults?

  • Is this a good idea?  Question about backing up data

    Hi,
    I have a MacBook Pro that is about two years old. It's working well.
    I have a year old WD MyBook premium edition, 500GB, that I've been using as an external hard drive to back up my data. Recently, it was working fine (as recent as three days ago). Now, all of a sudden, it won't mount onto my computer. I've tried it in both the USB and Firewire ports, as well as on a different MacBook, and it won't mount anywhere. I also turned it on and off, turned off the computer, connected everything in a different order, etc. Then, I tried it on a PC with XP and it had no problem finding the drive and I was able to open it.
    So I called WD tech support and he told me to do this:
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    -Drag/drop all of the data on the drive onto the PC
    -Reformat the external hard drive in Windows
    -Drag and drop/put the data back on it
    -Try to connect it back to the MacBook pro, where it should mount
    He said something about partitioning the drive, which I sort-of understand what he meant, but not completely. This process seems like it will be long and may not work, so I wanted to get someone else's opinion before I started it. Does this seem like the right idea to get the hard drive to mount?
    Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

    I see four possible alternatives, in varying degrees of severity:
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    # The volume is severely damaged and/or the partition is shot. In this case, the device pops up in D.U., but no volume name appears underneath or you get a generic name. In this case, stronger stuff is mandatory, such as Disk Warrior.
    # The electronics of the drive are damaged, so that nothing appears on D.U.'s window when you plug the drive in on yours and other Macs and with both FireWire or USB. This can be caused by damage to the power supply (drive isn't turning on), the USB/FW bridgeboard that connects those interfaces with the HDD's ATA/SATA controller, or the HDD controller card itself. This would mean that the drive is, indeed, dead but if the HDD still works, you may be able to salvage it by opening the case up, taking the HDD out and putting it in another case, at least till you copy your info over to another drive. Then, if there's any sort of warranty left, you can put it back together and send it in.
    # Your Mac's interface ports (USB/FW) are somehow compromised and not working. Does the drive mount on another Mac? Have you tried resetting the Mac's PRAM/NVRAM and the System Management Controller (SMC)? Are you able to connect your Mac to another via Target Disk Mode?
    Since tools such as Disk Warrior are expensive, some Apple shops may offer checking/repairing your drive with them, for a fee.

  • Still Questions about Backing-Up Itunes

    When I tried to reinstall iTunes (9.2.1) library from my external hard drive to a newly installed iTunes 10 on a new HDD, I noticed my play count, ratings, and EQ settings weren't present. Well, the new HDD was a bust in lease than 24 hours. I took out the new busted HDD and put my old HDD back in to my computer with iTunes and upgraded to iTunes 10. . . so I could finally play with my new Touch 4g. I'm getting another new HDD today; I'm going to back-up my iTunes 10 library and then move them to the new HDD.
    My question , what am I doing wrong? I thought I read Apples instructions on backing up, and reinstalling an iTunes Library. Thank you for any assistance you can give me.

    Thanks Katrina for joining the conversation. To be honest, I had copied and paste my iTunes folder back into Tunes. I'm sure I'm making this far more complicated than it is. Even so, I'd hate to go through 35000 songs and set EQ settings and ratings again. Thanks again for your assistance.
    Here's Apples Support Instructions . . . I posted the wrong link but for me I don't think it makes any difference. lol! http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751

  • IOS 7 Question about backing up iCal

    I recently saw an article in one of our trade mags that said that with iOS 7 you could not backup your calendar through iTunes, that you had to have an iCloud account in order to do this.... doesn't make much sense to me as an active iCal user. Does anyone know if there is any validity to this?
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    Mavericks server is out. I believe it's $20. If you have CalDAV and CardDAV services running on your Mac servers, you can back up to those.
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  • Quick question about backing up my Mac

    I recently switched over to a Mac for school and I am loving it so far. However, I noticed there is no real "Back-Up" function. However, while browsing through my preferences one day, I came across Time Machine. Does it work similar to backing up on a Windows PC? All I want it to plug in my external HD and to back up like every month or so, so that I can restore my PC to the previous settings if something goes wrong. Just something similar to a "system restore".
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    Also, this is kind of off topic, but is there anything similar to CCleaner for a Mac? Thanks!

    Hi there
    Yes, Time Machine will create a full system backup of your Mac that is restorable.
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    Daily for the past month
    Weekly for the previous months
    Older backups are deleted when the backup volume becomes full.
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