Rebuild a hard drive

Hi-
I have a G4 laptop with 2 partitions on the hard drive. I don't know what possessed me to break the hd in 3 in the first place but now I regret it and would like to regress to one drive. I want to go the 'lazy' way.
Question: If I copy the entire contents of the main portion, including all system files, application files, Everything - onto an external and then re-copy it all back onto the re-formatted PBook hard drive...will everything work?
TIA your input.
Josh

I would second the use of SuperDuper!. Actually, the process of cloning, using this app, is not complicated or hazardous. In the SD menu, select Backup- all files, and SD will create a bootable clone of everything on your internal drive ( do, however, repair permissions, which is an option on the SD menu). Depending on the amount of data you are transferring, it might take a while, but the next time you back up, it will be infinitely faster. When you have booted once from the clone (your Firewire external drive), you can safely erase the internal drive and congratulate yourself that you now can make scheduled backup using SD!.
HTH,
Miriam

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Rebuilding After Hard-Drive Failure

My hard-drive failed a few months ago. After replacing the hard-drive, I recovered my iTunes library (music only) from a back-up of the failed hard-drive. My music now syncs between devices via iTunes Match, and I have successfully transferred all of the app and movie purchases from my devices (iPhone and iPad) to my desktop. However, I have one movie that was downloaded to the iTunes library on my desktop post hard-drive failure using a redemption code from a Blue-Ray/DVD/Digital bundle. How do I get that movie to upload to my iPad? If I plug the iPad into my desktop, and I try to sync movies, iTunes tells me that this iPad is currently syncing to a different iTunes library and warns me that if I continue, everything on my iPad will be erased and replaced by the contents of this iTunes library. I have a huge number of apps organized in folders. I am afraid that I will lose all of those folders, and I will have to reorganize my apps if I proceed with the sync. Is there any other way to get the movie onto my iPad?

You should be able to:
Backup the device to the new installation
Transfer your purchases into a newly authorized library
Recover any other media using third party tools as suggested in this post from forum regular Zevoneer
Restore the device from the backup
This process should switch the association of the device to the new library, preserving the data and settings in your apps.
May also be prudent to attempt a backup to iCloud directly from the device before you start... Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > iCloud Backup > On. It won't save any media but it would preserve the general account settings and documents in case anything goes wrong while you are trying to extract your other data.
When you get it all fixed, make a backup!
tt2

Any issues re installing Adobe CC after a rebuild of hard drive? ie does it count as my 2nd software download?

my hard drive crashed and has been re build/reloaded wiping all my software. i need to re load adobecc products. are there any issues n **** so??

Works the same as before. Contact support if you need to reset your usage count.
Mylenium

Rebuilding Computer Hard Drive Info

I have a MacBook Pro that was backed up to my Time Capsule. I moved and forgot the Time Capsule in storage, so I stopped backing up the computer (stupid me!). The hard drive was physically damaged and could not be retrieved, so I bought a new hard drive and reloaded basic programs. I have been backing up the new drive to an external hard drive now.
I just got the Time Capsule back and want to combine the programs and files I had backed up before, with the programs and files I now have on the computer.
HELP!!!

Move the stuff from the time capsule to a folder on the desktop, or place them in their respective folders, and then back up

How to rebuild my hard drive

Ok, I have my hard drive partioned with 3 partions. One for 10.6, 10.8 and Boot Camp
I would like to wipe the drive clean and just have one partion.
I am done with PeeCee's and there is no need to 10.6
So, How can I wipe the drive clean???
I do have a MacPro 8 core and I do have Time Machine for my MacBook Pro
Can I use my MacPro to clean it completely?
what I am wishing is that I can do this only on my MacBook Pro?
That would be so nice if I can do everything on my MacBook Pro

Clone system drive
Boot with Command + R depressed
Start Disk Utility and repartition disk to one partition
Restore clone to single partition
Allan

Can I initialize my hard drive and install from an external DVD drive?

My PowerBook's showing signs of problems and I think it needs to be reinitialized. The only sticking point is that its Super Drive is jammed and I can't get an audio CD out that's been stuck in there for an embarassingly long time. Last year I was able to update OS X from Panther to Tiger with my external firewire DVD-RW. It booted from the external drive without any problems and the update went smoothly. Now, though, I want to boot from the external drive so that I can erase and rebuild my hard drive. Does anyone foresee any problems doing that?
PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

should be no problem - external drive can be either selected as startup drive form System Preferences or by holding down "option" key on restart.
after machine is booted from the external drive, formatting/installing supposed to work.
if there is power on built-in optical drive, sometimes it's possible to get stuck disc out by poking at it with some thin stiff piece of paper like business card etc.

My hard drive is full, and it will not let me delete anything... :(

hello, so here is the story...
i bought my iMac about a little more than half year ago and i really like this mac. About 3 months ago, my computer started popping up me hard drive is full messages, and i did not really bother to delete any files. Because i have been using computers before this one, and i have never used up all the spaces before and the computer i have used before had even smaller hard drives. At the time i did not think it is going to effect my usage of this computer so i kept on using it. After about a month, while i was using my computer, it suddenly shut down and when i restart it my desktop is a plain blue background, with no wallpaper or any icons. Then i tried to delete some files, but when i try to do so, i can not even open up my applications or any kind of window. The only thing that i can open is safari, so right now i can only serve the internet, can not even watch any videos or movies online...
can anyone tell me how to delete files right now, because my hard drive is so limited right now, i can not even open up anything, so there is no way to delete any files

In all your use of computers, did you learn how to recover your backups and have a good backup strategy in place?
Or are you going to need help now on backups, recoverying files (already some good threads to just re-read), and rebuild your hard drive.
For starters you will need one or more external drives, and install OS X on one of them and use one or part of one for recovering files.
You should be able to free up space. Just go to your home account folder / library / caches and trash anything to do with Safari like Metadata cache folder to free up a little.
You don't need to "open" anything other than Finder. And you probably want to boot with SHIFT KEY at the least on startup - continue to hold shift key until you hit the desktop.
But you really should not or limit any use of this hard drive, and work from and boot from another hard drive for now.
Pick up some USB/FW drives:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire

How can I save a session to another hard drive or flash drive?

I want to rebuild my hard drive but I want to save the Firefox session (like 70 tabs) before I do so I can reload them after the rebuild. Can I save a session to another hard drive or flash drive?

The data of the current session is stored in the sessionstore.js file in the profile folder.
See also:
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox
You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:
*Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

Magically Restored Files after Hard Drive Replacement? Confused...

Ok so I don't really need help, but I'm confused as to how this is possible.
Okay, so my backyard got struck by lightning a week ago. My Macbook Pro was working fine after the strike until like 2 days later when it started kernel panicking on start up and wouldn't boot OS X. Took it to the genius bar, they said they probably needed to replace the logic board. 5 days later, I go to pick it up and they said they had to replace the logic board, hard drive, superdrive, and some other cables inside. I asked if my data was lost, and they said they tried to restore it but they couldn't and recommended to go to an outside tech person to try to recover it if it was really important but didn't recommend it because it would be very expensive because they would have to essentially rebuild the hard drive. I was upset because they said they would call me if they had to replace the hard drive and I was never notified. The guy felt bad for me, so they let me keep my old hard drive instead of sending it back to apple for investigation or whatever. So I leave the Apple store, and turn on my computer to make sure it works and lo and behold all my stuff is there. I checked to make sure documents worked and all my music and photo files opened correctly.
So I am happy that I didn't lose anything, but very confused as to how a replaced hard drive contains my old data when the Apple store said they couldn't get it back. And I still don't know what is on the hard drive they gave me. I'm pretty sure they actually did the replacement because I signed a sheet stating that they did so.
So could the apple store have just been confused? i've been trying to figure it out and can't understand how all my stuff is magically back. and i don't know what to do with the hard drive that they gave me. any thoughts on my magically reappearing files?

Hi r,
I suspect neuro is correct, but if you're still curious, one more thing you could do is purchase a connector or enclosure for the HD they said is your old one, and see if it will mount when connected to another Mac. If so, open it and check it out to see if it really is.

Faulty external hard drive displays no files

I work at a school IT Helpdesk supporting Macbooks and a student brought in an external HD that appears to be missing files. The HD is a WD My Passport 500GB (FAT32 format). The students says the drive is always ejected properly. You can see the folders on the drive, but the Finder displays nothing in them - I get a spinning circle on the bottom bar. I run Disk Utility on the drive and it says that it couldn't unmount nor repair the disk (see attached image)
Before I decided to do what Disk Utility recommends - back up, format and restore - I opened up Grand Perspective and had it scan the drive to see what's on it. When it finished, the files were visible again. If I eject the drive and plug it back it in, the files are no longer visible. Disk Utility still has a problem with the drive, so I'm going to attempt to back it up first.
Does anyone know what's going on here? Has the entire drive corrupted?

Open Disk Utility on your internal hard drive, select the external hard drive, and run Disk Utility's "Repair Disk" routine. If it finds and repairs any problems, run it repeatedly until no further problems are reported. If problems are still reported after half a dozen Repair Disk run-throughs, you'll need DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro to rebuild the hard drive directory effectively.

Disk utility Failure/Unable to open Hard drive with a double click

After trying to use Disk Warrior for maintanance last week my entire hard drive crashed.
I've spent the last week rebuilding only to encounter a new problem..i can not open the hard drive with a double click.
I attempted to run Disk utility to diagnose the problem and was told that the "program had lost connection and was unable to verify/repair disk permissions...and was told to shut down disk utility, which i ran from the install disk...
Any suggestions aside from erasing and rebuilding the hard drive?
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Victoria

Hi Ana,
Try this link Disc Utility lost connection ......
Hope that this will help you to solve the problem.
When this was help full ore solved your problem Why award ponits?
Dimaxum

Trashed Hard drive

Hi all, can any one please tell me how to rebuild my hard drive after the entire contents were dumped in the trash by the previous owner.I have tried starting up from the instal disc but only get kernel panic.

Hi pixel-8,
Welcome to the forum.
The fact that you are getting a Kernel Panic when attempting to startup from the Mac OS CD/DVD may indicate a hardware issue, more than likely RAM. I would suggest you remove any additional memory modules and try again.
If you have further questions can I suggest that you post them in this forum:
Forum: Using your iMac (Flat Panel)
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=872
This is the iMac (Early 2006) forum and I'm sure that if you have further issues then the users who frequent the iMac (Flat Panel) forum will be able to suggest further alternatives for you to try.
Good luck.
RD

My computer just had to get a new hard drive and we reloading info onto the new hard drive...my iphoto pics are all, there save about 8, but there are NO thumbnails. I tried rebuilding the thumbnails...nothing. I tried creating a new library...nothing.

I have recently had to purchase a new battery and hard drive. Because it wouldn't back up completely, I was able to recover most information, but it looked a bit different or I have found items in different places. One thing that is happening is in iphoto. All my pics are there, but there are NO thumbnails visible. I have tried rebuilding the thumbnails...nothing. I have tried creating a new library...no info even transferred. Any suggestions?

What version of iPhoto?
Can you view the pics at full size?

I moved iTunes and library to new Hard drive M: , now Sync is lost. Need to collect files and rebuild to proper folder.

I installed a new hard drive and partitioned it into 2, P: Pictures: and M: Music: . I moved all my iTunes Files and Folders to the M: drive. Then when I connected my iPhone4 to iTunes it asked if I wanted to create a new sync, I said no but I seemed it couldn't find my old sync file. So I searched my computer for files and folders of iTunes and placed them all into a iTunes folder on the root of M: drive. I need to rebuild the iTunes folder correctly.
I have all the correct items on my iPhone and haven't lost anything. Its just a problem trying to sync. Biggest problem is my music. When I try to sync music there is trouble. I can't seen to remove all music from iPhone and resync. When I thought I did iTunes would say no more music will fit. (Music is normally 70% of my memory on phone and I try and leave 1GB of 16GB free on it).
I wan't to build the iTunes install on the D:\Program Files (x64)\ since I don't install anything on my SSD drive C: except Windows 7.

How exactly did you move the files or more specifically, what did you move?
The correct way to move the iTunes files is to move the ENTIRE iTunes folder (or copy it) from the original location to the new location.
Once moved, hold Shift while launching iTunes and point it to the new location.
If anything other than the ENTIRE iTunes folder was moved, it needs to be put back in the original location to correct the issues created then moved correctly.

Rebuilding aMacBook 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo, hard drive failure so rebuilding system. Aircard will not stop self-assigning IP address. Any ideas how to resolve successfully?

Had hard drive failure on MacBook 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo, so had to rebuild the OS on new drive. Was on Lion 10.7.5 prior to failure, but had to reinstall Snow Leopard 10.6.3 since that was most recent OS on media I had. After finally getting ethernet connection to router working, was able to get to internet and download / upgrade to 10.6.8. I assume I can probably buy the upgrade to Mountain Lion 10.8 from there.
Problem is this, Airport will not stop self-assigning IP address for my wireless connection, and unless I can get wireless back on this laptop, doesn't make a lot of sense to continue the rebuild and reinstall of all the software that was on it prior to HD failure. Only way to my home network and router is ethernet now. Everything else on my network (Apple MacBook Pro laptops, iPhones, desktops, and non-Apple printers and laptops) is hooking up to router wirelessly fine.
Any ideas how to resolve successfully so that the airport will stop self-assigning and allow the router to assign the IP address?

When see the beachball cursor, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.
Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Rebuild a hard drive

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