Time Machine and Finder not working

I have Mac OS 10.6.3. My internal harddrive is full but I cannot back up my data on external hard drive. I tried moving files to external drive using Finder but Finder never finish the transfer and hung. Finder works okay but hang up when dealing with external drive. I tried to force quit finder and relaunch. But on relaunch it is giving me error 10810 and says :"finder cannot be launched". I have to force Macbook shut down. I tried Time Machine but it also hang and I have to shut everything down.
I have bought bigger hard drive and used disk utility (restore) to clone my hard drive. But I won't get rid of this problem. I won't be able to back up my data by upgrading hard drive as it is clone of my old hard drive and will carry all problems forward.
any suggestions how I can get rid of this problem? I want to backup all my data and some applications too which I have paid for but lost installation CDs.

nasarke wrote:
Invalid sibling link
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
Does this means that I cannot retrieve any data form this disk. This is the only disk I have with all my data.
This is your backup disk, right? You still have the original data, on your +internal HD,+ don't you?
See the pink box in #A5. Those errors are some that +Disk Warrior+ can often repair. As it says, your only other option is to erase the disk and start over.
I will buy new external drive and try to back up with time machine. I have few questions
Ideally, you need one disk for Time Machine, another for a "clone." If it's large enough, you can put them in separate partitions on the same drive, but when it fails (and they all do, sooner or later), you risk losing both.
1. Should I clone new drive (I haven't installed it yet) with my repaired internal drive before I install it.
That would be safest. Then you can boot up from it to be sure it's working ok. Run a +*Verify Disk+* on it, and use many of your apps to confirm that everything's ok before taking the old HD out.
2. Is there any difference between using Disk utility or with Super Duper.
Yes. Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. They're designed for this, and when/if necessary, you can run updates to them. With Disk Utility, you can only run a whole, new "clone."
3. Should I partition new external hard drive I buy.
If you're going to use it for other things besides Time Machine backups, yes. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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