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#1 2005-03-07 7:24 am
- ultra
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- Registered: 2005-03-07
- Posts: 15
Best way to make a backup
I'm about to upgrade one of our G5's to 10.3.8 and after reading all the bad experieces people have had I want to make a "restore" disk. I'm a bit of a noob to the OSX world so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!!
Shannon
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#2 2005-03-07 7:42 am
- Dunkin'
- Mom Bo'
- From: Over the hills and far away
- Registered: 1999-10-15
- Posts: 3300
Re: Best way to make a backup
First get an external firewire drive that is at least as big as the drive you are backing up.
Then use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
Finally check that the back up actually is good. Boot from it.
Reasoning:
First if you just back up some documents and such you will need to re-install applications and adjust preferences in the unlikely event of a major OS update problem. Remember the OS keeps receipts for software installed and a bunch of other voodoo that is a pain to lose.
The apps mentioned will clone your existing HD to your firewire drive. Exact duplicate.
Well it should be an exact duplicate. Better test to be sure.
P.S. I had no problems at all in updating my PowerMac G4 dual 867, my iBook 700 and my mom's iBook 700 all to 10.3.8
Repair permissions on your machine BEFORE the update. Ok? Good.
1/φ = φ-1
Dron't dink and dive.
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#3 2005-03-07 11:29 am
- ultra
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Re: Best way to make a backup
Thanks for the input. Always do the repair before updating and so far I haven't had any problems with previous updates. I'll give it a shot and let you know.
Thanks!!
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#4 2005-03-07 2:02 pm
- ultra
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Re: Best way to make a backup
Ok...tried using Carboncopy and it made the back up but it doesnt appear to be bootable? Is there something I needed to do differently or something else I need to do yet?
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#5 2005-03-07 2:09 pm
- brainiac_7
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Re: Best way to make a backup
It's been a while, but I believe there should be a checkbox in CCC that allows a bootable cloning. The only other snag I can think of is that OS X is sometimes finicky about bootable FW drives. My LaCie FW 400 drives are bootable, while my LaCie FW800 drive, for some reason, isn't.
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#6 2005-03-07 2:12 pm
- ultra
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Re: Best way to make a backup
Yeah I'm really hoping it's not the drive because the company will never put up for another one. LOL. I did click on the "bootable" button persay but I'm thinking maybe it didnt really finish?
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#7 2005-03-07 10:03 pm
- djdawson
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- From: Minnesota, USA
- Registered: 2001-04-19
- Posts: 1860
Re: Best way to make a backup
I don't know why I don't see more mention of it, but I've always had very good luck using the "Restore" feature of Disk Utility to make a bootable copy of a hard drive. If you want to be more selective and just copy parts of the original, then the other tools are nice (or you can use the command line command "ditto", which I believe is all that CCC really does), but for a complete copy, Restore works pretty well.
HTH
Dana
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#8 2005-03-08 6:34 am
- ultra
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Re: Best way to make a backup
I was wondering about that. So you've done them just using disk utility's built in restore feature? Any tips or just follow along?
Thanks for the input.
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#9 2005-03-08 8:48 am
- ultra
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- Registered: 2005-03-07
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Re: Best way to make a backup
Worked great with the Disk Utility...thanks a million!
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