booting from external HDD with a complete image of the internal drive

P

PowerPC

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Hi, everyone.

I'm running OS X 10.4.11 on a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro and I want to make a copy of the entire internal HDD on a external (500 Gb) drive, so that I would be able to boot from the external hard-drive... I'm interested in doing it because I want to have a back-up for the internal HDD... in case it fails, I'll just plug-in the external HDD, boot from it and continue working using <b>only</b> the external HDD, which will be an image of the actual internal one.

Please tell me if this is possible? If yes, how exactly do I create a bootable, full disk image of the entire internal HDD, how do I copy it on the external HDD and how do I boot from the external drive?

Thank you very much in advance.

PPC
 
The simplest method would be to download CarbonCopy... (free)
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

then follow the very easy, foolproof steps to Clone your boot drive.
Make sure that your external has been partitioned using the "GUID Partition Table", do this from "Disk Utility" found in your Applications-Utilities folder.

This will create a fully bootable copy of your boot drive on a USB 2.0 or Firewire external drive.
 
You can boot from your install DVD. Go to utilities/disk utility and click on the external HD in the left hand column. First select partition and under the volume scheme area there is a drop down box that says current. Select 1 partition. To the right of that name is not important however make sure you can distinguish it from the internal drive. Below that make sure the format is Mac OS extended (jouraled). Then a very important step which could make or break this whole project is to click the options button and make sure GUID is selected. After this click apply and then you will be partitioned and formatted properly.

Next, select the restore tab. As the source volume select your internal HD and drag and drop it to the source box. Then select your external HD and drag and drop it to the destination box. The erase destination box does not need to be selected since repartitioning in the previous step took care of that. Next click restore and wait a couple hours or so and when its finished the progress bar will disappear, then you can restart and check it out.
 
Hi!

Many thanks for your answers. I didn't have time to backup my hdd, but I'll do it soon.

On the other hand, how do I boot from an external USB hard-drive? I guess there is a key I have to press at boot time, right? :) Which one is it? :)

Thanks a lot!

PPC
 
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