Funny you should ask that--I submitted a long essay on that which the
Mods are considering.
I will put it at the end of this. For
you, get an Ex-HD and back up what you have. You may have to work through what I suggest below, but there is also the option of "Archive and Install" from your
Installation Disk which basically gives you a new OS next to your data. THAT may be the best thing to do--I never need to do it because, as I pontificate below, I clone my HD.
Once you sort that out, we can help you with Quicktime. For that we need you to read the stickies so you can give us information about your computer.
Right . . .
The Good Doctor's Guide to Saving Your Butt
Introductory Pontifications:
It seems about once a month we get a "I CAN'T GET MY DATA" or "I can't find my HD," or "I can't find my iPhotos of my daughter's wedding and now she's in a coma after running into a garlic press!" question. I have pontificated on the use of
Disk Warrior [
DW--Ed.] and backing up your data with a
bootable clone created by a program like
Carbon Copy Cloner or
SuperDuper! I never used
Time Machine since it does not make a clone you can actually
boot off of. As the signature shows, I have a Macbook. If/when its Internal Hard Drive [
Int-HD--Ed.] dies, I need to boot off of something so I can order the replacement, and continue ranting on the Interwebs.
Having answered and seen these questions answered numerous times, I felt I might as well document my very recent experience as a reference the next time a teary-eyed Newbie washes up on our somewhat fair shores.
Back in the day, backing up data meant grabbing CDs or even
floppy disks. So, when disaster happened, THE worst thing to hear was the smarmy "well, did you back up your data?"
question that required you to punch the idiot in the face then bring out the garlic press.
Reason for Ex-HD: With a
cloning program, I am set.
I just clone my
Int-HD from my clone! Backing up to a clone with most programs takes about an hour for ~150 GB of data then less-than 10 minutes for updates.
Problems can happen at any time. I decided to compose this after having given this advice a day ago and then having a "problem" arise out of nowhere. Most of the time I have frelled my volume I have "done something stupid"--"I wonder what happens if I delete this folder. . . ."--or my
Int-HD is failing. In this case, I was booted on a clone on an external hard drive [
Ext-HD--Ed.]--to do some work where I did not want to save a bunch of crap on my smaller
Int-HD. I
had been using my
Int-HD happily earlier in the day. During this time, I backed up my
Int-HD to another
Ext-HD clone in the background. When finished, I rebooted and . . .
COULD NOT FIND MY INT-HD
So I booted to the current clone
Ex-HD of Pain. I could "see" my
Int-HD [
of Doom--Ed.] and the most recent clone,
Ex-HD of Mean.
What do I do? How did things go wrong? Is my
Int-HD failing? Why is there not more love in the world?
I Stop What You are Doing!
If your
HD is failing, messing with it will only make things worse. You need to gather the following:
- 1. Installation Disk[I-D--Ed.]
2. And Ex-HD--go out and get one. Yes. "Now." When you move further along the steps you are going to need "somewhere" to put your crap.
The
I-D--usually gray--came with your computer. "BUT I DON'T HAVE ONE!" or "The Toothless Guy behind the bar who sold me this did not include it!"
Well . . . you need to get one!
WARNING: many a poor slob has gone to eBay, found a cheap "gray" disk, only to get a coaster. The
IDs are
machine specific. You either need a
Retail version of the OS that came with your computer or
higher--assuming your computer can run it--or you need to boot off a program that has it--
TechTools is one I will discuss--or you need to boot off another Mac. The last I do not do--there are directions on how to do that on this site. You need to get to
Disk Utility [
DU--Ed.].
II Boot Off of I-D/Retail Disk and Go Run Disk Utility!
Run
Repair until the disk is repaired. When that happens, you are done.
Now, start backing up your data and you will not have to go through this mess again!
But, as you can see, MY
Int-HD is frelled beyond the repair of
Disk Utility . Again, assuming you have not backed up your data. . . . .
III Get Disk Warrior!
I do not get kick-backs from them. I happened to have
TechTools from a previous life. The only advantage is it creates a partition you can boot off of. However, I could not even see THAT partition. It will repair volumes
DU will not. But
DW will repair/find volumes
TT will not. Importantly, BOTH will detect errors that
DU does not. Hold that thought for a bit.
Further, assuming you are in the "I Don't Got No
I-D, or Other Computer to Boot Off Of and My Girlfriend has Left Me for the Neighborhood Drunk" Camp, you
can boot off of the
DW DVD and try to fix things.
If that works--and it usually does--
--you are done. But in my case:
It does not work!
Not only did
DW not work, you can see both
DU and
TT told me "sod off, fat pig!"
So now what? Give up? Become a PC user? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!
THAT--the
Preview function--allows you to make a temporary "picture" of your HD. It is on your desk top:
and you can start moving data. That
iTunes folder? Those photos? The rare and highly illegal French tree fungus videos? Get them and
move them to your Ex-HD. This is why you need an
Ex-HD when you are doing this, particularly if your HD is
failing.
Concluding Pontifications:
The moral of the story is, of course, do not enter unmarked vans even if the driver promises you candy . . . no, wait! The moral is to
clone your primary drive. Whilst I composed this verbiage, I have been booted off the clone, and
SuperDuper! has been recreating my
Int-HD. I may need to get a new
Int-HD . . . which I can do on Al Gore's Interwebs since I have a
clone to boot off of!
Why bother with
DW? Why not just clone your
Int-HD frequently? I will give ANOTHER reason for having
DW: recall I stated that my most recent--within an hour--clone did not show up as "bootable." Indeed, even in
Start Up Disk it would not show up. I ran
DU on it . . . NO ERRORS--but it was still not bootable. So cloning my
Int-HD from it would have created a non-bootable
Int-HD which is as useless as a facial to Geddy Lee. For laughs, I ran
DW on it:
not as many errors as my
Int-HD, and it was repairable. Repair with
DW made it "bootable." My point on that is you do not know
when errors start, and if you are backing up your
Int-HD, and it has errors, guess what you copy?
So I recommend
confirming your clone before you transfer based off of it.
--J.D.
