How do I back up and re-install?

T

tigrr

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Unfortunately I'm one of those people who can't help but peek and poke into the insides of things, which in this case means that I've been hacking and messing around with stuff I shouldn't in MacOS as well as software.

The computer is a Powerbook G4 with an 80GB internal drive (around 50GB used), 1.5GB RAM and MacOS 10.4.11, and I was thinking that my external 400GB Firewire drive would do fine for backing everything up (it's got around 120GB free).
After that I can reformat the internal drive, reinstall MacOS (and the updates which I've got backed up -I always keep the stuff that I download, even after having installed it), reinstall the applications I need, then copy my files (and some of the settings if needed) back.

But I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be. Besides, I have 3 different user-accounts set up on this computer and I've never really understood the "ownership" thingy. It was a lot easier with MacOS Classic several years ago.
Another thing: my external Firewire drive has a lot of irreplaceable files which I don't want to lose. I don't mind copying the contents of my Mac's internal drive over to it, but I don't want to risk one of those "clone" type applications to erase and overwrite the external hard drive.
 
... I guess what I'm really asking is:

How can I safely copy the entire contents of my internal Powerbook harddrive over to my external 400GB Firewire drive without erasing what's already on it (the external drive)?

Then, how do I access all of my user-accounts' files in order to copy whatever I want back to the internal hard drive? Do I use the same passwords/usernames as each accounts' data, or is there another method?
 
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner to "clone" your PowerBook drive to a disk image on your external drive. It won't erase your external drive, and to access your cloned files, it would be as simple as mounting the .DMG file and copying back.
 
Just to clarify. After you've created the disk image with CCC, you can boot from the installation DVD and "restore" that image using Disk Utility. People tend to forget that booting from the installation DVD doesn't only give you installation options but also a few tools that can be quite helpful. :)
 
Why do I need special software to do this?
Isn't it enough to simply drag all the folders from my internal drive (or maybe even the whole "Mac HDD" icon) over to the external drive?

Or will this cause problems with permissions when transferring them back to the (newly formatted with a new copy of MacOS installed) internal hard drive?
 
You CAN do that, but you will run into permission problems in certain areas. For example, any documents or files owned by "root" will not copy over (unless you're logged in as root).

Also, some system files currently in use will not copy over.

You can be selective about the copy, if you like -- perhaps just copying over your home folder, if that's indeed where you store all your documents.

I have always been a big proponent of wiping the whole hard drive, installing from the Mac OS X Install CD/DVD using the "Erase and Install" method, then re-installing any applications from their original CDs/DVDs, applying all updates, then selectively copying my documents back over. That way, you end up with a clean system that's problem-free, plus, in the process, you end up "slimming down" your installation by only copying back what you really need.

To answer your question, yes, Carbon Copy Cloner escalates its privileges and does some "fancy footwork" that allows it to copy over files that you wouldn't normally be able to copy. In addition, it creates a "bootable clone" of your system, so if something were to go awry, you could simply use the Mac OS X Install CD/DVD to restore the entire disk image back to your hard drive as if nothing went wrong at all. It's a complete clone of your system, bootable and all (of course, not bootable in image format, but it can be restored to a bootable copy of your hard drive).
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
I have always been a big proponent of wiping the whole hard drive, installing from the Mac OS X Install CD/DVD using the "Erase and Install" method, then re-installing any applications from their original CDs/DVDs, applying all updates, then selectively copying my documents back over. That way, you end up with a clean system that's problem-free, plus, in the process, you end up "slimming down" your installation by only copying back what you really need.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your suggestions and advice.
Yes, I agree with your method of completely wiping the drive and reinstalling everything from scratch; I've done this on various computers in the past when things have gone really wrong.

I've followed the advice of using Carbon Copy Cloner and now have a disk image of my drive. However, I need to reinstall everything from scratch again (some software gets messed up with the 10.4.10 (or was it 10.4.11) update), so I'm not going to go beyond that this time.
I have a few additional questions:

1) If I use "Disk utility" (from the MacOS installation DVD) and erase the disk first, will the disk become complete erased? I find it a bit confusing because it seems that the computer remembers stuff from before. I can't remember exactly what, but some things striked me as odd: setting the language default and stuff like that I think. Could these kind of things be stored in PRAM? I really want to completely wipe the drive and start from scratch you see.

2) What's the correct name for the internal hard drive? It becomes "untitled" if I don't give it a name under Disk utility, but I'm sure it's supposed to be something else, and does it have to be a name without spaces in it?

3) When choosing "custom install" (I need to have X11 installed, which is why I choose that option) I see that there are loads of printer drivers and languages that I probably don't need. Then again, I can't say for sure.
If I opt to leave them out (and save a lot of disk space in the process), can I install them later if I need to?
Are the language options for the menu languages, or for supporting the characters only? In other words, if I choose NOT to install Japanese, will that mean that a document written in Japanese won't be displayed with the proper characters?
 
1) Yes, some settings like sound preferences, keybord settings, etc. are stored in PRAM and not on the hard drive. If you wish to reset these settings as well, restart your computer and hold down command-option-p-r until your computer reboots three times. This clears any settings stored in PRAM.

2) The title of your hard drive doesn't matter -- spaces, no spaces, etc. Name it whatever you want. I would suggest sticking to alpha-numerics.

3) Yes, you can install them later by booting from the OS X Install CD/DVD, or by simply popping in the OS X Install CD/DVD and locating the package installers on the CD/DVD and installing them that way. The language options are a combination of both -- if you elect not to install Japanese or something, you probably won't be able to type in Kanji (or whatever). There is a separate section, I believe, for fonts, so if you wish to view Japanese but not run OS X with Japanese menus, UNcheck the Japanese language, but DO check the Japanese fonts.
 
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