iBook Backing Up + Cleaning

louis klaassen

I'm looking to give my mum's ibook a really deep clean - backing up, installing panther and putting back on only a few parts and putting the rest on my external hard drive.



I've had really bad experiences with basically copying a hard drive and or petition as an exact copy. For OS 9 I managed to loose a desktop folder and for OS X well that sort of worked but was pretty bodgy.



This time, it would have to work cause it's not my mac, and it has all the tax stuff on it. I've done a basic copy thing, connected the iBook to another mac (we'll call this Mac via firewire and copied it over in OS X by dragging the hard drive icon over to a separate folder on Mac B's hard drive. There are two petitions btw, one with OS X the other with OS 9.



OS X = 10.2.8

OS 9 = 9.2.2



Alrighty, thanks!

Cheers

the angel of the abyss

So what are you saying ?



Was there a question ?



Congratulations you have now learned about drag and drop, nice of you to post that but when you finished the post did you read it through ?



If you had you may have noticed that it was an aimless statement and a waste of your time and others ?



Did you have to hit the submit button ?



Its funny How people get to the submision page and can't find the back button on their browser's !







You Normaly only need to save the files databases and achives of work that you have done on the machine not the whole system!



You will probably find that it fits on a CDR.



Install the new system and reinstall all important Applications if your business software has been updated then check for the latest updates on the net.



If your Mum is a neat person the you will find all the relavent files in the Documents folders in each system or an apropriate folder the She has created at the first level of the disk. Best to ask and think carefully about what you erase also try to back up the tax files from in the Application that created them and save to the external drive that way you are guaranteed to save the important stuff.



The rest can always be reacquired from the original sources. And maybe you will learn something about our annoying tax system !



What you have to ask yourself is what you do on the machine that you know how or even want? to save the results of.



If you do any word processing on the machine you should be backing up that all the time thats a no brainer, do you surf the web want to save your book marks? (most people reach for the Google search field that is built into safari rather than sort through their bookmarks, its quicker!) their in the library folder in your home folder in a folder called Safari.



(not the one in the same folder as the main applications folder thats the root library and is system wide not user specific preferences)



As much as you may want to fix up the computer I personally would wait if she has not done her tax and do it all after the event it just isn't worth the aggravation Really!



GOOD LUCK !



Oh yeah try the Genius Bar forum on the main index it's what these type of questions are for and you will get more responses.

louis klaassen

Hey hey hey, man. Ease it a little, dam don't have to be so stuck up man.



I was seeing if just copying the thing by dragging it was enough or was there more to it? Obviously there is because it's screwed over the time before.



1. The tax is done, and the GST is a bitch (it's the reason for this anyway ). I know about my freakin tax system. I live in the same city as you. I just need it to stay set up properly because MYOB is a **** of a program. Its been a crap since the start, and the person who came to show us how to use it didn't even know anything about macs!? And the pricks who run MYOB didn't even continue updating First Accounts so it will run natively in OS X. We now have to go out and buy a different edition for it to run in OS X. AccoutingEdge or First Edge. They didn't even offer us some discount.



2. I don't want to just copy documents etc I want to copy the whole hard drive structure, system -- everything. Because I want to wipe the machine, put panther on there and a basic strip down version of OS 9 and then put the tax stuff on. Leaving the hard drive copy on my external.



Now, will copying both petitions of the hard drive by dragging them across allow me to copy it exactly to the point where I can put it back on at anytime and have it exactly as it was before this whole palava?



yes, no, but if?



Sorry if my explanation isn't good enough for you. I might just have to stick with the forum I was before. Sorry I'm now acting like an arsehole but for a forum, isn't this supposed to be a place of advice instead of lecture. Geez.

towel

Dragging-and-dropping won't copy most of the system files. Use Carbon Copy Cloner if you really want to make an image of the entire drive. It's pretty painless to use; I used it when I wiped my iBook to install Panther fresh. It literally creates a disc image, which is the only way to preserve all those hidden files and directories. When you want to access the backed-up drive, you double-click the .dmg to mount it, and it appears on the Desktop like any other disc image - in exactly the state it was in when you backed it up.

louis klaassen

Great! Cool, thanks!



This wont do OS 9, so is there an app that will do the same for OS 9? Or will dragging do.



Cheers.

towel

It's been a while since I last used OS9....but IIRC, dragging *will* copy all OS9 files. There aren't any hidden directories or files in an OS9 system, aside from the Desktop database files. There must be a few free backup utilities for OS9, but I don't know them. Check the OS9 section of macupdate or versiontracker.

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by Towel

[B... dragging *will* copy all OS9 files. ... [/B]

confirmed!

louis klaassen

Cool



so just to clarify



OS 9: Dragging

OS X: Carbon Copy Cloner



Sweet, thanks guys.