Doing a clean install
10.4 (current patches)
I want to do a full format and os re-install on my iMac (intel). I have an brand new external drive (1TB) and want to backup my stuff.
Question:
Do it manually? (the old school backup your music, files, photos etc) via drag and drop, then 'hope' that my meta data etc. (playcounts in itunes) xfer
Do it with TimeMachine (can it do this?)
Use some other 'mac transfer' utility? (think there used to be something buried in utilities for swapping macs)
Lastly.. other then application re-installs, what gotchas should I watch for? (like do I need to de-authorize my itunes before my reinstall?)
Thx!
I want to do a full format and os re-install on my iMac (intel). I have an brand new external drive (1TB) and want to backup my stuff.
Question:
Do it manually? (the old school backup your music, files, photos etc) via drag and drop, then 'hope' that my meta data etc. (playcounts in itunes) xfer
Do it with TimeMachine (can it do this?)
Use some other 'mac transfer' utility? (think there used to be something buried in utilities for swapping macs)
Lastly.. other then application re-installs, what gotchas should I watch for? (like do I need to de-authorize my itunes before my reinstall?)
Thx!
Comments
There is a program called Superduper! that can create a mirror image of your drive. What I suggest is backing up your system data to an external that can hold all the data and since the backup becomes bootable use the Migration tool once you have installed your new hard disk and installed Mac OSX. That way your account should be as you left it (when you last clicked back-up) and the extra free space on the new disk is accounted for.
I would not do it manually, play counts do not transfer and it becomes messy especially with iTunes recognizing files. Especially with larger libraries. If you back up using superduper you just have to re-authorize the computer to play the files. If the method followed above is used, you shouldn't need to de-authorize your computer.
-open Get Info on your external drive, and turn off "ignore permissions"
-open a terminal and type: ditto -rsrcFork -V /Volumes/Macintosh\\ HD/Users/ /Volumes/External\\ Disk/backup/Users (You can you a bunch of other data copying apps like rsync, but I don't know the syntax off the top of my head)
The above command assumes your internal HDD is called Macontosh HD, and your external drive is called External Disk, you should change those names accordingly. What the command will do is copy your entire Users directory (for all accounts except root, which I hope you're not in for your day-to-day use) from the internal disk to /backup/Users on the external one while preserving your user permissions.
-Install the fresh OS on the internal drive
-open Get Info on your external drive, and turn off "ignore permissions" if it's been turned back on.
-open a terminal and type: ditto -rsrcFork -V /Volumes/External\\ Disk/backup/Users /Volumes/Macintosh\\ HD/backup/Users/
The above command will copy your user data back to the internal drive. As long as you create your new account with the same account name as you had previously, you should have your account pretty much identical to what it was before, not counting applications you haven't installed yet, and that kind of thing. Just make sure you turn off the "ignore permissions" option on the drive you are copying to.