HD Backup help needed

Hi John,

How big is your home folder? You may be able to save this to a dual layer DVD and this will include all your preferences, settings and documents, iTunes library, Mail, Stickies, etc.. everything else will be re-installed from the disc. Or you can create a disk image and use it with migration assistant after you re-install the OS.

Sweet Polly

Excellent so far. You have achieved Firewire connectivity between the two computers, have the Cube in Target mode and seem to have enough room in the MacBook to contain the entire contents of the Cube. I'm also assuming that you want to preserve everything in the Cube, just in case.

The thing is that you can't just drag things over with the Finder, since there is a lot of of info that's not apparent and that the Finder will not copy over correctly, such as permissions, file ownership, links, etc. What you need to do in this case is open Disk Utility found in Utilities, select the Cube's HD from the list at left, then in the File menu do a *New/Disk Image from* +<your Cube's disk name here>+ and in the subsequent window type an appropiate name ("Cube backup image.dmg", for example) and choose somewhere in the MacBook to store it. Let it run and you will be rewarded with a complete image of the Cube's HD, that you can use to recover in case the original gets damaged.

Should recovery become necessary, just use the Restore option on the right hand side of the Disk Utility window, select the .dmg image you created as the source, the Cube's HD as the target and let it run to copy everything back to the Cube. Note that even if the system on the Cube gets so damaged that it won't boot, you can always get it in Target mode and access the disk from the MacBook for recovery.

Hi John,

Open a Finder window > Select your hard drive > Open the "Users" folder > Select the iCon of the House with your user name > Drag to the folder on your MB. This should contain all your documents and prefs etc.

This method saves nothing of the System, Applications or anything outside your home folder.

OR

Being that your entire HD is relatively small you can open Disk Utility (MacBook) > Select the Cube's hard drive File > New > New Disk Image from disk1 > Select the folder you made for the destination.
When it's done double click it or select it in Disk Utilities > File > Open Disk Image and make sure everything is there.

This method is the safest as it will save everything that is on your computer including the System, Applications, Users etc.

You can use either of these to do a restore/back-up to your cube when you are ready.

Sweet Polly