Why do I need a bootable copy of my hard drive?

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Level 1

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Why do I need a bootable copy of my hard drive?

A little while ago I got a little too enthusiastic about reclaiming space on the drive and mistakenly deleted my Receipts folder. So far the eMac is fine, but I've been advised I should perform an archive and reinstall of the system, and, just in case, to make a bootable backup of my hard drive first, and to buy an external hard drive that could make such a copy.

My question is why I need a bootable copy of the hard drive. I'm a light user (internet, Quicken, no video games, movies or graphics processing), and after deleting duplicate mp3 files, unused printer drivers, stripping unneeded languages from programs, and cleaning out those un-deleted files left after deleting programs, I'm down to 13G used on my 40G hard drive (and the old beast just whizzes around). I can save that much stuff on my (new) 16G USB drive, which won't be bootable. So, why should I worry about bootability?

eMac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Oct 17, 2009 3:49 PM

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Answer 1

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Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Oct 17, 2009 4:56 PM in response to litterbuggy

A bootable hard drive is handy for making a complete copy of everything on your hard drive.

If you have no bootable clone and your hard drive suddenly up and dies (happens all the time and without warning), you have to send the computer out for a hard drive replacement (might take several days), and when you get it back, reinstall all your software and restore your data from backups (several more hours).

If you have a bootable clone, and your main hard drive breaks, you can just boot up into the backup drive and continue working as if nothing happened.

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Answer 2

litterbuggy Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 17, 2009 5:25 PM in response to Király

Aha! Now I understand. I had the silly idea that I would be re-copying the backup onto the new hard drive.

If my hard drive croaks I'll (finally!) upgrade to an iMac, which would mean transferring my personal files, preferences, data, and (presumably) 3rd party software to the new computer. However, I wouldn't want to be caught without a computer until I got a new one. Ergo, I'll go for bootability.

How can I tell whether an external hard drive is bootable? Any suggestions--especially for drives I might find on Overstock? I'm feeling stingy these days.

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Oct 17, 2009 9:14 PM in response to litterbuggy

For an external drive to be bootable on an eMac (or any Mac with a PowerPC processor), the drive must have a FireWire interface. Firewire is also known as IEEE 1394.

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Answer 4

litterbuggy Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 17, 2009 11:48 PM in response to Allan Jones

Check. If I understand what I'm reading online, it seems that any external firewire hard drive can be formatted and partitioned for OSX. Aside from that, is there anything else I should look for in terms of allowing me to make my bootable backup?

Perhaps it's just because it's late, but I'm thinking maybe I should just break down and spring for a retail Mac-ready hard drive from OWC or the like.

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Answer 5

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Oct 18, 2009 7:35 AM in response to litterbuggy

...maybe I should just break down and spring for a retail Mac-ready hard drive from OWC or the like.

That's who I went to when I needed a bootable external. However I bought an enclosure because I had a spare 500GB drive at hand. Mine is FW only. Were I buying one today, I'd get one with both FW and USB interfaces so it would boot the Intel Macs as well as our collection of older models.

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Answer 6

litterbuggy Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 18, 2009 10:48 AM in response to Allan Jones

You know, I think you're right. I'm marking this solved because you just validated my thought. My to-do list is long enough without hovering over a hard drive for a couple of evenings and hoping and praying I do things right.

The Apple store is open today, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow and toddle over to our local Mac reseller (buy local-ish!) and pick up something that's plug-n-play. And, even though I've only got a 40G drive, and about 20G to back up, I'll probably end up buying something bigger (and partition a small volume for my backup) so that when I finally do buy a new computer I'll already have a backup drive.

Message was edited by: litterbuggy

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Answer 7

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Oct 18, 2009 11:29 AM in response to litterbuggy

Most of the plug/play ext drive models I see in Apple stores, big-box stores, and the "mart-mart" retailers are USB only, and often come with a pile of Windoze software preinstalled that you can likely live without.

Apple store often carry LaCie drives. They may still have one with both USB and FireWire.

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Answer 8

litterbuggy Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 24, 2009 10:57 PM in response to Allan Jones

MacDocs had a pile of LaCie's in stock, most with FireWire. I picked up an open box 500GB d2 quadra, took it home, partitioned it, and ran Carbon Copy Cloner. Flawless.

Good thing, too. I just bought a discounted 20" last-generation iMac. Now I'll do my archive-install to fix my glitches, and then migrate. Woohoo!

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