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Can I drag and drop entire hard drive into and external hard drive?

I want to back up my MacBook Pro before I send it in for optical drive replacement. However, the Time Machine back up app wants me to erase my external drive and reformat before it can back up my files. I already have information from other computers on the external drive, so erasing and restoring is out of the question.

Can I just drag and drop my hard drives (Macintosh HD and BOOTCAMP) into the external hard drive?
Will that transfer everything?

As a side note, can anyone tell me why Time Machine doesn't work with the external drive? My dad has files on it from his Mac and I have a couple movies saved on it from this one. Is it possible to maybe partition the external drive to accommodate both and reformat only one partition without losing the other saved files?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 11, 2010 11:08 AM

Best reply

Király

Level 6

10,017 points

Posted on Aug 11, 2010 11:31 AM

A Finder copy won't work. It will miss all sorts of essential hidden and system files.

Use a cloning utility like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a complete copy of your hard drive to an external drive.

Time Machine won't work with your external drive because the drive must be reformatted as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). If you go ahead and do that, TM will work with it. As for losing the data already on the drive, BACK IT UP FIRST! Get another external drive if you need to. If you have data you don't want to lose, always back it up.

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18 replies

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Aug 11, 2010 8:18 PM in response to Chris CA

Ah, I guess that's a "no."

I didn't think so, but wasn't sure. Thanks for the confirmation. 🙂

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Aug 11, 2010 8:40 PM in response to Pondini

I think it is possible (read a bit about it before) but I definitely wouldn't suggest it as the primary backup.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Aug 11, 2010 9:09 PM in response to Chris CA

I just tried it, sort of. Created one on an external HD, used the Restore tab of Disk Utility to copy a partition containing my SL Install disc to it.

It doesn't show up as an option in System Preferences > Startup Disk, whether the .dmg was mounted or not.

Can I drag and drop entire hard drive into and external hard drive?