Creating backup with external USB drive

If you want it read by windows, here's what you do:

1. Plug the USB drive into your Windows computer
2. When you try to open up the USB drive a pop-up will come up saying: the disk in drive * is not formatted, would you like to format it now? the * can be any letter. click yes
3. After it is formatted, plug it into your Mac
4. It SHOULD show up on the desktop as no-name or something (depending on what kind it is, but you'll know when you see it)
5. Now if you want to (you don't have to) you can name it USB Drive or anything you want.
6. Double click your USB Drive, a window will come up
7. Drag all the files you want to back up into that window.

AND THERE YOU GO.
All the data is backed up.
Hopefully you bought a pretty big USB Drive, because I don't think it will hold your entire hard drive. When you said USB Drive, did you mean external hard drive or flash drive. Either way this will work on both of them.

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Small HD

i dont know about having the drive accessible by a windows PC

but to create a mirror backup

- divide the drive in 2 40GB partitions with DiskUtility.

- get the free CarbonCopyCloner or the more friendly shareware SuperDuper and clone the ibook drive to one of teh external drive partitions.

The iBook wont boot from a USB drive [only from a Firewire], still if you need to restore from the backup you can boot from the DVD it came with and then restore with Disk Utility

stefano

Im wondering this myself. Im about to replace my hard drive, but have no idea how to restore my backup once i have the new drive installed.

USB is not bootable, so you won't want to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your iBook. (You won't have a process of getting it back off the USB hard drive and onto your iBook if you needed to.)

I think partitioning the USB hard drive into two 40GB drives is a good idea. This way you can have one drive with your full backup and the other for other files.

If you've already partitioned your USB hard drive, you can put your Mac OS X install disk into the iBook's drive, restart and hold down on the "c" key. This will startup the iBook from the install disk. You will be asked to choose a language, but don't continue with the installer past the next screen. Instead, choose to open the Disk Utility form the Utilities menu. In the Disk Utility, select the name of your hard drive on the left-hand side (probably "Macintosh HD") and then select the "Restore" tab on the right-hand side. Drag the icon of your "Macintosh HD" to the "Source" field and then drag the name of your backup hard drive to the "Destination" field. If you select the option to "Erase Destination" (which should be fine), the Disk Utility will move blocks of data rather than individual files and it should copy faster. When you're done, you can quit the Disk Utility and then quit the Installer to restart back to your iBook's hard drive.

This process won't allow you to do an incremental backup (only backing up files that have changed since the last backup), you'll have to do a complete backup each time. But, you can use the install disk to "restore" the other direction back to your iBook's hard drive if you ever needed to.

I've never actually made a backup to a USB drive, I've always used FireWire. It's possible, that since USB is not bootable, if you "restore" your backup back to your iBook, you might not be able to boot from it. That's something I would have to experiment with to find out for certain. But, maybe someone else could verify that doing a restore from a USB drive is still bootable.

-Doug

While Douglas's post will work, I definitely recommend SuperDuper!. It is by far one of the easiest and comprehensive backup utilities there is. It can be bought for $27.95 at shirtpocket.com

The reason I recommend SuperDuper! is that it is much more user-friendly and has many features that Disk Utility does not.

With SuperDuper! (which is very easy to use...you'll pick up how to use it without a hitch) you will initially create a full clone of the internal Mac HD onto the external. But, as you know, files on the internal HD will change or get deleted. In order to have the external HD look just like the internal you can perform a Smart Update. This will add to delete files from the ext. HD so it mirrors the internal HD.

Best thing, however, is that they take about 10min which means they can be done every night! Then you'll always have a very recent copy incase the internal dies suddenly..as they usually do. In addition, the Smart Updates can be scheduled to be performed every day at a certain time. Then you don't even have to think about it.

Disk Utility can't be perform incremental updates- you'd have to erase the external and re-clone each time. This can take 1hr +.

Disk Utiliy can't be scheduled.

In regard to allowing the PC to view files on the Mac formatted HD you could invest in MacDrive 6. It allows PC's to read Mac formatted HDs. It's a tad pricey at, I think, $69.95.

Hope this all helped!

However, Abe, I would NOT recommend SuperDuper! for a USB drive for the same reason I wouldn't recommend Carbon Copy Cloner. If you make a backup to a USB drive using SuperDuper!, how do you get it from the hard drive back to the iBook? You won't be able to boot from your backup on a USB drive. You would still have to use the Mac OS X install disk and the Disk Utility. Sure, it may help you make incremental backups, but I leave my PowerBook making a complete backup over night once a week with the Disk Utility, it's not a real inconvenience since I'm usually asleep the whole time. 🙂

-Doug

I still recommend using SuperDuper!.

It is much easier to use, much faster, and very pain free as you can schedule it.

And if you were in a situation where your HD failed you could always perform and Erase & Install using the Install Disks and then just copy over your home folder from the ext. HD onto the internal HD.

In addition, I'm pretty sure you could follow the outlined process if your HD failed:

1) Boot from the Mac OS X install disks

2) Plug in the external USB HD.

3) Open Disk Utility

4) Select the Source as the ext. USB HD and the Destination as the internal HD.

5) Click Restore

I mainly recommend SuperDuper! because it is the most user friendly backup app. It provides efficient full clones which can be followed up by Smart Updates. It can also be schedule.

Disk Utility doesn't not have any of these functions.