how can I back up my OS 10.4.11 macBook to and external Hard Drive. I'm most concerned abdout Picutres and my Music library

To make a Clone of your Mac see here...

SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/

CCC http://www.bombich.com

To Manually move your Pictures and Music (iTunes Library) see here...

iTunes: How to move the library to an EHD

iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD

It is important that the External Hard Drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled).

You are looking for a Backup Program...

SuperDuper and CCC are highly regarded products for doing what you desire.

Have a look at them and then decide what you want.

I am also using the OS X ver. 10.4.11. I was not aware that it would be possible to Upgrade to Snow Leopard. If indeed you can do this and you are successful please do let me/us know how you accomplished same.

Tks.

Before buying anything you should first make sure your machine will accept the upgrade you have in mind.

Minimum specs for Snow Leopard. Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard -Read the Technical Specification

Note. You can now buy Snow Leopard from the Apple store on line again.

In the USA. Go to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.)

In Europe or otherwise … call your National Apple Helpline. Find it at … http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57

In the UK … Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (UK) Where the last known price was £14.

Before you start upgrading, back up your files.

Once you have upgraded to Snow Leopard you will need to apply the Combo updater. Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 and follow with a software update to pick up any later improvements.

This seems like links to products to buy. I have an EHD - looking for the steps to back up my MacBook before I attempt an upgrade to Snow Leopard

If you do not wish to make a bootable clone with CCC or SuperDuper which would be the best idea, then you can either follow the steps to move your libraries to an external drive (no purchase required) as posted by AnaMusic. I'm also told that you can create an .img bootable backup with Disk utility; however, I've never tried that and would not be able to say how or that it works as expected. Here is a screenshot from the Help section of Disk Utility (which is in your Utilities folder inside the Applications folder):

I remember CCC as shareware. Web site was changed to say purchase. Still lets you download CCC.

You need the tiger version of ccc.

http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Robert

It changed from shareware about mid 2012.

I downloaded and am running the Tiger version without being forced to pay.

ROBERT

rccharles wrote:

I remember CCC as shareware. Web site was changed to say purchase.

People who previously made a donation get upgrades free.

It's possible older versions are still free.

Ahhh, thanks - wait: what'sTiger???? 👿

FWIW, I was happy to donate - it's good software and he is extremely responsive = it's well worth paying for.