iMac
Hi Crysalice.
You say that you are ready to erase and reinstall now, have you verified that your backup is OK, and do you have all you need to reinstall any non-Apple apps?
I have no idea. I think I will check again. Is there anything special I should make sure I have backed up besides my personal images, music and added apps? Will apps that came with the computer still be there after reinstalled?
Wait a minute, how are you backing up?
On an external drive, Is there something else I need to do on the computer?
I meant what do you use to backup, Time Machine, a cloning program, or do you just copy and paste files as you remember?
Copy and paste files as I remember. I'm not sure how to setup the time machine with my passport. I think it needs to be reformatted first but I couldn't figure out how to do that. Then I just started copy and pasting out of frustration.
I found another thread that may help me on the passport and time machine. I'm going to try that.
Then let's stop until you have a viable backup, this is the one step that can't be undone.
Open Disk Utility and plug your external drive into your Mac, we'll check the format.
Oh, ok, ill do that now, I'm in
Where does it tell you the format
it is formatted to Mac OS Extended
Good, that's correct, now when it becomes the Time Machine drive everything on it will be erased, is there anything unique to the drive?
Oh, and it should be MacOS Extended (Journaled), did you just leave that off or is it absent.
No nothing unique, and it says (case-sensitive journaled)
You should immediately begin using Time Machine to backup your computer to the EHD. Please follow Apple's instructions on how to setup and use Time Machine, they are very easy to follow:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427 click where it says Setting Up Time Machine using an External Drive for instructions. This is the default method for backing up a Mac, it's simple, easy and normally very reliable.
OK.
Go to System Preferences>Time Machine and turn it on, you'll get a warning that the drive will be erased, that's fine. A backup will start fairly quickly but it will take a long time until it is done, until then we can't proceed.
In Time Machine there are 3 controls that will or may be needed, if the drive is not automatically chosen press the Select Backup Disk button and select it, check the Show Time Machine in Menu Bar box and turn it on.
This will result (in a while) in a complete backup of your Mac as it now is, from it we can selectively bring your files back while preserving the new clean system you're going to be installing 🙂
I'm looking for the best way to erase and reinstall my iMac after an invasion
