I have a virus on my macbook pro. Can I somehow reset my computer to get rid of it?

Reboot your Mac, then empty the trash.

And, my question?

Lisa Kach wrote:

Sadly, I'm not sure how.

Really easy, buy yourself an external hard drive, it will be the backup drive. I would suggest a USB drive for maximum compatibility with nearly everything, (speed is not essential for this task so the extra cost of a Thunderbolt drive is not warranted). It should be roughly 2 to 3 times the size of the drive in your Mac.

When it arrives you will plug it into the Mac, a dialog box will appear asking if you want to use this drive with Time Machine, you say yes and your backup system is functional.

It will protect you from all kinds of disasters (including losing or having your Mac stolen).

🙂

You're very welcome. 🙂

(and a nod to thomas_r for his highly effective tools)

It is not a good idea to use a Time Machine drive as a storage drive at the same time. I urge you to get another drive and use it for Time Machine exclusively, your method will become an issue as time goes by, and your photo's are not being backed up by Time Machine.

You should keep the drive plugged in as much as you can, permanently (if possible, obviously not with a portable) works best of all. Time Machine will keep a complete history of your Mac, once it's completed the first backup (which may take many hours) it will keep all subsequent changes. You will be able to retrieve a file from long ago (if you suddenly needed that version) or your entire Mac (eg: to a new or another Mac). It will eventually fill up as the history gets longer, that is why buying a big one is better, it takes longer to fill it up.

Lisa Kach wrote:

Oh no! Ok. I won't doubt you now!

I added some general notes about Time Machine, and I will recommend another contributors site: Pondini.org as a remarkable source of information and help with it. Pondini (a contributor here) is no longer with us, but his site is.