How to back up Files on Disk Utility

Clone Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue

button.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it

to the Destination entry field.

5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to

the Source entry field.

6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Note that the above clone includes both your internal boot volume and the Recovery HD volume you used for the above. I suggest that the backup disk you use has a larger capacity than the one in your computer. That way you should be able to boot from this backup. Since the drive you have is 500 GBs then the external drive you use for the backup clone should be at least 750 GBs.

Your computer's internal drive is called Macintosh HD. You will format the external drive for OS X and give it whatever name you want or leave it with the default name of Untitled. Your computer's drive is the source drive. The external drive is the destination drive.

Yes, the problem is because you have allowed the drive to become filled resulting in a corrupted directory or worse that has made the disk unbootable. For future reference you should always maintain at least 20 GBs of free space or 10% or the drive's capacity, whichever is greater. And, you will make life much easier by having and maintaining regular backups.

If you have a lot of data to transfer it can take quite a while over USB. 10 hours isn't out of the question for a few hundred GBs, more or less.

Once everything is transferred to the external drive you can boot the MBP from it in order to completely erase the drive on the MBP. You can also connect the external drive to another Mac and restore all or some of your files to that Mac.

You are attempting to run a current version of iPhoto on an incompatible version of OS X. What you need to do is boot the computer from the version of OS X that was installed when iPhoto had been installed. Try booting the computer from your backup.

You need to boot from your backup disk using:

Boot Using OPTION key:

1. Restart the computer.

2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the

"OPTION" key.

3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.

4. Select the desired disk icon from which you want to boot.

5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

Once booted from the backup drive then:

Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility

1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag

it to the Destination entry field.

5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to

the Source entry field.

6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the now erased internal drive. Source means the external backup drive.

Once booted from the backup drive you need to partition and format the internal drive:

Drive Partition and Format

1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.

2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

The first part is booting from your backup drive. The second is repartitioning and reformatting the internal drive. Restoring your files is simply Cloning but reversing the Destination and Source drives. The backup drive from which you are booted becomes the Source while the newly formatted internal drive becomes the Destination.

If you don't boot from the backup, then how were you planning to boot the computer so you could repartition and format the internal drive?

I'm sorry, but I can't help you with the backup itself on the external drive. If you can see your files there, then the backup should be OK. I suppose that on the external drive you have a clone of your internal drive's Macintosh HD and another that is the Recovery HD. As for using your backup that is another matter. If you cannot boot from either of the partitions on the backup drive, then the originals must have been damaged. Using your data, however, will require you to boot the compute, install a working OS X, then transfer your files over so you can test if they are intact.

Do you know exactly which MBP model you have?