how to set up my backup drive?

acc30 said:

Just bought this last night, in need to backup everything before I leave for vacation.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0926INGFS10087567&catid=20238&logon=&langid=EN


How can I partition the harddrive, so that one partition will be an exact copy of the internal drive in my mac, which I'd like to be able to boot from in case the internal one fails; and have separate partitions for music and photos, personal work files and my sister's work files. My sister uses a PC, will this present any problem?

What software do I need?

Thanks a lot

Click to expand...

If you use Disc Utility you can partition the hard drive the way you want it. I use SuperDuper to do a bootable backup of my internal HD and it seems to work just fine for me

thanks, imma try to set it up tonight!

help please

as usual, there's probably some small detail I do not know about that would give answer to this....

okay, so I've followed the instructions and I've connected the external drive to my imac, but it says on the instructions something will pop up to tell me what to do next, i guess to set it up... I wait and wait, but nothing. I shutdown and restart and nothing.

Is there something different I have to do to use this drive with a mac?

You probably have to erase then format the disk.

After plugging in the drive, switch it on and then start Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities.

The disk should be there on the left hand side column.
Click on it then click on the tab marked "Erase" then you can go ahead and partition.

Partition it however you want. Make sure the partition for your backing up imac is the same size as the imac internal hard drive.

If a partition is going to be used by both Macs and Windows format it to use MS-DOS file system.

Quick question....

So I've set my partitions, but in options there's these choices

GUID Partition Table
Apple Partition Map
Master Boot Record

I have one partition that will be accessed by PC and MAC, which should I use?

acc30 said:

Quick question....

So I've set my partitions, but in options there's these choices

GUID Partition Table
Apple Partition Map
Master Boot Record

I have one partition that will be accessed by PC and MAC, which should I use?

Click to expand...

GUID : To use the disk to start up an Intel-based Macintosh computer

Apple Partition Map : TO use the disk to start up a PowerPC-based Macintosh Computer or to use the disk as a non-startup disk with any Mac

Master Boot Record : To use the disk to start up DOS and Windows computers, or to use with devices that require a DOS-compatible or Windows-compatible partition.


These only matter if you will use this HDD to boot up.

Storage for both formats (Mac and PC) will work best in MS-DOS File System Format. I only use my External on my mac, and therefore have it formatted Mac OS X extended Journaled with GUID.

thanks to all

now to using super duper for a copy of my internal drive....

so all is done... thanks again for the help

one last thing.... sorry for all the questions.... but just in case my internal drive does fail and does not boot, how do I make it boot from my backup drive?

Hold the option key during startup (after the sound), and it will show two icons (if your external is connected and on. Simply select the drive you want and it will boot.

I did this and it took about the same time to boot to the log in screen...then about 3 times as long after that. I only have my wallpaper and spotlight icon in the top right corner (no dock, no icons, no menu bar) for quite some time.

This is also how you boot into a windows partition when dual booting with bootcamp.

thanks