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Continued from my last post. This morning at work (on my older intel white iMac) I was gathering up files to copy them over to my flash drive but ended up getting distracted so I did not do it (I should have listened to myself).
I was working on our website (just in Firefox) with a couple of other programs running in the background and "wham" in the blink of an eye the dreaded white screen appeared.
I decided it was too late to mess with it tonight so I pressed the power button in the back and it shut down. Then I unplugged it and went home.
In the am I'll try unplugging everything first and see if it powers up (have several peripherals connected). If not then I might try zapping the Pram and then.... whatever else I find on the web.
On this computer I am running Time Machine. On the iMac at work not doing much of anything except the occasional back up to a fash drive (which I failed to do).
I am curiours to know what everyone would recommend as a no drama, easy way to back up in case of a hard drive failure or even a failure of a motherboard or similar.
I have cloned my drives before with Carbon Cloner but I put it on to a fresh drive right away so I have not used CC since.
Not sure what Time Machine would do for me if I had a crash.
What are the other options....
TIA
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If Time Machine has been backing up properly you can do a fresh system install and migrate from the Time Machine backup.
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So I guess, if I can get my iMac working at the office I would be safe to go ahead and use Time Machine.
I have a could of external HDDs I could use.
Didn't know TM could a fresh install.
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1. Do a fresh system install.
2. Migrate data from your Time Machine backup.
You still need a System DVD or other installer. What system?
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My favorite backup;
Big backup drive.
Partition into two volumes, one the size of your system drive. The other is "everything else".
(You could also just use two entirely separate drives...).
Set Time Machine to back up to the "everything else" sized drive. Leave that drive on, leave Time Machine running. Leave it the fuck alone. Don't play with it. Don't try new and exciting ways to turn it off, on, force it to back up at other times, etc. Just let it do it's thing - as designed. Time Machine has its problems for some people, but a good HALF of the problems I read about are from people trying to screw with it, and use it in a manner for which it wasn't designed.
Get Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper, both good tools).
Set it to backup your entire system drive (user data included), every "X" time. I do monthly.
This way in case of disaster, you have a bootable drive with all your stuff no more than 1 month old, PLUS your Time Machine backup, which can restore everything to your bootable backup drive up to an hour or so before your disaster.
You can use the Time Machine backup to restore accidentally deleted or modified files.
If you want to improve this system; add a second (rotating) drive to the montly backup... keep one of your backup set off-site, and swap them every month, or twice a month (depending on your CCC backup schedule(s). )
That's my favorite, anway.
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Just be sure the white lights and speakers are working when you are backing up...
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btfc wrote:
1. Do a fresh system install.
2. Migrate data from your Time Machine backup.
You still need a System DVD or other installer. What system?
Any reason why you couldn't restore everything, including the system, from the TM backup?
Well, I guess if it were corrupted. But if your problem is that the internal HD failed, is that likely?
/Mr Lynn
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bedouin, there may not be anything that can be recovered from a crash, regardless of backup method.
If the data was entirely local, success depends on what you see later after recovery of the OS and application's last state. Some things get cached or automatically saved, some don't. If the data was being sent to a server (say, you were editing an online blog) then success depends on the online application's or account's cache or saved state.
Working in a web browser gives me hope that success won't depend on the local Mac you were using.
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Public Service Announcement:
Don't just backup data to a USB flash drive, also copy that data somewhere else, like onto a spinning hard drive or SSD drive. Flash drives are too fragile, small, and temperamental to use as the only place you store a backup. Backup your data in more than just 1 place - 2, 3, or 4 different places if it's really important data.
Jeff
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The white iMac lives. It booted up fine, I was able to repair permissions and all seems good.
Now I am going to back up my data everywhere!
I think I am gonna attempt to do Paul's method to back up.
Reformatting my 1GB Passport drive and then partion it. This old iMac only has a 250GB drive so it should be pretty easy. Thinking 300GB for the internal drive and whatever is left over will back up the rest.
Need to figure out TM and CC and I should be good to go soon!
Thanks
Matthew
