WPR Mac Help

 A while back, I wrote some articles (here, here, and here) on how to back up your Mac in case of disaster.  As our Macs collect more and more important stuff (like photos, music, movies, e-mail, contacts, and the list goes on and on), keeping all this safe in case of catastrophe becomes even more important.  Fortunately for us, Apple has made this drop dead simple in the new OS X 10.5.

In this article, we’ll talk a bit about just how this new backup system (dubbed “Time Machine”) works and some of the implications.

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In previous posts, we covered a way to make a complete and total backup of your Mac. That’s great, but it can take a very long time to complete, and it’s not very automated. A good backup system needs to be non-intrusive and automated so it can happen regularly.

Here we’re going to cover a method of backing up your personal data that can be done every day with very little trouble. Used in concert with the occasional “ultimate backup” we covered earlier, you’ll be in great shape if something ugly happens.
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In my last post, I talked about how to create a full and complete backup of your Mac’s hard drive. With this you can restore your computer to exactly what it looked like when you created the backup. This comes in very handy if, for example, your hard drive was replaced or you did some major software upgrade and you just didn’t like the way it went. I’ve used this procedure when I’ve upgraded to a larger hard drive in a machine.

This article is about how to use that backup you’ve made to restore some or all of your data.

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There are times when it would be nice/helpful/necessary to have an exact duplicate of our entire computer. Perhaps we’re going to get a new hard drive, or we’re about to do a major upgrade, and we’d like a little insurance policy if things go wrong. If you’re sending your machine in for repair, it’s always a good idea to have a backup.

In this article, I’ll show you how to make the most complete backup possible. It’s called making a “disk image” of your hard drive. We’ll basically be taking an X-ray of your Mac and tucking it away for safe keeping. It’s what I use as a just-in-case plan whenever I do any kind of major surgery on a machine. As Murphy’s law goes, if you have it, you won’t need it.

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