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6 year old ppc Maci5 is acting strange, colors changing and settings changing. How can I back up the hard drive to save the data before it dies?

Tina
2011-08-21 10:34:00
Tom,did Mike's and Mulder's replies answer your question? Please let us know what worked for you or whether you need more help. Thank you! Tina.
Mulder
2011-08-15 14:23:00
First, there's no such Maci5 model. You must be referring to an iMac of relatively recent vintage.If you want to backup your data, the best solution is to use SuperDuper to backup the entire drive to another external drive. Your Mac doesn't just store critical data in your Home folder; it also stores it in the System folder, and lots of files have special permissions that cannot be duplicated by copying through the Finder. At the same time, backing up your entire drive preserves the state it was in, and lets you restore the entire drive in the same state.As someone who's been supporting Macs for a loooooong time, this is the best, and simplest solution. Do it before it's too late.SuperDuper: http://www.shirtpocket.com/
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Mike
2011-08-15 10:30:00
I guess the best option would be to use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone the entire Hard Drive either to an external Hard Drive or into an image file which you can backup whichever way you want (on an external Hard Disk, Network Storage, ...). Personally I prefer the image file because a Hard Drive would need to be formatted as a HFS+ file system http://www.bombich.com/http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.htmlIf you only want to backup your user files and setting all you have to do is copy the user folder Macintosh HD/Users/username to some safe place (options as above). Unlike a clone you will then have to copy/move backed up files to the newly setup system manually. Wherein with a clone you will be able to use migration manager to get all the files back into the fresh system ~ or do it manually.
Mike
2011-08-15 10:32:00
Sorry, could someone from MUO please fix my post, thanks in advance.
Aibek
2011-08-15 12:52:00
done! :)