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lawrenceots

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I have just got a new MacBook Pro through insurance, however its not working properly and they are just going to do a swap out (its within 28 days). My question is, as I've not yet got time machine for it (indeed any ext hard drive) can I copy the many downloaded apps to say a pen drive or DVDs, and then copy them back onto the new one? Like Aperture, there's a load of photos stored there, and many applications I've downloaded, it's be a right pain having to do it all again!

Thanks! :)
 
Hi Lawrence,

Sorry to hear your having problems there mate.

If it were me and I had to send the computer in for repair or swap it for a different one, I'd back up the whole HD to an external drive via time machine and when your kitted up with the replacement computer, use the migration assistant to transfer you data.

External HD's can be bought fairly cheaply these days and are valuable for future potential issues and more importantly, general file storage.

If your not able to get an external HD then things will be a little more involving.

Your photo's or raw files, music, video and other documents can indeed be copied over to DVD or other storage media such as USB memory sticks if they're big enough ;)

Your applications will have to be installed again, although this is time consuming it's the only option I can see that will be the most successful.

Hope this helps ;)
 
Tyke Tiler said:
Hi Lawrence,

Sorry to hear your having problems there mate.

If it were me and I had to send the computer in for repair or swap it for a different one, I'd back up the whole HD to an external drive via time machine and when your kitted up with the replacement computer, use the migration assistant to transfer you data.

External HD's can be bought fairly cheaply these days and are valuable for future potential issues and more importantly, general file storage.

If your not able to get an external HD then things will be a little more involving.

Your photo's or raw files, music, video and other documents can indeed be copied over to DVD or other storage media such as USB memory sticks if they're big enough ;)

Your applications will have to be installed again, although this is time consuming it's the only option I can see that will be the most successful.

Hope this helps ;)
Click to expand...


Thanks for that! I've just ordered a 160 gb hard drive ( I prefer many smaller ones rather than one massive one!) so that should arrive soon. I've got a couple of 16 gb flash drives, so just about enough for the apps I think.
tks,

Lawrence :)
 
  • Get your external drive, plug it in.
  • Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
  • Select Macintosh HD in the column on the left.
  • Click New Image in the toolbar at the top of the window.
  • Choose your external HD to save it to

When it's done, you'll have a complete backup of everything on your MacBook's hard disk saved in a .dmg file.

When you get your new MacBook Pro, set it up using a temporary account with a different name to the one you used for your original machine.

Once that's done, you can then open the disk image from the external drive and use Migration Assistant (also in /Applications/Utilities) to copy back everything of yours to exactly where it was on the old computer, including all your data, applications, network settings, etc., even your Desktop picture and placement of your icons.

edit: this is also a useful procedure if you want to take a backup at a point in time before doing major system upgrades and the like.
 
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Musicman said:
  • Get your external drive, plug it in.
  • Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
  • Select Macintosh HD in the column on the left.
  • Click New Image in the toolbar at the top of the window.
  • Choose your external HD to save it to

When it's done, you'll have a complete backup of everything on your MacBook's hard disk saved in a .dmg file.

When you get your new MacBook Pro, set it up using a temporary account with a different name to the one you used for your original machine.

Once that's done, you can then open the disk image from the external drive and use Migration Assistant (also in /Applications/Utilities) to copy back everything of yours to exactly where it was on the old computer, including all your data, applications, network settings, etc., even your Desktop picture and placement of your icons.

edit: this is also a useful procedure if you want to take a backup at a point in time before doing major system upgrades and the like.
Click to expand...


Thanks for that tip :) I've been using a Mac for a year now and hadn't realised it has this sort of thing built in.
 
Musicman said:
  • Get your external drive, plug it in.
  • Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
  • Select Macintosh HD in the column on the left.
  • Click New Image in the toolbar at the top of the window.
  • Choose your external HD to save it to

When it's done, you'll have a complete backup of everything on your MacBook's hard disk saved in a .dmg file.

When you get your new MacBook Pro, set it up using a temporary account with a different name to the one you used for your original machine.

Once that's done, you can then open the disk image from the external drive and use Migration Assistant (also in /Applications/Utilities) to copy back everything of yours to exactly where it was on the old computer, including all your data, applications, network settings, etc., even your Desktop picture and placement of your icons.

edit: this is also a useful procedure if you want to take a backup at a point in time before doing major system upgrades and the like.
Click to expand...

Wow , thanks for that, I'm just doing it now and it's working a treat. :):thumbs:
 
Hi, I could do with some assistance now, if anyone knows anything -

I made a new image to an external hardrive, of the old macs hardrive. Now, just got the new one yesterday, and I opened migration assistant, but when it comes to choosing the option to use a time machine back up or other back up, I click that option and it juct continues on searching for the harddrive, even though its plugged in. I left it on all night just in case itsvery slow in recognising it, but it didn't find it. So, I then tried opening the backup from the harddrive, and when that didn't work I dragged it to the desktop and once it had transferred tried opening it and I just got this error message. saying "no mountable file systems " I am sliiiiiightly worried...a lot of uni work is on this back up as well.. :'(
 
lawrenceots said:
made a new image to an external hardrive, of the old macs hardrive. Now, just got the new one yesterday, and I opened migration assistant, but when it comes to choosing the option to use a time machine back up or other back up, I click that option and it juct continues on searching for the harddrive, even though its plugged in. I left it on all night just in case itsvery slow in recognising it, but it didn't find it.
Click to expand...

As I mentioned in my post, you need to open the .dmg file first, so that it mounts and shows up on the Desktop as if it were a connected HD.

lawrenceots said:
So, I then tried opening the backup from the harddrive, and when that didn't work I dragged it to the desktop and once it had transferred tried opening it and I just got this error message. saying "no mountable file systems " I am sliiiiiightly worried...a lot of uni work is on this back up as well.. :'(
Click to expand...

Do you get the same error when opening the .dmg file from the external HD?

You did test the backup by doing this with your old Mac before it went away? :suspect:

Um, what format is the external HD that you saved the file to? Select it on the Desktop and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder, it'll be under the General section. How big is the .dmg file on the external HD?
 
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Yes, I tried opening the.dmg first but it just never opened and gave me that error message. Yes, its the same error message whether I try and open it on the mac or on the ext. hd. No...I didn't test it before the old went...:( Its a Disk Image format and 129.72 GB on disk (which is about the right size of all the stuff that was on there)

Many thanks
 
If you check my top tips (see signature) there are a number of tips about backing up certain applications. Aperture's folder contains all the images etc so dragging that to another drive backs it all up. Other applications are different in the way that they store their files.
 
OK.

Open Disk Utility and drop the .dmg into the side-bar. If you've copied it to the MacBook's HD, try that one first.

Select the .dmg in the side-bar.

You can then Verify the .dmg (there's a microscope icon in the toolbar at the top of the window). This should check the integrity of the disk image itself.

Then Verify and Repair the disk image as if it were an ordinary hard disk using the First Aid tab to the right. It may be there was some corruption in the filesystem on your old HD that has carried over into the backup.
 
Thanks for all the advice, unfortunately despite following that with both the one I copied to the HD and the one on the ext. hd, they both come up saying "no mountable file systems". There's definitely 130gb of something in that, seems odd its not repairing at all. :/ But thanks again, I guess I'll give PC world a ring, they are supposed to cover data recovery under the coverplan.
 
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