I'm going to send in my Powerbook tomorrow to get the screen replaced (hopefully)... There was a recall a few years ago, and although my serial # doesn't match and I bought the computer a year after the recall, my display looks identical to what they show on their recall website.



The only difference between my display and the one in the picture is that i have a completely faded square around the entire Apple logo

Anyways, I want to backup all of my data and stuff before I send it off, and was wondering what the best way of doing this was. I tried just copying all of the files from my home directory over to a shared folder on my PC, but about 10 minutes after it started copying, it said that there were some files that were either too long in name or had invalid characters that couldn't be copied. Google suggested buying a .Mac subscription and other applications such as Synk, but I'm wary of trusting a backup application that I've never really used before.

Will simply creating a .zip (what Apple calls an Archive) file with all of the files in there retain all of the complex filenames, directory structure, permissions, and anything else that may be hidden that I don't know about? I don't know too much about permissions other than people have told me to be careful about them when copying files back and forth from Windows.

I've never really had to backup an Apple before, and I thought about doing DVDs, but I have about 30+ gigs of PDFs, diagrams, LaTeX files, and lots of other research-related stuff that I've done, so I'd rather just somehow copy them over to my PC.

Thanks!

2/20/2006 12:18:58 AM

Does your PC have firewire? If it does, you can just use target disk mode and copy the files that way.

Also, the command line program "ditto" should be able to copy the files over, and translating names as necessary.

You can also use ftp, and suck the files over via ftp from the Windows computer. That also should handle file name differences and stuff.

Also, yeah, you can create the zip file too, that would work.

2/20/2006 1:24:35 AM

Oh snap. I didn't realize that my PowerBook falls under that recall and I've started noticing a few white spots. This is good news for my being able to get that (plus a broken hinge) fixed. Apple is really bitchy about fixing broken TiBook hinges but the white spots have to be taken care of.

Anyway, if you don't like any of the above options maybe you could get an external hard drive and make an exact copy of your current disk to it so all you have to do is firewire transfer all of your information back over to the laptop if needed.

2/20/2006 3:18:03 AM

macs don't need to be backed up, they never crash.

2/20/2006 3:19:32 AM

Apple recommends that your data be backed up before sending a machine off for repairs. They sometimes replace things (such as hard drives) even when they're not requested specifically if problems are found and there's always the potential for data loss anyway.

And as much as I am a Mac fan and praise OS X, I wouldn't say that Macs never crash or corrupt. I have had corrupted data that was lost before. It can happen.

2/20/2006 3:43:38 AM

it was a mac fanboy joke anything mechanical no matter who made it will eventaully wear out and break. i.e. hard drives

2/20/2006 4:46:14 AM

should've bought a thinkpad

2/20/2006 7:11:24 AM

Carbon Copy Cloner v2.3

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

2/20/2006 8:28:46 AM

or after hooking up an external drive, go to Disk Utility and set up a mirroring RAID on the 2 drives. Will start a full clone, and you can boot off of either drive when it's done

2/20/2006 8:46:30 AM

just take out the harddrive and keep it with you when you send the system back.

They dont need it and shipping will only put more possible strain on the drive.

2/20/2006 9:48:36 AM

Quote :

"just take out the harddrive and keep it with you when you send the system back. They dont need it and shipping will only put more possible strain on the drive."

2/20/2006 10:33:09 AM

Thanks for the replies. I'd have to say that I've had pretty good luck with the Powerbook in terms of crashing. I'v only had one major problem, and that was the dud laptop I bought that completely died within a week of purchasing it. They replaced it with a brand new one.

My harddrive has also been making some funny noises some, especially when I carry it from one place to another, I hear this 'vroooom' noise. I might as well let them take a look at it since it's still under my 3-year plan, which is why the backup is pretty important.

I really should invest in an external hard drive. I've been waiting for a good Slickdeal to come out, but haven't seen one show up lately.

2/20/2006 10:51:26 AM

I'm pretty impressed, I called Apple yesterday afternoon and told them what the problem was. They suggested that I send it in, and that they would send a box that would arrive within 3 business days. I was woken up at 8am with a knock on my door, and it was the DHL guy with a box.

I packed it up, and took it to the DHL place down the street, and they said it will be in Houston tomorrow morning, so there's probably a good chance I'll have this sucker back by Friday.

I'll have to say, I've gotten really fed up with the pretentious assholes that work at Apple's technical support, but with what I've seen happen in the past 29 hours has partially redeemed themselves.

2/21/2006 3:52:43 PM