Mybook and Super Duper

[ec1linda]

Hiya

Newbie to here and a fairly new Mac user too.

I have purchased a Mybook Premium 250Gb drive, I tried to do a backup tonight using Super Duper but was informed that I needed to reformat the Mybook as it was configured for Windows. Is this normal with these products? I have been so used to just plugging and playing with my new Mac...reformatting seems to be a bit 'PC'.

I followed the prompts on screen and went to the disk utilities to reformat the Mybook and was then presented with a menu on the left hand side of the screen which listed the drives/discs; however there were two icons relating to the Mybook - the top one wasn't actually named but was listed using it's available space i.e. '241Gb', the one beneath (and slightly indented to the right) was actually called 'Mybook'. Is the second icon the one which I should be reformatting?

Any tips or suggestions for a total newbie would be really appreciated...please keep it simple, you can probably tell I am not too techie (hence I got a Mac, they just work!). Really appreciate your valuable help. :)

[dnanian]

Well, that's because the drive is more than a bit "PC" -- it comes partitioned and formatted for Windows.

Here's what to do:

Select the upper entry in the Disk Utility sidebar. Click the Partition tab. Click the Options button. Choose the proper partition scheme for your Mac, either Apple Partition Map (Power PC) or GUID (Intel) and accept the choice. Name the partition and choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format. Click Partition.

That should do it.

[ec1linda]

Thank you - finally got around to having a play with my new technology today this has indeed worked a treat :)

I have a question re: partitions now. On the advice I have read here I have created two partitions, one of 80GB for Full Back Ups and the rest of the drive will be for data such as when I get around to recording my vinyl collection with my Ion turntable, images, videos, documents etc.

My question is - and will seem stupid to most of you but I am not very techie - what would I choose as my source drive to include all such files in my general data storage partition? Would it be just my 'user' drive?

Thanks very much! All advice much appreciated :D

[dnanian]

What do you mean by 'all such files'? Remember that a SuperDuper! copy only copies from the selected volume, and you'd typically want to use "Backup - all files".

[ec1linda]

sorry for the confusion...i meant if I only wanted to back-up my music, pictures, movies and documents i.e. not a full back-up - would I just select my user folder?

my intentions are as follows: my Macbook is only 80GB and i intend to record all my vinyl and store it digitally, but my MacBook hard drive is not going to be big enough, therefore I need to know which folder i would select in order to backup my music files only - i then assume once i have backed them up I can delete them from my Mac hard drive and just restore them off MyBook when needed?

[dnanian]

You're not really creating a backup, there, you're archiving. If you want to do that, you should actually create a separate partition and keep those "saved" files completely separate from your copy. Otherwise, you're likely to accidentally delete them.

[ec1linda]

hi dave, yes i have partitioned (following the wonderful advice found here). i am trying to find out which folders i would need to select in order to archive...is it just the 'user' files as opposed to 'all' files?

[dnanian]

Typically, you'd be archiving those files you want to remove from the drive -- using, say, Finder.