Totally new and I know nothing and need help

[bscherokman]

I have an iMac, time machine, superduper and a brand new Lacie external drive 500 GB. I would like to use superduper for cloaning purposes and time machine for incremental backups. I read the SD manuel and also looked at every post on the SD discussions. Can someone please take me step by step through what I should do. I imagine I need to partition the Lacie for SD and TM but I do not know how to do that and I do not know how many GB to put into each partition. I am a neurologist and I missed this day in medical school. Please help with step-by-step directions. I thank you and my patients thank you.

[dnanian]

Well, how large is the drive you want to back up on your iMac?

[Chrlz]

I too am a neophyte when it comes to 'Backing Up' my iMac loaded with Adobe PS/Bridge etc etc etc. and would appreciate helpful procedural info from readers of this forum on creating a bootable backup. Of course 'Updates' would also be required. I understand that everytone has their own special problem and the experts here know that it is super easy with Super Duper, but right now yer talk'n to, well, someone who doesn't know anything about backing up and is a first time user who desires to get it right the first time (HA!)! Here's the specifics:

iMac 10.4.11 450Gb/70Gb used
New LaCie 500Gb HD partitioned 250/250 Retrospect Express
Super Duper (purchased edition)

My intention in partitioning the HD was to have photos and Adobe software on one side and system and personal files on the other????

I will likely install Leopard within 6 months, so I'll need to know what to do with that.

Finally, it would certainly be BEST if you can stop in and get it going for me!

Gratefully,
Chrlz

[dnanian]

Well, if you only have one iMac without partitions, you shouldn't partition the destination. Then, simply follow the steps in the first few sections of the User's Guide -- lots of screen shots and hand holding...

[Chrlz]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Well, if ou only have one iMac without partitions, you shouldn't partition the destination. Then, simply follow the steps in the first few sections of the User's Guide -- lots of screen shots and hand holding...

That's interesting, because I think I'd like to do just that; partition the iMac HD and use one partition as scratch disk for Photoshop, but then how do you run system software when it resides on the other partition, if you know how I'm thinking. In other words How do you start over from the beginning. It seems that I need to move everything to one of the partitions on the LaCie and erase the iMac HD then partition the Mac HD and recopy..not making sense here. I just don't know! Maybe I'll just forget all this partitioning stuff and do an 'Uncle Joe' (quote from Take Control) backup ie. schedule a simple backup one a week and fergit it!!

Chrlz

[dnanian]

Partitioning to use one volume as a scratch disk is fine -- I just don't think you should try to divide your source files into "Photos" and "other stuff" if they reside on a single drive on the source...

[Chrlz]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Partitioning to use one volume as a scratch disk is fine -- I just don't think you should try to divide your source files into "Photos" and "other stuff" if they reside on a single drive on the source...

I am sorry. This is now getting me somewhat confused. You're saying I can partition the Mac HD into two volumes (partitions) and one can be used as a scratch disc; and I take it that a scratch volume is a place where the application Photoshop and Bridge will reside. The other volume on the Mac HD will hold everything else including photos...System and User. The Lacie, you suggested, should be one large (500Gb) HD that will have a copy (duplicate) of everything on the Mac HD AND Super Duper will allow a boot from it. I don't understand this computer inner working stuff. For example how is an App like PS able to find a photo on a different drive or volume; I don't think it can, but maybe not.

On the other hand RonaldPR suggested not to do anything except save everything to the Lacie HD and let it be (if I understand him correctly. I still need to know if I will be able to boot from the Lacie. I've heard this has to be done correctly??? But how???

Finally, I will read the Manual!! Great advice!

Chrlz

[RonaldPR]

Originally Posted by Chrlz

That's interesting, because I think I'd like to do just that; partition the iMac HD and use one partition as scratch disk for Photoshop

Why partition your iMac HD? There is no need to do that. Everything will work fine as long as you keep enough empty space on your HD for the system to do what it needs to do. Keep it simple.