[benji888]

I have a MacBook with 80gig hard drive, Leopard 10.5.5 and an external USB 2 hard drive... Seagate Free Agent 320GB.

I am trying to make a disk image of my internal drive and put it on the external drive as a backup. I boot from my OS install disk to do this, but I encounter this error "Unable to create "name of drive.dmg" (Input/Output error)." I think it is because the Seagate drive goes into sleep mode while Disk Utility is reading the other drive. It seems that no matter my energy saving settings the hard drive puts itself to sleep on its own if it is inactive (I have not timed it, so not sure how long this is). Is there any way to make a change somehow via terminal or whatever so that I can tell this hard drive not to go into sleep mode? Or is the error for another reason?

Please don't tell me the answer is to purchase such and such. I am not spending money to make a backup of my main hard drive. There has to be a way to do this.

What I am wanting to do is format my internal drive and put everything on it from scratch... this may eliminate some problems I have been having recently. I will not be doing a restore but just want my files accessible via the external drive.

btw the external drive has 106 GB free.

[dmod415]

Hi Benji,


I have not done this, so I'll venture some suggestions (which others should know if wrong).


It sounds like you have 214GB data already on your Seagate. Why can't you boot your MacBook normally, hook up the Seagate (icon should come up) and drag 'n drop the individual folders, one by one, from your Macintosh internal to the Seagate? There is certainly room with 106GB free for everything on your MacBook 80GB internal.


You won't be able to boot from the Seagate, but you CAN still boot the MacBook from your OS install disk and (I believe) access Disk Utility to either reinitialize your internal or partition it.


This would be a good time (if you're interested) to separate your active "Work" stuff from your "Archive" stuff...stuff you don't work with much (if at all, like past taxes, old programs, new program (backup) installers, five year old emails, etc.). I also put my iPhoto library and iTunes music folder there. Two 40GB partitions should do nicely. (my "Work" partition is only 30GB with 13GB of data on it)


Then reinstall Leopard from scratch...leave out or delete the foreign languages you don't use, GarageBand (or loops you don't use), foreign keyboards. There should be a way to substitute your iPhoto library from the Seagate for the "new (and empty) one newly installed. Once it's fully functional on the MacBook, the Apple site can tell you how to then move that library to your "Archive" partition on the MacBook...where it will continue to function as before, seamlessly. Then do the same for the iTunes music folder.

Then reinstall non-Apple applications (one by one and test) in case one if them is responsible for your recent problems.

You can't presently partition your Seagate without losing the data on it. You would have more options when you can afford to add a small FireWire external (or two)...I use OWC Neptunes at about $100.

Then you could put two or three partitions on one FW HD, download SuperDuper (free) and clone your new arrangement to the FW HD; your "Archive" to one partition and your "Work" partition to another. A clone is a bootable backup. I clone to a FW HD several times a week (as I work) and then switch that "refreshed" FW HD with another kept off-site from the previous week.

The "typical" always-connected HD "backup" is usually also lost to the same thief, fire, flood, power surge, hurricane, and tornado that "gets" one's computer. Not my idea of a good data preservation plan.


Best of luck


Regards,

[benji888]

Quote

It sounds like you have 214GB data already on your Seagate. Why can't you boot your MacBook normally, hook up the Seagate (icon should come up) and drag 'n drop the individual folders, one by one, from your Macintosh internal to the Seagate? There is certainly room with 106GB free for everything on your MacBook 80GB internal.

I've tried this in the past and the system won't copy everything such as mail folders and I don't have time to go through and save individual messages, among other things.

I used to use TimeMachine, but I was using an Hitachi drive and it developed some hardware issue... kind of frustrating. I've not had hard drive problems before so I don't think I'll be purchasing Hitachi hard drives in the future.

[Remiss63]

My understanding (not definitive) is that to create a disk image on an external hard drive you must have a FireWire connection. Apparently it will not work with USB. That was one of the main criticisms I've heard about the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros . . . they no longer have any FireWire port. The comment was that without FireWire the ability to create a disk image on an external drive isn't possible.

You should however check out this program called Carbon Copy Cloner. This shareware program should be able to do what you're looking for. I've used it successfully with an external Maxtor 500GB drive. Available:

www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Good luck !

[dcpics]

benji888 said:

Quote

Please don't tell me the answer is to purchase such and such. I am not spending money to make a backup of my main hard drive. There has to be a way to do this.

Ok, you don't want to hear it but I think you may want to rethink that. Just because you have not had hard drive problems is not a reason to say that you don't want to spend anything.

You can buy an external, 80gb drive for pretty cheap these days and then use a free program like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to make a clone of your drive.

If you are wanting to wipe your internal drive fully and then start over, a clone is a better way than a disk image as you can reach individual files and put them back as you want rather than re-install the full disk image.

Sorry, it's not what you want, but anyone who has ever experienced a disk failure will say they wished they had things backed up (if they didn't already do so). I've had Macs for a dozen years and have only experienced only one drive failure and I was able to save everything before the drive went into the ground for good and I'm not making that mistake again. I keep one pretty up-to-date backup of my whole drive using Super Duper and periodically make secondary back ups just to make sure I don't get hit with a perfect storm of drive failures.