Computer woes: advice appreciated

[danaeris]

Entry deleted:

I'm using my iPod to back up my data as it is 40gigs, and then I will selectively return things to the freshly formatted hard drive of Lothlorien. It may take a while, but its free.

More on how to handle back ups shortly. Thank you, all, for your advice.

Comments

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

Are Mac hard-drives that expensive?

How long do you expext to have this laptop before upgrade?

I think I would look at the slow $65.00 solution first (it gets you a back up and options)new hard-drive second (just makes sense rather than a $210 DVD back-up)and anything else last. If you expect to get a new one in another year. However if you want to keep it longer go for the 60 (I personally could never justify $349-399 for a hard drive...sorry!)MHO.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the Apple hardware, and then the third party hardware. Both are probably more expensive than PC hardware... but not as much as you think.

(I personally could never justify $349-399 for a hard drive...sorry!)

But, you've never priced internal hard drive + installation + paying someone to do the data transfer for a laptop. Even non-mac laptops, this would be pretty expensive. Laptops are like that.

The $65 solution has one problem: it leaves me with no way to back up other than CDs, which with ~40 gigs of data would take FOREVER.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

True I have never payed to have anything done...I do it myself (or get Bill, he's good with this stuff). But laptops often take special "tools". So I think I would get it done professionally.

I used to take apart computers for BD (Business Depot), but laptops no I wouldn't touch them without a manual/demo to work on first.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

Yes it would but I a cheap when it comes to these things so I try to spend as little money as possible...for you it's not worth your time.

Also remember the programs will not be backed up just some of them and the files themselves wih this process.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

You may have to put out the money for the new drive and porting/installation. Which sucks but it may be what you have to do.

Don't you hate unforseen expenses?

[eetmewithtoast.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Intel chip will make a difference. Macs are made to run beautifully with other Macs. I was amazed at how easily they networked, when I set up a two-Mac network a few years ago.

What about an external hard drive? They're cheaper than Mac Minis, I'm sure. I have all my music files on a DiskGo Firewire, because otherwise I'd have to take off some of my graphics programs from the eMac's hard drive . . . I have rather a lot of music in my iTunes library.

[nathanjw]

I recommend having (and using for this) an external drive. It's good for this purpose and then you have a place to keep backups that isn't subject to the same risks as your laptop.

That said, the that LaCie is pretty expensive. You can get a 160G external USB/FW drives (non-mobile style) for about US$110 from a pretty respectable retailer. You don't need anything Mac-specific.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822173011

I use something very similar to that for regular backups for my laptop; I have a short script that does a full backup, and takes about 30 minutes to run.

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

What I'd have suggested, assuming you had access to someone else with a mac, would be to connect your laptop to their machine via firewire and set it in target disk mode. Your laptop would show up as an external drive on their machine and then you could backup your important data.

Once your machine is running again, I'd consider getting an external drive (USB 2.0 or firewire) that's larger than your laptop. Then you could just image the entire drive to the external.

Maxtor One Touch External USB 2.0 HD (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1647398&Sku=M122-7008%20R&SRCCODE=GOOPROD&CMP=OTC-FROOGLE)