i'm having to swap hard drives as the one in my macbook is so full. i've taken a look at disk imaging and restore, but i don't have everything necessary, like bootable firewire enclosures for example, so target disk mode isn't something i can do.
i don't NEED to have an exact duplicate of my install if i can just get my user acc back the way it is, or as near as possible. so i have a few questions before i decide what to do.. i have various ways of backing up most things, like firefox settings/bookmarks i can upload to an ftp server, for thunderbird i leave all emails on the server so i just download them all again, msn/skype etc i just login. addressbook and ical i just backup and restore.
but for things that i can't seem to find an obvious way can i just drop a backup of files, ~/library/application support, plists etc where they ought to be and expect them to *just work* or will i have problems? my iphoto collection with keywords and smart folders would be a real pain to have to reorganise
if i can do the above, can i just create a .dmg archive by dragging my /user folder to disk utility to save on a windows machine on my network? or will i have problems getting the files back from the archive after a new install?
is there any utility i can use that doesn't involve disk cloning to do what i want? if i'm not trying to create a fully bootable mac volume, can i get around not having any firewire drive to boot to?
thanks in advance
i don't NEED to have an exact duplicate of my install if i can just get my user acc back the way it is, or as near as possible. so i have a few questions before i decide what to do.. i have various ways of backing up most things, like firefox settings/bookmarks i can upload to an ftp server, for thunderbird i leave all emails on the server so i just download them all again, msn/skype etc i just login. addressbook and ical i just backup and restore.
but for things that i can't seem to find an obvious way can i just drop a backup of files, ~/library/application support, plists etc where they ought to be and expect them to *just work* or will i have problems? my iphoto collection with keywords and smart folders would be a real pain to have to reorganise
if i can do the above, can i just create a .dmg archive by dragging my /user folder to disk utility to save on a windows machine on my network? or will i have problems getting the files back from the archive after a new install?
is there any utility i can use that doesn't involve disk cloning to do what i want? if i'm not trying to create a fully bootable mac volume, can i get around not having any firewire drive to boot to?
thanks in advance