Best way to backup? (broken dashboard)

Hi, as you'd expect i'm new to mac.

Being a curious devil i've been fiddling with the dock resources folder, and my backups appear to have not worked properly as i now can't right click on my dock and my dashboard wont load properly (dashboard items appear but no information and cant be interacted with).

Anyway I understand this is my own foolish fault, I'm not too heartbroken about having to reinstall OSX I was just wondering if there's an easy way to back up, if i copy my home folder is everything going to be covered? or Is it like windows where files and folders (such as browser favorites etc) could be scattered about everywhere?

Can applications be backed up just from the applications folder or should they be reinstalled manually after OSX is reinstalled

I have no external hard drive (yet) for time machine so that's not an option.

Thanks in advance, i've been lurking on this forum for a while and its really interesting.

JohnC86 said:

Hi, as you'd expect i'm new to mac.

Being a curious devil i've been fiddling with the dock resources folder, and my backups appear to have not worked properly as i now can't right click on my dock and my dashboard wont load properly (dashboard items appear but no information and cant be interacted with).

Anyway I understand this is my own foolish fault, I'm not too heartbroken about having to reinstall OSX I was just wondering if there's an easy way to back up, if i copy my home folder is everything going to be covered? or Is it like windows where files and folders (such as browser favorites etc) could be scattered about everywhere?

Click to expand...

The OS keeps all user files stored in your user folders. It's always possible that you have personally saved files anywhere, but outside of what you control, it's all there.

Can applications be backed up just from the applications folder or should they be reinstalled manually after OSX is reinstalled

Click to expand...

Apps that were mere drag/drops from a disc image can simply be reused as-is. Apps that had an installer may have placed files elsewhere in the root Library folders. So... the answer is yes.

Quite frankly, it'd be far simpler to just reinstall OS X using the archive and install option. Once done, if all goes well, you won't need to reinstall anything that was working beforehand, and all your files will remain in place. Of course, always always always back your stuff up first because things don't always go well.

How to Reinstall Mac OS X - wikiHow

thanks, sounds really a good idea, but i better get backing up just in case !

McBie gives some solid advice on backing up here

Use SuperDuper & CrashPlan (or Time Machine) to backup your data.
SuperDuper gives you bare metal recovery (HD or total system failure) and CrashPlan / TimeMachine gives you file level version recovery.

I agree. SuperDuper! is a brilliant app for backing up.

Also useful for a complete reinstall. You can backup to an external disk, boot off that disk, erase your internal disk and reinstall from the external disk to the internal one. I used that method to try out and then install Snow Leopard recently. I used iPartition to format the disk, but I am sure you could do that with Disk Utility.

However, for your current problem your best option is probably as suggested already - a reinstall using the archive and install method after booting from your original OS X CD.

Good luck

Which of the two apps mentioned could be used as a stand-alone substitute for Time Machine?

Yeah I am also interested towards a time machine substitute, but specifically one that could back up to DVD. (Is that possible in TM?).

Update on Original Post: Reinstalling whilst keeping my data worked perfectly, there were a few problems with some apps, but I just needed to get back up to date on Software Update, it's now running magnificent and all my files were untouched.