Backing up and Storage device issue

I'm currently trying to back up my entire laptop on a new hard drive (2tb), first I attempted to do so using Time Machine but I found it too complicated to do a full back up. I downloaded Super Duper which seems to be working fine for me other than the fact that it tells me there's only 92gb stored on the hardrive. I have approx. 112gb when I go on 'get info'. Here's a screenshot of my memory as displayed when I go onto 'about this mac'

A friend of mine told me this has to do with 'ghost files' that are often generated by editing software and that I should not worry about adding the to my backup before I restore my mac to the factory settings seeing as these files are useless. Is this true?
Thank you all for your time and consideration,
Merle

Merlevangennip said:

I'm currently trying to back up my entire laptop on a new hard drive (2tb), first I attempted to do so using Time Machine but I found it too complicated to do a full back up.

Click to expand...

Time Machine is usually very easy to use. The first Time Machine backup usually takes the longest. Subsequent backups are faster (only data that has changed is involved in subsequent back ups).

Merlevangennip said:

I downloaded Super Duper which seems to be working fine for me other than the fact that it tells me there's only 92gb stored on the hardrive. I have approx. 112gb when I go on 'get info'. Here's a screenshot of my memory as displayed when I go onto 'about this mac'.

Click to expand...

Super Duper is a fine product…and you can custom schedule automatic backups. Plus…Super Duper backups are bootable.

Nick

Thank you for going over that, do you think it's safe to assume that the files that have not been backed up will be of no use to me anyway and I can restore my laptop to factory settings and later access all of the necessary date or should try and backup the full 130gb that's on my startup disk?
http://s296.photobucket.com/user/me...t 2015-07-02 at 00.46.32_zpsju7ny5ti.png.html
oh and by the way here is the screenshot I mentioned but failed to upload, excuse this, I'm new to the forum.

Merlevangennip said:

I'm currently trying to back up my entire laptop on a new hard drive (2tb), first I attempted to do so using Time Machine but I found it too complicated to do a full back up.

Click to expand...

Hold on, what?

This sentence makes no sense. Here are the instructions for making a full backup using Time Machine:

1. Plug in external drive.
2. Click "yes" when asked if you want to use the drive for Time Machine backups.

That is **literally** the complete set of instructions.

I have a feeling you're doing something wrong if you find that "complicated."

chas_m said:

Hold on, what?

This sentence makes no sense. Here are the instructions for making a full backup using Time Machine:

1. Plug in external drive.
2. Click "yes" when asked if you want to use the drive for Time Machine backups.

That is **literally** the complete set of instructions.

I have a feeling you're doing something wrong if you find that "complicated."

Click to expand...

I should've been more specific, I've used Time Machine in the past with another storage device and because of that I can't force a full backup, it'd only backup new files or changes made to existing files. When I downloaded Super Duper I managed to do a 'full' backup but this only backed up 90gb of the 130. I was wondering why this is? Are the remaining 40gigs worth of files unreadable or incompatible?
Any light shed on the missing 40g or as to why my laptop or the software doesn't deem these files to be a necessary part of a bootable backup.

And still not making any sense … at least not for me…

Have you emptied the trash? Neither TM nor SD! should be backing up the trash. 40GB is a lot of trash, but if you haven't emptied it and have been deleting a lot of files, it could have that much in it.

@Merlevangennip

Bear with us for a moment. I am one of those confused by what you are trying to do, or have done.

May I take you back a stage or two? What Mac Book do you have, how old is it, what OS is it running, what is the storage capacity of your Internal HD and how much RAM? All this will set a background for us to help.

As I understand your post, your Int HD is near to full?? You have a 2TB EHD. You want to (a) move a large amount of files etc to the EHD to free up space or possibly more likely (b) you want to have a complete backup (BU) of your Int HD so that you can.....what? Erase the Int HD and reinstall? This is where you lose me.

If you could just explain what you are trying to ultimately achieve, it would help us a lot.

Ian