Carbon Copy Cloner
Last week, I purchased an additional Seagate ATA hard drive. I had a hard drive scare back in August which forced me to get an external Western Digital drive. Until last week, the Western Digital drive had served as a backup to my one internal drive.
But I knew I only had a matter of time before that drive failed.
When I purchased the drive I realized what I was up against. I needed not only to make sure everything was backed up to the external drive but was also copied, as is, onto the new internal drive.
During a Google search I stumbled across Carbon Copy Cloner by Mike Bombich. Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent little piece of software which is capable of cloning Mac OS 10.1 - 10.4 systems.
It works great. Simply download the software. Select a source and a target drive after running Disk Utility to clear up any boot errors. Then, let Carbon Copy Cloner run (you must have be connected to a Fire Wire or ATA/internal drive.) Depending on the number of files you clone, it could take a while to process. However, once its complete, you have a totally bootable drive with all your applications and files ready to go. You don’t have to spend hours reinstalling Applications and resetting Preferences.
Not only should everyone with a Mac use this software, you should also make a contribution to Mike Bombich for its use. (A drop down menu indicates he’ll take as little as $5. That’s a bargin!)