[MtDew]

Hi all.


Just had a question, I'm relatively new to a mac. I got a second hand iMac with nothing but the keyboard and mouse, there were a lot of applications on it that I do not have the discs to and no way to re-install. I have purchased a copy of Leopard and want to reformat the hard drive. I know that with time machine they say you can copy an entire system, a friend of mine also mentioned a "carbon copy cloner" program, I am wondering if there is ANY way I can save these applications, mainly because I bought the computer because they were on the it. There's no way I can buy these applications on my own, so is there any way to copy these to the external hard drive and then format and re-install? Thank you so much for any help

[peeb]

You don't need to format the drive, you can use 'archive and install', or simply upgrade, to keep the current system intact. CCC will, indeed, make a complete copy of the drive, which is a good idea before you upgrade.

[MtDew]

That's the thing, it's already upgraded, I bought my own copy of os x to reformat the drive, and I want to keep the applications somehow.

[Cold Warrior]

this is why we don't cross-post

http://forums.macnn.com/58/imac-emac...ications-help/

[peeb]

Nothing.

[MacosNerd]

Well

I'll state the obvious, if you reformat you lose your apps. You either need to clone the drive to a backup/external drive thereby guaranteeing you have an exact copy or you need to copy the apps, and all associated files/folders along with them. Depending on what applications you're talking about, will dictate the complexity. Some programs, you can just drag them from the application folder to a backup folder. Others like photoshop, or even the ilife apps AFAIK you need to find out where all of the pieces exist.

My recommendation is to purchase your applications that you have so you don't run into this problem again.

All things being equal, I'd just do an archive and install which keeps your application folder intact but that's just me

[MtDew]

Sorry for the cross post, I stuck it in the imac area and then saw the software area.

I have the adobe cs2 master edition with pretty much everything you can think of on it. I also have iLife. will those programs cause more problems than most?

[MtDew]

bump