[mudboy]

I have Panther installed on my PB. Is there any simple (for a dope like me) way to backup the user settings, files, email, etc for both users onto my external HD (Lacie firewire) so I can reformat and do a clean install of OSX, but keep the same files, settings, etc? I looked at Carbon Copy Cloner, but was a bit intimidated by the interface as I dont know what all of it means...talk to me like Im an idiot, please.

[Brass]

Originally posted by mudboy:
I have Panther installed on my PB. Is there any simple (for a dope like me) way to backup the user settings, files, email, etc for both users onto my external HD (Lacie firewire) so I can reformat and do a clean install of OSX, but keep the same files, settings, etc? I looked at Carbon Copy Cloner, but was a bit intimidated by the interface as I dont know what all of it means...talk to me like Im an idiot, please.

Just drag and drop your home directory onto the external disk, then after re-install, drag and drop the CONTENT of the external copy back into your new home directory.

This is assuming you keep all your documents within your home directory (eg, in the "Documents" folder).

All your preferences, mail, etc are in the "Library" folder within your home directory.

However, having said all that, you don't really need to reformat do you? You can try doing an "archive" install of the OS and choose to preserve all your user data and user prefs and your network settings.

[mudboy]

so i drag the contents - not the actual home folder (for both users, obviously) into their respective new home folder once i reinstall? what about permissions, naming, etc? wont that all get screwed up?

[foamy]

I haven't done this in a while, but you *may* need to change your permissions after you copy the contents back to your new install.

If you do need to, you can do it from the terminal

sudo chown -R username:admin /Users/username/

substitute your username accordingly.

Like I said I haven't done this in some time now, but I distinctly remember setting up a dummy "admin" account so that I could do the above command as 'sudo' on all the accounts I moved when upgrading a machine with multiple users.

Maybe someone with a better memory will chime in with their opinion.

[Superchicken]

make sure you create a address book back up within the app. Sometimes it'll copy back sometimes it won't I've had it go both ways I don't understand why it didn't work one time but did the other. But your best bet there's an option in the app to back everything up.

Aside from that, just drag your library and any files you want to keep to the drive. IE your user library leave the one in the HD alone.

[AKcrab]

I use psyncX to set up my backups on a regular schedule.

[Brass]

If you copy the files back AS the user who should own them, then that user will own them after the copy.

Otherwise, use "chown -R" as the other post said.

[NeilCharter]

A quick question - WHY DO YOU NEED TO REFORMAT YOUR HARD-DRIVE?

In my experience, it is the very last thing you want to do if you have having problems with the computer.

Backing up each User folder to an external drive will work. You can also copy the apps too. Most will probably function properly afterwards.

Neil

[Judge_Fire]

Some software you have on your machine may have installed files critical to their operation to various places outside the users' folders.

Typically, the Library at the root of your hard disk contains these files, so it'd be cool to copy that, too.

It's not necessary if you intend to re-install every single app again, but just as a precaution - there might be stuff that you might need, such as fonts, sounds etc.

J