Another iMac question.

Posted by: BigH47 on 16 February 2011

I know you guys are missing Howard's stupid iMac questions so here's a new one.

I was try for some extra backup of various files mainly pictures/videos. Not seeming to be able to archive to an external H/D directly I transferred the files to a new file on the desk top, and dragged the resultant file into the external drive.

I now have a file with a purple/lilac file name on the back up file on the desktop,a very slow computer and no idea what is happening.

Can any one shed some light, please?

Posted on: 16 February 2011 by garyi

I have no idea what you have done or are on about but there are literally hundreds of back up applications which will do exactly what you want on a daily basis in the background. There seems to be an assumption amongst people new to mac that the stuff it comes with is the only stuff available.

Honestly I don't know what you have done, you have not explained very well, try explaining again

Posted on: 16 February 2011 by BigH47

Simples.

I have a file of back ups on desktop. I dragged them into an external drive, all that seems to have happened is the label on this file has turned purple.

Oh! the external drive isn't FAT 32 do!

My normal back up is Time Machine onto Time Capsule, I was just going to do some backups on my daughters 1TB external drive which usually lives in another house.

My problem with iTunes/iPhoto is the option for back up seems to be burn to disc, which is not what I wanted to do.

Posted on: 16 February 2011 by garyi

I don't know whay its turned purple, that just indicates you have given it a label colour? And by 'file' I think you mean 'folder'. Not being picky but when you say I have a file of back ups, well that does not make much sense. To be honest a folder of backups does not make much sense in this instance, but i think you mean stuff you want to back up.

My concern is you have moved all your stuff to this folder so its no longer available to iphoto etc.

Just leave stuff where it is, and use a suitable backup programme to back up the files from their proper location, time machine does this seamlessly.

The external drive needs to either be apple formatted or FAT 32, if its windows formatted then it simply won't copy over, it wont make the mac go slower though??

So anyways, if you don't want to use time machine use something else. Obviously you need a drive either directly attached or on the network then you want a back up programme.

This one is free and I use it all the time:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21413/backuplist+

Posted on: 16 February 2011 by Phil Cork

Hi Howard,

I wondered whether it was copying very slowly over USB, as would be the case with a large number of files. The lilac title may reflect that it's 'in use' and the slow machine due to the disk churning away at the file transfer...?

Phil

Posted on: 16 February 2011 by BigH47

Sorry guys not doing too well today explanationwise.

I did copies of photos in a FOLDER, still have them in iPhoto.

TC is still first line back up, I was just trying for some "off site" storage, but I don't think my daughter would appreciate me converting her drive to FAT 32, from NTSC or whatever.

Somehow I must have changed the folder label to purple as it's still that colour.

iMAC is back working as per, and I backed up some iPhoto stuff onto a 500gb drive I have, not off site but off computer.

Thanks for the link garyi .

Posted on: 19 February 2011 by fred simon

Try Carbon Copy Cloner for secondary backup. Great app, free. Does incremental backups and cloning of entire drive ... you can make a bootable clone.

Posted on: 19 February 2011 by BigH47

Thanks Fred and garyi I'll have a look at those programmes.