Hi guys, I'm about to take my Mac Book Pro to a service center so that they can swap my old HDD for a new, much bigger one They're also going to do a data transfer for me. (I know i can do it myself, but then I'd void my warranty ) However, before I do so I want to back up all my files to an external HDD, just in case they screw up. What's the best way for me to do this? I have a Windows XP partition and I'm also running Leopard. Suggestions very welcome! Thanks, sotux
You could try using Norton Ghost and make an image of the entire machine so all you have to do is restore the ISO that ghost creates.
Plug in your external drive. Open Disk Utility. Click the disk/partition you want to back up and click "new image" at the top and save the image to the external drive. Repeat as necessary. Restoring is just plugging in the external drive with the disk images, click the partition you want to restore to, click the restore tab, and then pick the disk image from the external drive.
just a heads up, whoever told you that you'd void your warranty by doing your own data transfer is a mong. pretty much nothing voids your warranty, save accidental damage to the unit. i've had mine apart many times (and they can tell; i popped one of the spot welds and epoxied it back), there's some bent up corners from being bashed on the floor (not dropped) and that hasn't stopped them from replacing the motherboard, and power regulator daughterboard. swapping out your own hard drive is not a warranty voiding procedure.
Weird. Either they changed their policy or someone was misinformed, because when I asked I was told otherwise. Perhaps they gauge the user and tell them things to dissuade them if they seem novice or an easy sale?