1) Saving documents on CD or on outside hard drives is not sufficient
for me. My computer has many applications that con not be reinstalled,
for example those which were installed from university CDs under
various licences, etc. Loosing my hard disk, would mean loosing many
old tools to which I am accustomed.
2) In anticipation of a possible crash of my internal hard disk I
purchased an external 160 GB hard disk. Then with a help of an
assistant I downloaded a free software package for clonning my internal
hard disk into a partition of my exteranl hard drive. Then cloning was
performed.
3) This week I called a reparman to improve some abnormality. He
decided that that my internal hard disk is responsible. He removed it,
clonned it (presumanbly) into the new internal hard drive, and
installed the new internal drave. This created a disaster; we could not
boot the system. Unfortunately, the rapirman sent the old internal hard
disk to Apple before being sure that the new disk will performed.
Calling Apple immediately and asking for sending us the disk back was
not successful. The second (presumanbly new) hard drive is on the way.
Fortunatly I have a loptop; otherwise I would miss many interesting
messages.
4) So I have a computer without an internal hard disk. That is a
perfect chance to try using the clone I created about a month ago. I
connected the external hard disk with a clone to my emac (via the
firewire cable) and (keeping the OPTION key down), pressed the power
button. The produced a screen with the icon of my external disk
selected. I clicked on the icon that looked like an arrow and the
booting took place in familiar way. I am now using the computer as I
always did.
5) Software Net Restore (2003 Mike Bombich) exists for Pather and for
Tiger. It is free for educators. Yoy can download it from
6) Unfortunatly my OS is Jaguar and I could not use netrestore.
Fortunately, software called Carbo Copy Cloner (CCC) was available from
the same website.
7) Cloning, after connecting the external hard drive to my working
e-mac started by launching the CCC program. A clone, by the way, unlike
a compressed backup, is not compressed. I need at least as much space
on the external hard drive as used on my internal hard drive (about 25
GB). It took about two hours to perform cloning.
8) The program asked me about the source; I click on the icon of my
internal disk. Then it asked me about the destination; I clicked on the
icon of a partition of my new external drive. It then asked me for the
administartive password I have on the emac. Then I clicked the CLONE
button and waited 2.5 hrs. That was the end of cloning.
9) What did I do today to run my emac from a clone? See point 4 above.
10) I will disconnect the clone and let the repairman to finish the
job. Hopefully, he will copy his clone into the new internal hard
drive. It will have more files than my clone created more than one
month ago. I will keep my clone for another emergency. And what if his
clone does not exist? Then I will probably buy the newest OS (Tiger)
and install it on the new internal hard drive. My Jaguar clone will be
the only way to go to my old familiar tools. It will be like having two
machines in one.