<< I do not have a backup hard drive, I don't have a ZIP drive, not even a CD
Burner drive either, just DVD-ROM and one 30 gig hard drive. I am not backing it up right now I guess. That is bad, I suppose. So I guess this means I am out of luck until I fork over some $$$ to purchase a ZIP drive, or some other kind of mechanical backup device. I wish i knew about this stuff before I go out and buy a $3500 machine (dp 450 <new> and 17" LCD flat panel) only to find out my DVD is not able to write to DVDs, hell even the DVD RAM would have been helpful in this situation. >> Definitely DO NOT use Zips or Jaz drives for backups. They are HIGHLY unreliable. You'd be better off getting either a 2nd internal IDE drive, or an external FireWire drive (which is the same thing, but portable). I think your best bet for both ease of use, and ease of mind for archival quality, would be to get an external FireWire combo drive (CD-RW/DVD-R). Prices for these keep coming down and are less than $300 now. This would give you the option of using either blank CD-R or DVD-R media for either doing backups for peace-of-mind, or permanent, off-line archives for stuff that you don't need to keep on your internal hard all the time. Also, keep in mind that once you copy files to a backup disc, if you then delete the originals from your hard drive, you no longer have a backup copy. Your backup copy then becomes your only original archive with no backup. You'd need to dupe that disc to have a backup for safety's sake. And if you get an external burner (like the combo drive) in addition to your internal CD/DVD-ROM drive (rather than replacing your internal drive) you have the added ability to dupe all manner of CDs and data DVDs directly from your internal drive to the external burner. Plus, you could store a buttload of those MP3's on only a few CD-Rs, and even convert them back to true, custom-mixed music CDs to play anywhere (using Toast). You'd be able to back up all 16+gb of current data to 4 DVD-Rs at about $5 per disc. Then reformat and partition your drive into at least 4 volumes (OS 9, OS X, Games, Work, etc). Makes life much less stressful. Makes backing up, defregging, and organization much easier. Lots of benefits to this kind of config. Do some serious thinking. It will be totally worth the investment and peace-of-mind, even if you can barely afford it right now. If that internal drive takes a header right now, you are TOTALLY S-O-L. Think about it. Scared yet? You should be. I learned my lesson many years ago, with much less data, but just as valuable data nevertheless. I've viewed backups and archives in a whole different light ever since. Permanently loosing many hundreds of hours-worth of work, plus many hundreds of MBs of irriplacable files is real hard kick in the head. Learn from other people's mistakes before it happens to you. Sorry, don't mean to sound so preachy about this, but besides experiencing this first-hand, I've had to console too many other people that everything they had on their now-dead HD is totally and completely gone. Forever. I can't emphasize the value of backups and archives enough. Do it NOW before it's too late. Disasters always seem to happen at the worst possible time. For some reason, at least in my experience, they almost never happen right after you did a complete backup. Go figure. Good luck! Mike -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
