Anything I Should Know Before I Install My New HD?

[SamIchi]

I got a 300 GB Seagate, and just installed it in the external enclosure I got. I think I did everything right. This is my first time dealing with a external HD, and external enclosure so is there something I'm missing? I'm just bein cautious just in case.

And what would be the best way to back-up my files? Just copy it to my new HD? Thanks guys.

[Update]
I turned it on and the disk utility popped up. The computer said it didn't recognize it or something. There's no HD icon that shows up on my desktop. What do I do?

 

[idea_hamster]

Drive installation in external enclosures is a pretty straight-forward process, so if everything fit together, then you probably did fine.

The key is to listen closely to the drive when you first turn the power on to it. (This may be independent power or bus power -- whichever it is, there should be a status light on the front of the case.) Listen for odd or ugly sounds. If you hear any, shut it down right away.

Remember that not all drives sound alike, so the cycling and read head movement sounds may be different from the drive in your Mac. But it should sound like a working drive -- no endless seeking or friction noises.

As for backing up files, you have two choices. If you just want a place to store copies of important files, then a simple drag-drop may be the easiest and totally fill your need.

If you want to have a back-up version of your main HD, you'll need more than just dragging and dropping, since you'll want all the invisible files that will restore your HD to its current bootable state.

For this kind of thing, I would recommend SuperDuper!. Many features work on the free trial, but for $28 (an absolute bargain), it can make incremental back-ups which is a huge time saver and the next best thing to a RAID 1, I think.



EDIT: You need to format the drive. That's why Disk Utility openned. I haven't done this in a while, but I think you go to ERASE, then pick a format, and go ahead. The drive should mount by itself after that.

 

[SamIchi]

Thanks for the detailed post!

I turned it on and it just sounds like a HD spinning, that's about it. Louder than I thought, but I've never heard a external HD before.

Which format should I choose? Extended, Extended (Journal), and I'm assuming it's not MS Dos, or Unix.

[EDIT]

Nevermind. I chose Journal after reading about it.

THanks for the help.

 

[idea_hamster]

Choose either Extended or Extended (Journaled). As I understand it, journaling creates a kind of history of certain information as you use you Mac, so it has a better chance of recovering more info in the event of a problem -- system crash, total instant power loss, etc.

It's not common, but these things can happen. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference is, but there may be some small performance difference. Also, since this isn't a system start-up disk, I'm not sure how important it would be.

I'll bet that there are a couple of threads about this some where around here...

But your instincts are right that MS DOS and unix are not the way to go. (Unless, of course, you intend to hook this disk up to a Windows PC and want to move files from one to the other. Then MS DOS is your only real choice.) Unix isn't really a choice either. Even if you wanted to install a Unix OS on a partition of the disk (I don't think Yellow Dog, the Mac version of Red Hat, currently supports FW start-up), you would pick "free space" and let the installer format it.

EDIT: Too slooooow! Oh, well. Good luck filling your new storage facility!