Is backing-up my Hard Drive necessary when installing Boot Camp on my iMac?

[tommytahoe]

Hey all,

just wanted to try out the Boot Camp Beta now that it's updated to 1.1.2, and apparently getting rave review for all of its fixes. But I don't have an external drive (nor do I know any friends who do), and don't really want to back-up my iMac Intel's data to like 35 DVD-R's. Is the backing-up part really a safe precaution, or a needless one that apple has to suggest because of Bott Camp's Beta status?

Thanks

 

[CanadaRAM]

Backing up is not necessary if you meet one of these two conditions:

1) You have absolute faith in Apple's beta software and your ability to follow directions, so that nothing could or would go wrong, or

2) You have a new Mac and nothing personal on it that you would mind losing if (1) turned out to be incorrect.

Everyone else should back up their User folder and any personal documents, at the minimum.

 

[tommytahoe]

Hey Dennis,

nice to hear from you again. It seems every time I pop in to the `rumors page, ou're there to help out.

Cheers

PS: I'll let youknow if I lose all my files and apps lol

 

[apfhex]

Is the backing-up part really a safe precaution, or a needless one that apple has to suggest because of Bott Camp's Beta status?

Whenever you're partitioning the drive (and I should say, whenever you're using Windows ) it's a good idea to backup.

Whenever you have any personal data on your computer at all it's a good idea to backup.

 

[ddekker]

backup

backup
backup
backup


DD

 

[Deputy-Dawg]

There is a middle ground. Backup all data files. You can, and most likely should, always reinstall the OS and applications from the distribution disks. I assume that you always and immediately save all downloaded installers on some form of uninstalled mass storage (CDs or DVDs) this is not necessary with updaters as they can always be redownloaded from the sources.