Start up disc corrupt, best way to back up before reinstalling OS?

[Gokunama]

So I ran Disc Utility wondering why OmniDiscSweeper wondering why my computer kept warning me my disc was almost full and also that my iTunes library couldn't be saved cause there wasn't enough space on my disc, and OmniDiscSweeper showed me detail that I was using just less than half of my start up disc for actual applications, folders, etc, and Disc Utility told me my start up disc was corrupt.

I need to back up pics, videos, movies, and music before I reinstall, so what's the best way? I want to use a hard drive, but my wife's worried that it'll break and wants to use some 250 CD-Rs to back up.

 

[Gokunama]

57 views and no replies! Hoping BackBlaze was a decent choice.

 

[blevins321]

But you're still able to boot right? If so, get an external hard drive and copy everything off onto it. Reinstall everything and copy the stuff from the hard drive back. Then, wipe that drive clean and enable Time Machine using the drive. Then you won't have this problem next time you want to do a clean install.

 

[Legion93]

Have you considered using Time machine?

 

[Gokunama]

Time Machine requires an external hard drive does it not? And that's what I wanted to do, is use Time Machine and external hard drive to back evrything up, but my wife's parents had an external hard drive that dropped off the desktop and doesn't work anymore, so she's opposed to getting an external hard drive and suggests using CDs to back everything up.

Also wondering just how I do a clean install.

 

[blevins321]

Time Machine requires an external hard drive does it not? And that's what I wanted to do, is use Time Machine and external hard drive to back evrything up, but my wife's parents had an external hard drive that dropped off the desktop and doesn't work anymore, so she's opposed to getting an external hard drive and suggests using CDs to back everything up.

Also wondering just how I do a clean install.

CDs have the same risk as far as scratches are concerned...

But for a clean install, just put in the disk that came with your computer, and hold the option button while your computer starts up. Select the disk icon when it appears in the boot menu. When it finishes loading, just click through the menus and when it asks for what drive you want to install on, pick your computer's hard drive and select the Erase/Format option. Then it will erase your drive and install MacOSX

 

[Gokunama]

Slight problem. Something keeps eating my disc memory. I deleted uTorrent and selected 'Secure Empty Trash' lastnight, and I went from just 500 megabytes of disc memory to 15 gigs, got up this morning and I have just 1.5 gigs now. I believe a clean install requires more free disc memory than that, am I correct in that?

 

[Drewbie]

/library/caches
~/library/caches

delete both of those and reboot

 

[Badger^2]

stupid torrents. thats what you get?

Try not dropping an external hard drive and it should last for years.

You never mentioned backblaze in your initial post, how did that become an option? online backup is really not feasible for large amounts of data

with 100 GB to backup, go:

100 gigs is 102,400 megabytes, lets say you have some fast DSL @ 10 meg per minute upload (I get about 8 with premium ATT Uverse) = 10,240 minutes = 427 hours = 18 days of 24/7 uploading.

If you only did 8 hours a day = 54 days -- and thats only for 100 gigs...

a guy I know just finished uploading 367 gigs to backblaze. took 9 weeks @ 24/7 uploading. just for some perspective...

100 gigs to an external USB 2 drive might take 15 minutes.

 

[BobbyCat]

she's opposed to getting an external hard drive and suggests using CDs to back everything up.

I strongly disagree.

First, CDs can die pretty quickly ... or after some time. You never know. They're not a safe way to store vital data, or maybe just as a secondary back-up.

Second, you can do so much more with an external drive.
You can use it as a bootable copy of your original drive with Carbon Copy Cloner, daily updated. Whatever happens, you're always safe.
You can also partition it, install a mini system on a volume, and boot from it in order to run maintenance routines for your internal HD, like Disk Warrior.

Finally, a drive is cheaper per GB than a bunch of CDs in the long run.
I think.

 

[Gokunama]

Decided I'm going to go with both online and external hard drive back ups. And online back up started yesterday and will probably finish sometime next week, so it does take quite some time.

Won't tell the wife about the hard drive purchase till the back up is a done deal.

So I'm looking for a more durable external hard drive, suggestions?

Why is the available gigs fluctuating so much? I got a low disc warning five minutes ago, then checked a minute ago and it was 17 gigs, and now it's back down to 13 gigs.