backup from internal boot drive to external firewire drive?

[tzikeh]

I've posted this in a mac community, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to post here as well.

I've looked at versiontracker and macupdate, but I can't find what I need. My internal drive is failing (the scary chugging noises are making me nervous) and I want to back the entire drive up to one of my externals. The last time I tried this, on my own, without software (stupid me), I lost all of my iTunes library and *all* of the mail I was keeping in the Mail program (literally a thousand emails), and many many preferences in various programs.

Can anyone suggest a method or freeware or cheap shareware for me?

Comments

[way2busymom.livejournal.com]

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

[terrio]

I've heard good things about Carbon Copy Cloner, though I've never used it myself. Here's their website, if you'd like more info. (I see waaaay down at the bottom of the page that it's "uncrippled shareware", so you can try it out for free. Not that their shareware fee is exorbitant or anything... :-)

[funkyreunion.livejournal.com]

I've used Carbon Copy Cloner, and even restored a drive from backup with it. It works great.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

w00t! Worked perfectly - thank you!

[terrio]

Yay!

[vass]

You too, huh?

(I've heard good things about CarbonCobyCloner also.)

[michael-j-lucid.livejournal.com]

J-

Carbon Copy Cloner. Hands down.

Call / IM me and I can walk ya through it.

~M

[xenacryst.livejournal.com]

In addition to th others (which I've generally heard good things about), I use ChronoSync as my regular backup program. It has the advantage that it only copies changed files and such on subsequent backups (if you're geeky, I believe it uses rsync or something based on it under the hood). It works like a charm, is inexpensive, easy to use, good features, etc.