iMac needs new hard drive--now what?

P

pfloyd714714

Logician
I just received an email from Apple informing me that my studio 27" iMac has a 1T Seagate hard drive which is prone to failure. Apple will replace the drive free for nothin'. Great--except that the email says that what Apple will do is just that: replace the drive. I'll need to install the system, programs, docs, etc. on the new hard drive. You'd think that they could do this for me, given that it's their faulty hardware that is causing the problem. Ah well.

I have zero interest in reinstalling the system and all my old programs from the original discs. Logic alone would be a drag because I have some samples on an external drive while others reside on the hard drive. So what's my best option? I've never dealt with Super Duper or any other cloning software. Kindly point me in the most hassle-free direction.

Thanks,

Jim
 
And FYI: this whole debacle once again confirms the point that in order for data to actually be properly backed up there should be 3 copies: 1 on the drive, 1 on a back up drive that is updated at the end of each day, and 1 in an offsite place, a safety deposit box is the #1 suggested storage location, that is backed up once a month.

CCC is awesome, as is super duper. Folder Synchronizer is used by EVERY major client I have for day to day (and sometimes hour to hour) back ups on site.
 
Just thought I'd weigh in here in favor of SuperDuper. I think it does a great job. I'm sure CCC is updated now, but at the time I used it (a few years ago at this point) it didn't do incremental backups. At least not in the free version at the time.
 
Thanks one and all for the advice. I'm still hoping to guilt Apple into backing up and restoring the thing. Anyone willing to give me odds on that? Anyone? Hello...?

Jim
 
I won't give you odds but I will say if you can take it to an Apple store or an Apple reseller you might have better odds, where you can talk to someone face to face. I have personal stories and have heard from others about some surprisingly fair responses from the above mentioned businesses.
 
Doug Zangar said:
I won't give you odds but I will say if you can take it to an Apple store or an Apple reseller you might have better odds, where you can talk to someone face to face.
Click to expand...

Yes, but they will never guarantee not to lose your data. So I wouldn't do that, I'd back it up myself. Twice probably.
 
Agreed, that's the smartest/safest approach. I've done that, but let the store do the data transfer. Everything went well, I ended up not need to use my backup.
 
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