How to backup working settings before trying new stuff

[bobbystone]

Hey guys,

I confess I'm a noob, so bear with me. I've got my lion system working and graphics enabled. I still lack USB 3.0 and firewire and am ready to venture forth.

Is there a way to backup whats working now and return to it if I make a change that wrecks the system? Can I just backup the extras folder and boot in safe mode or something?

Thanks in advance

Gigabit GA-Z68XP-UD3
Core i7 Processor
GeForce GTX580
Corsair Vengeance 16GB Ram

 

[jester969]

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your install. Install Chimera ONLY to boot off disc and copy back over backup image over hosed disc.

 

[BoomR]

+1 on Carbon Copy Cloner. It's a free app that lets clone your drive, OR create a disk image that you can use to re-image your drive.

I've got an eSATA drive that I use for just such a thing. First, I cloned my current working drive to the eSATA drive. Then I use Chimera installer to install Chimera on the eSATA drive. I reboot, then use the Chimera menu to actually boot from the eSATA drive this time. FINALLY, while having booted from the eSATA drive I made a CCC image file of my working boot drive & save to the eSATA drive. (BTW, forgot to mention that I also installed CCC on my eSATA drive as well).

Now I can go about mucking around with settings or kexts or whatever. If I mess something up, I reconnect my eSATA drive, boot from that, then use CCC and my working disk image to re-image my boot drive. Once I re-image my boot drive, I do an install using the stand-alone Chimera installer on my regular boot drive. Then reboot as normal.

Like everything, there are usually many different ways to do things.

 

[jester969]

+1 on Carbon Copy Cloner. It's a free app that lets clone your drive, OR create a disk image that you can use to re-image your drive.

I've got an eSATA drive that I use for just such a thing. First, I cloned my current working drive to the eSATA drive. Then I use Chimera installer to install Chimera on the eSATA drive. I reboot, then use the Chimera menu to actually boot from the eSATA drive this time. FINALLY, while having booted from the eSATA drive I made a CCC image file of my working boot drive & save to the eSATA drive. (BTW, forgot to mention that I also installed CCC on my eSATA drive as well).

Now I can go about mucking around with settings or kexts or whatever. If I mess something up, I reconnect my eSATA drive, boot from that, then use CCC and my working disk image to re-image my boot drive. Once I re-image my boot drive, I do an install using the stand-alone Chimera installer on my regular boot drive. Then reboot as normal.

Like everything, there are usually many different ways to do things.

Always good to have options.