Looking for a way to install and run OS X on an external hard drive? This can be useful for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, it allows you to run another copy of OS X without needing any additional Mac computer.
- How To Backup A Macbook Onto An External Hard Drive As A Dmg File Size
- How To Backup A Macbook Onto An External Hard Drive As A Dmg File Player
- Mac Hard Drive Backup
- Backup Mac To External Hard Drive
The simplest method of backing up files is simply to copy the files and folders to an external hard drive, a USB flash drive, a CD, or a DVD. Nothing fancy, but it works. Back up to an external hard drive or USB flash drive. If you use an external hard drive with your MacBook, you can easily drag backup files to it from your internal hard drive.
Also, since you can run a full copy of OS X on the external drive, it can be used for troubleshooting purposes on other Macs or it can be as a kind of virtual OS X. I’ve already written about how you can install OS X in VMware Fusion, but that takes up space on your Mac. Using an external drive, you can save space on your Mac, though it might be a bit slower if you are using USB 2.0.
1) Connect new external HD to Mac and format to HFS+ or whatever Mac format you prefer. 2) Network the PC and the Mac together (preferably with a direct wired ethernet connection, computer to computer, but wireless or via a router should work. If you don't have your old Mac, just use the latest backup on file on with Time Machine on your external hard drive. How to recover specific files from your old Mac on your new Mac. Here's the easy part. Just connect the external hard drive that you were storing your old Mac's Time Machine backups on. If you were using the same external hard.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the requirements and steps to install OS X onto an external hard drive.
Format External Hard Disk
DON'T TOUCH the folder 'Backups.backupdb'. To add files to the drive, just drag them in to the window with the drive's contents. When you're done, eject the drive from the old macbook pro and plug it in to the new one. Just to be safe, click the time machine icon at the top of the screen and select 'back up now'. In iTunes, open the Preferences window: On a Mac, go to iTunes Preferences; in Windows, go to Edit Preferences. Click the Advanced tab. Look at the box under iTunes Media folder location and make a note of the location listed there. It shows the location of the iTunes folder on your computer.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is format the external hard drive properly. The file format has to be Mac OS X Journaled and you have to use the GUID partition map. To do this, open Disk Utility and connect the drive to your Mac.
Under External in the left hand menu, click on your external hard drive and then click on the Erase button. Make sure you backup any data before you erase the drive. When you click Erase, a dialog will pop up where you can configure some options.
Give your drive a name, choose OS X Extended (Journaled) for Format and GUID Partition Map for Scheme. It should only take a minute or two for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Now your drive is ready for OS X.
Install OS X
There are two ways you can install OS X on to your external hard disk: by reinstalling OS X from the OS X Utilities repair screen or by downloading OS X from the App Store and running the installer. I’ll show you both methods in case one isn’t working for you.
The easiest way is to download OS X from the App Store. Once you open the App Store, you’ll see a link on the right for the latest version of OS X (El Capitan as of this writing).
Go ahead and click the Download button to start downloading the installer. Note that if you already have that version of OS X installed, you’ll see a popup message appear asking if you still want to continue or not. Just click Continue.
Once it has been downloaded, just double-click the installer, which will be located in the Applications folder.
Keep clicking past the license agreement, etc., until you get to the screen that asks you which disk to install OS X on. By default, it is set to MacBook.
How To Backup A Macbook Onto An External Hard Drive As A Dmg File Size
Click on the Show All Disks button and you’ll see an icon for the different disks and partitions on the Mac. I named my external hard drive OS X and that shows up in the middle.
You can also tell it’s an external hard disk because it uses the icon with the orange hard drive. Click Continue and then follow the instructions to complete the installation. Note that your computer may restart during the install and you don’t have to do anything. OS X will automatically continue installing onto the external hard drive rather than booting up to your internal version of OS X.
At the end of this article, I’ll show you how to boot up to the external hard drive, so skip down if you ended up using the App Store method. Note that by default, the Mac will start booting up directly to the external hard drive until you change it.
The second method to install OS X is to restart the Mac and press and hold the COMMAND + R keys. This will load up OS X Recovery.
The OS X Utilities screen will appear and here you want to click on Reinstall OS X. Again, you’ll go through some basic screens, but when you get to the hard disk screen, click on Show All Disks again.
Using this method, you’ll have to login using your Apple ID and password so that the entire OS X installer can be downloaded off of Apple’s servers. Whichever method you choose, it will take anywhere from 15 to 30+ minutes to install OS X onto your external hard drive.
While OS X is installing, your computer will restart a couple of times. Note that when it finally boots into OS X, that is the version running off your external drive. To switch back and forth between the internal and external drive, you have to restart your computer and hold down the OPTION key.
When you do that, you should see at least four icons. In my case, I have five because I have Windows installed using Boot Camp. Anyway, the grey MacBook and Recovery 10.11.2 icons are for my internal OS X and the orange OS X and Recovery 10.11.3 are for the version installed on my external drive.
Use the arrow keys to select which drive to boot from and then simply press Enter. If you have a newer Mac and a USB drive that supports USB 3.0, everything should run fairly fast. Overall, it’s a fairly straight-forward process and took me less than an hour to get everything working. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!
Sep 28,2018 • Filed to: Take Data Backup • Proven solutions
No technology is fully free from malfunctioning. This is true of every hardware including computers and laptops. Laptop users are susceptible to data loss as on a computer, but the process of backup is little tricky on a laptop. Since laptops have a fixed memory, you can’t add a new hard disk to a laptop like on a PC to backup your data. Backing up laptop data to an external drive is the best way to prevent data loss. In this article, we will tell you how to backup laptop to an external drive using two simple and straightforward methods.
Part 1. Introduction about Laptop Backup
1. Reasons for Laptop Backup
Laptop backup is one of the most important tasks that you should perform if you don’t want to lose your data stored on it. Since laptops are portable devices, they are more susceptible to data loss than a PC. Below, you will learn some of the most common reasons for data loss on a laptop.
- Accidental deletion - Some people also mistakenly delete files while deleting some other files or format their hard disk, causing data loss. This is one of the most common reasons for data loss.
- Disk corruption - Hard disk is a hardware and is likely to fail at some point in time. If you don’t want to lose your data, it is important to back up the laptop regularly.
- Virus attacks - Virus attacks can do a lot more damage to your data stored on the laptop. They can delete files, corrupt files and file system and wreck havoc on your hard disk.
- Mishandling - You can drop the laptop accidentally or spill water on it, which can damage the hard drive, rendering it unusable.
How To Backup A Macbook Onto An External Hard Drive As A Dmg File Player
If you don’t want to lose your precious data stored on the laptop, it is very important to back up the laptop to an external drive. If you regularly backup laptop to external hard drive, then you will be able to restore the data in case of a mishap. In this post, we will tell you how to backup laptop to external hard drive to prevent data loss due to any of the above reasons.
2. What Kind of Data to Backup
A laptop may have many kinds of data on it that you may want to back up. These can include:
- Personal files - These include photos or videos of your family and friends. There are personal files that everyone keeps on their computer and it can be very disheartening to lose them.
- Business documents - Aside from these, you can also have important business documents on the laptop that you don’t want to lose.
- System files - System files includes an operating system, settings, boot partition and application files. These are important for the functioning of the computer and corruption or deletion of these files can render your system inoperational.
- Games and other applications - Some people also use their laptop to play games. Though these have less precedence for backup than other files.
Further Read:
How to Use an External Hard Drive
Tips to Upgrade, Replace your Laptop Hard Drive
How to Recover Files from Crashed External Hard Drive
Laptop Data Recovery: How to Recover Data from Laptop Hard Drive
How to Use an External Hard Drive
Tips to Upgrade, Replace your Laptop Hard Drive
How to Recover Files from Crashed External Hard Drive
Laptop Data Recovery: How to Recover Data from Laptop Hard Drive
Part 2. How to Backup Laptop to External Hard Drive in Windows
Windows from Microsoft is the world’s largest operating system. It is appreciated worldwide for its user-friendly interface, but it also has some very useful inbuilt backup tools to backup laptop data to an external hard drive. You can also install third-party backup tools to create a backup of your laptop files. In the following section, we will tell you how to backup laptop to external hard drive using Windows File History tool and AOMEI Backupper Prossional.
1. Backup Laptop Files with File History in Windows
File History is a new backup tool in Windows, first introduced in Windows 8. You can use it to restore the historical version of files, as well as creating a backup of laptop files to the external hard drive. Below we will show you how to backup laptop files to external hard drive using File History on Windows 10.
Mac Hard Drive Backup
Step 1. Access File History
First, connect an external hard drive to your laptop and go to Start Menu > Settings app. In Settings app, go to Update & Security and then click on “Backup” to access File History tool.
Note: In Windows 8, you can access File history tool from Control Panel > System and Security > File History.
Note: In Windows 8, you can access File history tool from Control Panel > System and Security > File History.
Step 2. Select a specific drive
Now, click “Add a drive” and select the external hard drive which File History will use for backup.
Step 3. Make automatic backup
![How to backup a macbook onto an external hard drive as a dmg file size How to backup a macbook onto an external hard drive as a dmg file size](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133903089/951004816.png)
Turn on the “Automatically backup file my files” toggle to automatically backup laptop files when you connect the external drive to the computer.
Step 4. Set up backup
Click on “More options” and you can configure how the File History will take a backup, like backup frequency, files to backup and duration of backups.
Step 5. Select files to backup
Now, click “Add a folder” button under “Back up these folders” to specify other folders that will be backed up beside user libraries, desktop, and downloads folder.
Step 6. Exclude folders
To exclude some folders from backing up, add them under “Exclude these folders” section.
2. Backup Laptop Data with AOMEI Backupper Professional
Backing up laptop files to external hard drive using File History is simple, but it also has various limitations. You can only backup specified folders to the external drive. Backing up the whole drive at once is not possible. Moreover, it isn’t available for the earlier version of Windows before Windows 8. So, if you are looking for the best way to backup laptop to an external drive, try AOMEI Backupper Pro. It is a professional data backup tool that allows you to back up your laptop and computer data to external storage media like hard drives and USB drives.
Now that you know what AOMEI Backupper Pro is, now it’s time to learn how to backup laptop to external hard drive. You can follow the steps given below to know how to backup laptop to an external hard drive using AOMEI Backupper Professional.
Step 1. Download and launch the laptop backup software
First, download the AOMEI Backupper Professional and launch the setup to install it on your laptop. After installation, launch the laptop backup tool and select the “Backup” tab from the application interface.
Backup Mac To External Hard Drive
Step 2. Select source disk
Now, select Disk Backup option and select the laptop’s internal hard disk as the source disk. You can also give a name to the backup task with the option given at disk backup screen.
Step 3. Choose external hard drive
Then, select the external hard disk as the destination drive. Click on “Backup options” to configure backup for example, encrypt and compress, schedule backups and more.
Step 4. Start the laptop backup process
Finally, click on Start Backup button and the laptop hard drive will be backed up to an external hard drive. Click on Finish to complete the backup and exit the AOMEI Backupper Professional .
3. Best Way to Backup Laptop to External Hard Drive
Windows’s File History tool is good to backup laptop files to an external hard drive, but it doesn’t compare to the functionality of the AOMEI Backupper Pro. File History lacks in several areas when compared to AOMEI Backupper Professional, for example, it doesn’t allow backing up the whole hard drive, or backing up system file and partitions. File History can only backup specified folder which you need to manually select, while AOMEI Backupper Pro can backup whole hard drive in a single go.
Creating a backup of your laptop using File History takes up quite a time, while AOMEI Backupper Pro accomplishes it very fast. You can also use it to backup system partitions, and clone hard drives to external hard drive. The biggest factor that makes AOMEI Backupper Pro better than File History tool is that it supports a range of Windows OS including Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP. File History is only available on Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. S. Considering all these factors, we have found AOMEI Backupper Pro to be the best way to backup laptop to external hard drive.
With the laptop backup software, you can protect your backup from unauthorized access with password encryption. With this amazing data backup tool, you can also backup data to NAS device or network shared folder. AOMEI Backupper Pro also allows you to easily copy the operating system to a USB drive. So, these AOMEI Backupper Pro is a very useful tool for backing up your laptop. Its functionality is too great to neglect if you are looking for a convenient third-party backup tool.
- Allows you to take automatic, full, incremental and differential backups of system, disk, partition and files.
- Supports system restore, disk restore, dissimilar hardware restore, partition restore and selective file restore.
- Supports disk clone, partition/volume clone, flexible clone, system clone and command line clone.
- Supports Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, and XP (all editions, 32/64-bit)
Tips to Backup Laptop to External Hard Drive
- Before starting the backup process, make sure that the external drive has enough storage space so that it could store the backup file. Traditionally it is recommended that the backup drive be twice as much as your internal hard disk.
- Do not disconnect the external drive while the backup process is ongoing. It will not only interrupt the backup process but can also damage the data stored on the drive.
- System-level backups can only be used on the same device on which they were made. This is because the system files are configured as per the target laptop. You can’t restore the system backups on a different machine.
In this article, we have shown you some information about laptop backup, 2 basic ways to perform it to an external hard drive and some tips about it. It can be concluded that laptop backup to external hard drive is quite necessary and helpful to protect our important and irreplaceable data. And the best way to do it is by taking advantage of AOMEI Backupper Professional.
AOMEI Backupper Professional is a Windows data backup utility that allows you to protect your data from system crashes, accidental deletion, and other causes of data loss. It is compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP and Vista. With the backup software, you can create a backup of the whole hard drive to an external hard drive very easily. Aside from personal data backup, you can backup system files and settings, volumes and partitions as well as applications. AOMEI Backupper Pro offers a range of features for data backup and recovery like disk cloning, imaging, system migration, backup scheduling, etc. It supports all types of backup i.e. full, incremental and differential backup.