How to BU OS

[Dakota Wind]

Been lurking and now have a ?.  All the old original JPG's are now cataloged by date as DNG's and all NEF's are DNG's. The adjusted files are all TIFF's, and have a copy of JPG's for family, email etc.   Working more with LR and it is making more sense as I go along. 
All the converted original photos are backed up on 2 ext. HD's.  Also have the previously adjusted photos backed up too.  Now that the originals are in LR, I'd redoing some of the adjustments and keeping them stacked so I can find them all in one place.

I now have a large ext. HD.  I use Mac OSX (latest version) and have room to BU the OS.  I've looked for info on the computer but I have not found what I'm looking for.  Any suggestions?  The contents of the large HD are backed up right now on the smaller one so formatting, partitioning etc. is not a problem for the large one.  I have recovery discs that came with the computer, but some of the applicatios (programs) have been downloaded and I don't have an original disc.  I could retrieve them by using the serial #, but it would be easier if I had them backed up here.

If I don't have to back up the entire OS, then how do I back up all the applications?  Is it as easy as copy/paste, drag/drop from the "Applications" folder to the HD?  I was thinking there would be some files that wouldn't copy that way, but I don't know much about it.


Thanks for any help you can pass along,
Allie

[peterkrogh]

Sue,
I'd make a partition (this is one of the only places I still use partitions) and make a bootable clone of the OS, and all the applications, users folder, etc.  I use Carbon Copy Cloner, but I think Super Duper may be a better application for this.
Peter

[Dakota Wind]

Thanks Peter,
I'll look into those programs.


Allie