I have a Mac which can't boot up (it sees the prohibitory sign when it's turned on). I am going to do a clean reinstall of macOS on it. I want to keep the data somewhere, of course, so I don't lose all my files.

Since the Mac is damaged, do I need to make a clone of the drive (using Carbon Copy Cloner) or will a simply copy and paste of the drive to the target drive from the Finder do? I don't need the copied data to form a bootable drive, as it is damaged anyway. I just want to keep the personal files and folders intact, and perhaps the applications as well so I know what I had installed on the drive.

P.S. I'd rather not use CCC or any external programs *if that's possible*. I'm running macOS off a USB drive and it's incredibly slow, so third-party software is merely a hindrance.