[brewskij]

wanted to make a backup of my disk, since I haven't done so, and will be heading on the road shortly... have used Norton Backup and Ghost with PCs in the past... have backup from .MAC subscription... so, they don't give you the option of backing up the entire disk - or at least it isn't obvious from the interface... so, I choose the various folders that make up the entire hard drive (about 15 Gigs of stuff)... then I hit backup (as it said I need two DVD-Rs, which I had handy)... voilla - all looked OK, until it hit some Garage Band Library files, Apple Loops (.aif files)... wouldn't back em up - permission problems... was running the backup as my account which should have admin privileges... maybe I shoulda logged in as root? at any rate, backup failed... not sure if it was actually writing to the DVD-R and toasted it, or what - might have just been reviewing the files to backup... hope it was that way... at any rate, not too happy with Backup, especially when compared to Norton Backup and Ghost on PCs...

gotta dance,
BrewSkij

[Amorya]

You should not have logged in as root. Under OSX, you should never log in as root.

Amorya

[mishap]

Originally posted by Amorya:
You should not have logged in as root. Under OSX, you should never log in as root.

Amorya

that was f*cking helpful. he didnt even say he logged in as root.

Try Carbon Copy Cloner. Although, i myself have not tried it...usually only back up home and start over.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by mishap:
that was f*cking helpful. he didnt even say he logged in as root.

I know. He said he was considering it. I was warning him not to. Would it make you happier if I went into detail about how it can f*ck up the finder, and how the security model in OSX works a heck of a lot better when logged in as an admin user?

I didn't say more 'cos I didn't know the answer to his question, not being a .mac subscriber.

Amorya

[Cadaver]

"Backup" wont back up all the 'various files that make up the entire hard drive.'
Its simply not designed to do this.

Its designed to be an easy way to back up your personal data in your home folder. Nothing more. Things like files in your Documents folder, your emails, iTunes playlists, iPhoto library, files on the desktop, and such. It wont backup the system OS folders, system library folders, other users data, etc.

Don't bother to try adding folders to Backup's list that are outside your main home folder. It wont work properly. You'll see the permission errors like you described.

If you want a more feature complete program, there are several shareware and commercial backup/archival program for OS X.

This is not to say Backup is a bad application. I actually quite like it - mine is scheduled to nightly backup my personal data (5+ GB of photos, 13MB of emails, calendars, address book, 2GB of personal documents, 6+ GB of work documents, bookmarks, iTunes playlists, 12GB of MP3s/AACs, etc.) to a 120GB firewire drive. Also backs up selected smaller files nightly to my iDisk.

But Backup has its limits and they are well documented.

addendum: Backup is also free (yeah, yeah, you pay for .mac), so comparing it to a $60 application like Norton Ghost isn't quite fair. If you want an app like Ghost, try Carbon Copy Cloner. Its a shareware app, and worth every penny.

[CharlesS]

Disk Utility's Software Restore feature is able to do full-system backups.