[Xerox]

Hi

I’ve got two problems concerning my backups. I’ve contacted Bombich of CCC, but no solution has been found as yet. Let’s start.

1) I've cloned my main volume to two external drives, a Freecom Mobile Drive XXS 250GB and a brand-new Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB.
All new incremental backups complete successfully (no error is reported), but sometimes I find false clones in /Volumes/, some Freecom, some WD.
What exactly are false clones? And how can I prevent them?

2) I can boot from both my external drives (though WD officially suggest not to use their drives to clone), but then only few applications work. Most of them, in fact, crash as soon as started.
Among the working ones are Opera and Emacs, among the problem ones Safari, Firefox, Omniweb, Little Snitch and TextEdit.

Strangely, if I boot normally from the internal drive and then drag a problematic application from the external drive to the main volume, it works seamlessly.

Can anybody help?

Thank you!

PS Here it is one of the crash logs I've saved.


Process: TextEdit [372]
Path: /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
Identifier: com.apple.TextEdit
Version: 1.5 (244)
Build Info: TextEdit-2440000~2
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [173]

Date/Time: 2009-03-31 22:23:00.363 +0100
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: 0x000000000000000d, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 1

Thread 0:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x001fd4c2 szone_free + 360
1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005c949e __CFStrDeallocateMutableContents + 78
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005c95a4 __CFStringDeallocate + 180
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005b3768 _CFRelease + 216
4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005d84e1 _CFStringCreateWithFormatAndArgumentsAux + 145
5 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005d853e CFStringCreateWithFormatAndArguments + 46
6 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x005d8569 CFStringCreateWithFormat + 41
7 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x0058ff26 __CFCopySessionIDString + 86
8 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00593911 _CFXNotificationRegister + 737
9 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00593caa CFNotificationCenterAddObserver + 266
10 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x04683be4 _LSGetShowAllExtensionsPreference + 88
11 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x04683a74 _LSCopyNodeAttribute_NonLocalizedDisplayNameIfDiff erentFromFSName(LSNodeAttributeStateCache*) + 28
12 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x04683a46 _LSCopyNodeAttribute_DisplayNameIfDifferentFromFSN ame(LSNodeAttributeStateCache*) + 694
13 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x04683755 _LSCopyNodeAttribute_DisplayName(LSNodeAttributeSt ateCache*) + 29
14 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x046829d5 _LSCopyNodeAttribute + 123
15 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x0468292f _LSCopyItemAttributeForRefInfoWithOptions + 283
16 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x04683731 _LSCopyDisplayNameForRefInfo + 59
17 com.apple.AppKit 0x00f5788b -[NSFileInfoCacheEntry presentableName] + 328
18 com.apple.AppKit 0x00f55731 -[NSDocument _reconcileDisplayNameAndTrackingInfoToFileURL] + 211
19 com.apple.AppKit 0x00f55633 -[NSDocument _setFileURL:] + 116
20 com.apple.TextEdit 0x00009ae2 0x1000 + 35554
21 com.apple.AppKit 0x01091772 -[NSDocument _initWithContentsOfURL:ofType:error:] + 61
22 com.apple.AppKit 0x010916c6 -[NSDocument initWithContentsOfURL:ofType:error:] + 311
23 com.apple.AppKit 0x01061274 -[NSDocumentController makeDocumentWithContentsOfURL:ofType:error:] + 391
24 com.apple.AppKit 0x01060898 -[NSDocumentController openDocumentWithContentsOfURL:display:error:] + 420
25 com.apple.TextEdit 0x00009e04 0x1000 + 36356
26 com.apple.AppKit 0x011c3fc7 -[NSDocumentController(NSInternal) _openFile:] + 143
27 com.apple.AppKit 0x010d516a -[NSApplication _doOpenFile:ok:tryTemp:] + 637
28 com.apple.AppKit 0x010606e7 -[NSApplication _doOpenFiles:] + 242
29 com.apple.AppKit 0x010605d5 -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleAEOpenDocuments:] + 88
30 com.apple.AppKit 0x00d82783 -[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleCoreEvent:withReplyEvent:] + 297
31 com.apple.Foundation 0x01aad43f -[NSAppleEventManager dispatchRawAppleEvent:withRawReply:handlerRefCon:] + 655
32 com.apple.Foundation 0x01aad14f _NSAppleEventManagerGenericHandler + 223
33 com.apple.AE 0x04616648 aeDispatchAppleEvent(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*, unsigned long, unsigned char*) + 144
34 com.apple.AE 0x0461657e dispatchEventAndSendReply(AEDesc const*, AEDesc*) + 44
35 com.apple.AE 0x04616425 aeProcessAppleEvent + 177
36 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x022859a5 AEProcessAppleEvent + 38
37 com.apple.AppKit 0x00d7ff91 _DPSNextEvent + 1189
38 com.apple.AppKit 0x00d7f630 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128
39 com.apple.AppKit 0x00d7866b -[NSApplication run] + 795
40 com.apple.AppKit 0x00d458a4 NSApplicationMain + 574
41 com.apple.TextEdit 0x00001df6 0x1000 + 3574

Thread 1 Crashed:
0 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00658256 0x53e000 + 1155670

Thread 1 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
eax: 0x05fef000 ebx: 0x05ff370c ecx: 0x00000000 edx: 0x05ff7000
edi: 0x00000000 esi: 0x00000000 ebp: 0x05ff0ff8 esp: 0x05ff0f9c
ss: 0x0000001f efl: 0x00010246 eip: 0x00658256 cs: 0x00000017
ds: 0x0000001f es: 0x0000001f fs: 0x00000000 gs: 0x00000000
cr2: 0x05ff5086

[seanc]

What are you using to do incremental backups?
Do your clones work BEFORE doing an incremental backup?

[Xerox]

Hi seanc

I use Carbon Copy Cloner -never used a different backup utility.

And no, my clones never work. I noticed this problem only a few days ago, because I'm planning to upgrade my hard drive and decided to test my backups.

[seanc]

I'd try using the Restore function in Disk Utility.

Drag your HDD as the source and the External as the destination, that should get you a bootable clone. If it doesn't then we should start looking at your disks.

[Xerox]

OK seanc, I'll do it and let you know as soon as I come back from work tomorrow - I can't try now because in five hours I'll have to wake up...

Thank you very much for your help!

Regards

[CharlesS]

Note that when you use the Restore tab in Disk Utility, you should also check the "Erase Destination" check box. This will cause it to do a block copy in most cases, which will not only make the cloning go faster, but will also make it more accurate.

[Xerox]

Hi

I used the Restore function on one external drive (FREECOM), with “Erase Destination” checked, then I booted from it.

The first time, I had exactly the same troubles.
But after that, I booted again a few times and everything seems to be all right now. All the apps I open work normally.

I also booted twice from the drive not restored with Disk Utility and it still presents those issues.
So it looks like the problem has been sorted! Tomorrow I’ll try to fix the Western Digital volume as well and will let you know if all is OK.

I noticed a couple of funny things though: 1) my customized Firefox icon reverts to the default one when the app is started, and 2) on startup holding down the option key, the volumes names change almost every time a new booting takes place! (they are called, respectively, Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD1, or the opposite, or they have the same name).
Should I be concerned about that?

One more thing, please: could all this mess with my clones be caused by some Input Managers? I use a few of them, among which, 1Password, Glims, Smart Crash Reports and Speed Download Enhancer.

seanc and CharlesS, thank you very much for your great help!

Regards

[mduell]

Why are you cloning?

[Xerox]

Hi
Why shouldn't I? Isn't it better to have all bootable copies of your HD in case it dies?
Just asking.

By the way, after many tests, my FREECOM drive definitely works all right, but the Western Digital one, after two restore procedures, has still problems.

Thank you.