[sinebubble]

For reasons that are too long to get into, I need to clone/copy a Mac OS X disk using OS 9. Applications, etc. Is there anyway of doing this from OS 9? Drag/Drop appears to screw up the files.

[wataru]

I don't think it's possible. OS 9 apps don't understand permissions or certain kinds of OS X system files(?).

[Earth Mk. II]

OS 9 doesn't understand file permissions or symbolic links. The system needs both these types of files to boot. So, Drag & Drop won't work.

You might be able to make an image of the drive using Disk Copy... worth a shot.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
For reasons that are too long to get into, I need to clone/copy a Mac OS X disk using OS 9. Applications, etc. Is there anyway of doing this from OS 9?

No. Not only will it screw up permissions, it will also trash filenames longer than 32 characters.

[MacMatt]

Yes, you can.

Disk Copy version 6.4 has a clonning option from its Menu bar which will make a duplicate from an OSX volume/partition which can be put on another volume/partition and is bootable. You can get it here: http://homepage.mac.com/alk/personal/stuff.html

Have fun,
Matt

[tooki]

Disk Copy 6.4 is the only way to do it on OS 9. It must be bypassing OS 9's file management, because that's the only way it could preserve all the metadata that OS X requires.

I'll also point out that, unlike OS 9, OS X cannot be copied using drag-and-drop, period. Even if you're booted in OS X, you cannot duplicate it that way.

tooki

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by MacMatt:
Yes, you can.

Disk Copy version 6.4 has a clonning option from its Menu bar which will make a duplicate from an OSX volume/partition which can be put on another volume/partition and is bootable. You can get it here: http://homepage.mac.com/alk/personal/stuff.html

Have fun,
Matt

Ah, with Disk Copy 6.4, you could indeed do it since it supports .dmg (rather than .img which AFAIK doesn't support permissions or long file names).

The problem is that Disk Copy 6.4 is officially unreleased software and it's not supposed to be downloadable - if someone at Apple reads this thread and finds out that it's on your .mac web page, they may remove it. OTOH, it may have come to the point where no one cares anymore...

[MacMatt]

Not my .mac site Charles,

I got the address by using Google.

Matt

[sinebubble]

You guys will be shocked to know that a simple drag-n-drop worked. I couldn't believe it, either, but when I booted into OS X and mounted the OS X volume I copied in OS 9, all my files were there. Bundles were okay, permissions were retained as well as long filenames. I know it sounds incredible, but I swear on a stack of MacAddict's that it's true.

[tooki]

No offense, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell that worked.

Sure, your files may have been there, but copying a bootable OS X install requires correct permissions as well as symbolic links, neither of which the OS 9 Finder knows anything about.

tooki

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by tooki:
No offense, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell that worked.

Sure, your files may have been there, but copying a bootable OS X install requires correct permissions as well as symbolic links, neither of which the OS 9 Finder knows anything about.

tooki

No offense taken. I'm a Solaris engineer, so I'm just as confused as you. If I wasn't so busy trying to recover from my 5 day outage, I would try to solve this puzzle. Maybe this weekend I can find some time to replicate.

[tooki]

If you do, be sure to post how you did it here!

tooki

[Brass]

That does sound bizarre, as copying using OS X doesn't even give you a bootable system!

[sinebubble]

Keep in mind that I did a volume copy. I grabbed the entire volume and copied it to a new volume. I did not copy individual files. OS 9 is quite happy with HFS+. Attributes, permissions, etc are all stored in the inodes. It actually makes sense that I was able to do this.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
Keep in mind that I did a volume copy. I grabbed the entire volume and copied it to a new volume. I did not copy individual files. OS 9 is quite happy with HFS+. Attributes, permissions, etc are all stored in the inodes. It actually makes sense that I was able to do this.

Hmm, did any files have names longer than 32 characters? In my experience, OS 9 has clipped filenames when this was the case.

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Hmm, did any files have names longer than 32 characters? In my experience, OS 9 has clipped filenames when this was the case.

Loads.

When I started the copy, I looked at what was being copied, smacked my head and thought I was doomed. I let the copy run over night, anyway. Booted into OS X from a different disk and found everything that was copied looked "normal" to OS X.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
Loads.

When I started the copy, I looked at what was being copied, smacked my head and thought I was doomed. I let the copy run over night, anyway. Booted into OS X from a different disk and found everything that was copied looked "normal" to OS X.

Hmm, that's interesting. Okay, whatever works, I guess...

[tooki]

I mean no offense, again, but there's no way it worked.

When OS X first came out, and Carbon Copy Cloner had yet to be invented, people tried everything to try and copy bootable OS X volumes. Using the OS 9 Finder was one of the first things people tried, and it never worked. There's no reason to believe that somehow, magically, you have some special super-OS 9 that can do it.

There's got to be more to this story.

tooki

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by tooki:
I mean no offense, again, but there's no way it worked.

When OS X first came out, and Carbon Copy Cloner had yet to be invented, people tried everything to try and copy bootable OS X volumes. Using the OS 9 Finder was one of the first things people tried, and it never worked. There's no reason to believe that somehow, magically, you have some special super-OS 9 that can do it.

There's got to be more to this story.

tooki

Saturday I will attempt to replicate. I'll boot into OS 9 and copy a volume with OS X to another drive.

[MacMatt]

Originally posted by tooki:
I mean no offense, again, but there's no way it worked.

When OS X first came out, and Carbon Copy Cloner had yet to be invented, people tried everything to try and copy bootable OS X volumes. Using the OS 9 Finder was one of the first things people tried, and it never worked. There's no reason to believe that somehow, magically, you have some special super-OS 9 that can do it.

There's got to be more to this story.

tooki

Have to disagree, tooki, since I made bootable OSX copies long before CCC came out. And, just to make sure I could still do it, I just copied my OS 10.3.4 partition from an internal HD to a partition on an external Firewire HD and booted from it...in fact, I'm booted in it now.

My method: While booted in my OS 9.2.2 partition, I used Simple Browser 2.2(There are probably other utilities that would work as well) to make all invisible files visible in the OSX partition I wanted to copy. Then, I used Simple Browser to trash all files (visible and invisible) on the target partition. Then simply select all files(from the Edit Menu) to highlite them and drag and drop them in the target partition. Next step was to use Simple Browser to make all the originally invisible files invisible again in both partitions.

I'm not sure if just dragging the OSX volume to another volume will be bootable...I tried that and couldn't get it to boot...although all the files seemed to be there. My attempt hung on the Apple screen.

Matt

[sinebubble]

Word. I didn't even bother to boot off the copy. I just zeroed in on replacing my home directory and reinstalled the OS.

[tooki]

So you didn't make a bootable copy, then!?

As for involving a third-party utility... it involved a third-party utility. Mac OS 9 alone cannot copy OS X partitions. Also, what was installed on the target disk before? You said you trashed all the files -- so it wasn't a freshly formatted disk. If it held an OS X install before, it may have still contained the symlinks needed to make OS X run.

tooki

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by tooki:


So you didn't make a bootable copy, then!?

As for involving a third-party utility... it involved a third-party utility. Mac OS 9 alone cannot copy OS X partitions. Also, what was installed on the target disk before? You said you trashed all the files -- so it wasn't a freshly formatted disk. If it held an OS X install before, it may have still contained the symlinks needed to make OS X run.

tooki

tooki, I never said I made a bootable copy. Maybe you're thinking of MacMatt?
There were 3 disks involved in this copy. I booted off MacOS9 installed on a 9/X 6GB internal disk. I mounted and formatted a new 120GB disk via firewire. I also mounted my bad 60GB disk (9/X) via firewire at the same time. Under OS9 running on the internal 6GB, I dragged the mounted 60GB volume onto the 120GB disk. 3 hours later, I had a complete copy of my "bad" 60GB disk. I booted into X on the 6GB internal disk and saw all my files, permissions, etc as expected on the external 120GB drive. I then wiped the 60GB disk and reinstalled OS X. I then copied my home folder over to the disk later and here I am today typing this message. Would the copy on the 120GB disk boot? Not sure as the copied volume is under a directory on the 120GB disk, not at the root of the drive. It would be interesting to know if it would boot, actually. I still have it, so I might try tonight.

[wataru]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
tooki, I never said I made a bootable copy. Maybe you're thinking of MacMatt?
There were 3 disks involved in this copy. I booted off MacOS9 installed on a 9/X 6GB internal disk. I mounted and formatted a new 120GB disk via firewire. I also mounted my bad 60GB disk (9/X) via firewire at the same time. Under OS9 running on the internal 6GB, I dragged the mounted 60GB volume onto the 120GB disk. 3 hours later, I had a complete copy of my "bad" 60GB disk. I booted into X on the 6GB internal disk and saw all my files, permissions, etc as expected on the external 120GB drive. I then wiped the 60GB disk and reinstalled OS X. I then copied my home folder over to the disk later and here I am today typing this message. Would the copy on the 120GB disk boot? Not sure as the copied volume is under a directory on the 120GB disk, not at the root of the drive. It would be interesting to know if it would boot, actually. I still have it, so I might try tonight.

When you say "clone OS X from OS 9," the "clone" part implies a perfect copy, which would be bootable. The only reason this thread has dragged on so long is because we all thought you claimed to have made a bootable clone with just OS 9.

As tooki said (emphasis mine):

Originally posted by tooki:
No offense, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell that worked.

Sure, your files may have been there, but copying a bootable OS X install requires correct permissions as well as symbolic links, neither of which the OS 9 Finder knows anything about.

tooki

I think it's pretty obvious that no one was surprised that you managed to get your files off. The only contention was over the bootability of the copied system. You replied to tooki's post by saying, "well, it worked" without understanding that we were all talking about bootability.

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by wataru:
When you say "clone OS X from OS 9," the "clone" part implies a perfect copy, which would be bootable. The only reason this thread has dragged on so long is because we all thought you claimed to have made a bootable clone with just OS 9.

Only? I see this thread as an argument as to whether I was able to actually copy file permissions, links, long filenames, etc via OS 9. Actual bootablity was never mentioned until the end. And tooki's comment, considering the course of the posts before it and my intention, could be taken as just copying a OSX volume.

Anyway, if no one is disputing my claim, then let's close it and move on. I've got my data and I'm happy about it.

[wataru]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
Only? Well, that is not the impression I have. I see this thread as an argument as to whether I was able to actually copy file permissions, links, long filenames, etc via OS 9. Bootablity was never mentioned until the end. If no one is disputing my claim, then let's close it and move on.

Read the rest of my post! tooki's reply to your second post specifically mentioned bootability! Long file names, permissions, and symbolic links were given as examples of why the copy wouldn't be bootable!

[tooki]

sinebubble, you wasted a lot of people's time by responding without actually reading what we wrote.

OF COURSE you can copy files in OS 9 and have them work!

It's OS X bootability and metadata that get lost. OS 9 does NOT know how to copy permissions, for example, nor symbolic links. It DOES know about packages ("bundles"), because it is capable of running packaged applications.

tooki

[sinebubble]

Originally posted by tooki:
sinebubble, you wasted a lot of people's time by responding without actually reading what we wrote.

OF COURSE you can copy files in OS 9 and have them work!

It's OS X bootability and metadata that get lost. OS 9 does NOT know how to copy permissions, for example, nor symbolic links. It DOES know about packages ("bundles"), because it is capable of running packaged applications.

tooki

Oh please, telling me that I wasted someone's time on this board is hilarious. Perhaps we would all find this thread more relevant if we hurled insults at each other and debated how different kinds of dust looks on G5 speaker grills.

Anyway, as I have said, I wanted to know how to copy permissions, long filenames, etc. If clone==bootability, than I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I never intended to boot from any copy I made. I just wanted to be certain I wouldn't loose long filenames, etc. I don't see how you can read my posts and get the idea that I seriously wanted to actually produce a bootable copy of my disk *other* than if you (unlike me) see clone as meaning *exactly* that I wanted to boot off the copy. I mean, sheez, I said "clone/copy" in my first post and everything after that was more specific to filenames, permissions, etc.

If you hang out here long enough, eventually you loose credibilty, huh?

[Brass]

Originally posted by sinebubble:
Oh please, telling me that I wasted someone's time on this board is hilarious. Perhaps we would all find this thread more relevant if we hurled insults at each other and debated how different kinds of dust looks on G5 speaker grills.

Anyway, as I have said, I wanted to know how to copy permissions, long filenames, etc. If clone==bootability, than I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I never intended to boot from any copy I made. I just wanted to be certain I wouldn't loose long filenames, etc. I don't see how you can read my posts and get the idea that I seriously wanted to actually produce a bootable copy of my disk *other* than if you (unlike me) see clone as meaning *exactly* that I wanted to boot off the copy. I mean, sheez, I said "clone/copy" in my first post and everything after that was more specific to filenames, permissions, etc.

If you hang out here long enough, eventually you loose credibilty, huh?

To most Mac OS X users, the word "Clone", when refering to copying volumes, means an exact copy in every way including bootability (is that a word?). The main feature of the utility "Carbon Copy Cloner" is that it is suppose to produce bootable copies.

Here's two dictionary definitions of "clone":

noun: An exact duplicate
verb: To make an exact copy of something

Please forgive these guys for being so pedantic about their interpretation of your use of the word.

[Homer1946]

Originally posted by wataru:
Read the rest of my post! tooki's reply to your second post specifically mentioned bootability! Long file names, permissions, and symbolic links were given as examples of why the copy wouldn't be bootable!

I thought I would chime in. I have done several drag and drop installs of OS X using OS 9 and it has always worked, although carbon copy cloner is SO MUCH EASIER. My main problem with using OS 9 is the pain of making all the invisible files/folders visible so I can drag the damned things. Now, doing a drag and drop install of X from X, that I can't do.

All the OS X tools work great, but occassionally, for odd reasons, we find ourselves unable to copy from OS X.

When OS X first came out it scared the hell out of me. I could select copy an OS 9 install blindfolded. Now I feel almost as comfortable in X... almost never getting burned anymore by forgetting about the cp's command failure to copy resource forks

-R

[wataru]

Originally posted by Homer1946:
I thought I would chime in. I have done several drag and drop installs of OS X using OS 9 and it has always worked, although carbon copy cloner is SO MUCH EASIER. My main problem with using OS 9 is the pain of making all the invisible files/folders visible so I can drag the damned things. Now, doing a drag and drop install of X from X, that I can't do.

All the OS X tools work great, but occassionally, for odd reasons, we find ourselves unable to copy from OS X.

When OS X first came out it scared the hell out of me. I could select copy an OS 9 install blindfolded. Now I feel almost as comfortable in X... almost never getting burned anymore by forgetting about the cp's command failure to copy resource forks

-R

Here we go again

You say it "worked." Does that mean the files were transferred, or that the resulting copy was bootable? If the latter, I'm going to have to call BS.