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plasticman · May 27, 2005, 02:01 PM

I have an 80GB powerbook and an 80GB spare hard drive which I've hooked up to my mac with a USB drive enclosure which I used to use with my PC. I'd like to backup the whole of the mac system on to the external disk but I don't know how.

I ran "disk utility" to initially set up the external drive, which I initially used to transfer all my PC files on to the mac, so it's a FAT32 formatted volume.

I've tried running "disk utility"; click my macintosh HD; click "new image"; point to the external drive and create a dmg image of the macintosh hard drive but this gives me an error message: unable to create filename.dmg: resource busy.

Without buying something like SuperDuper, is there any other way of backing up my system files as well as my data files. Can I simply copy everything over and if I run into any trouble, I can simply copy everything back again? If so, what's the advantage of something like SuperDuper?

Many thanks

angelmb · May 27, 2005, 03:55 PM

I just keep a copy of my Home Folder and the 3rd party Apps I have installed, as easy as drag and drop, though I have been lucky enough lacking damage issues and so. But my simple method does not provide me with a bootable copy, if something goes wrong I could need to reinstall Mac OS X and copy again my Home Library, Prefs files… If you need a bootable copy of your internal HD I guess SuperDuper! is a perfect choice.

plasticman · May 27, 2005, 05:30 PM

Well, I downloaded superduper and 1 hour 45 minutes later, the progress bar seems to have moved around 5-10%. The clock is still ticking, though, and the hard drive light on my external drive is still flashing, so I presume the program hasn't crashed. I'll leave it running uninterrupted overnight and see what happens, though there has to be a quicker way than that! The drive is USB2 rather than firewire but it should still be reasonably quick.

Is this the quickest way?! SuperDuper describes itself as being faster than a speeding bullet but it seems slower than a snail on hypnotics!

Kvasir · May 27, 2005, 05:51 PM

You cannot use Disk Utility to make a bootable disk image to a FAT32 disk, it must be HFS+. Also, OS X does not support booting from a USB device, so if you asked SuperDuper to make a bootable clone, that won't work regardless of the file system (I've never used SuperDuper, but I'd guess the FAT32 file system is messing it up).

In my experience, to make a true clone of your system, you need a firewire drive, formatted as HFs+. Then you can use any number of utilities, including DiskUtility (just select the "Erase destination" button).

Starry Night · May 27, 2005, 05:56 PM

I use Carbon Copy Cloner ($5 ?) to make the bootable clone, and ChronoSync ($30) for incremental backups. Works flawlessly and very fast, easy to use.......

plasticman · May 27, 2005, 07:20 PM

that's very useful information, thanks. Presumably, a PC cannot read an HFs+ formatted drive? I think a firewire hard drive enclosure should be easy enough to buy for the drive I already have.

Kvasir · May 27, 2005, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by plasticman

that's very useful information, thanks. Presumably, a PC cannot read an HFs+ formatted drive? I think a firewire hard drive enclosure should be easy enough to buy for the drive I already have.

A Windows box can only read HFS+ volumes with 3rd party software (ie. windows OS does not read it natively - OS X reads and writes FAT/FAT32 natively, and can read NTFS, but not write to it). And yes, firewire 400 enclosures are not very expensive (800 is a bit more) so that may well be the way to go.

plasticman · May 28, 2005, 02:29 AM

can you recommend any third party software to read HFS+ volumes, as 10 hours and 30 minutes later, SuperDuper was still only at around 10%. When I sent the partially created file to the trash, I saw it was 88MB and my drive uses around 50GB.

Kvasir · May 28, 2005, 06:15 AM

Originally Posted by plasticman

can you recommend any third party software to read HFS+ volumes, as 10 hours and 30 minutes later, SuperDuper was still only at around 10%. When I sent the partially created file to the trash, I saw it was 88MB and my drive uses around 50GB.

The only one I've seen in action is MacDrive. People who use it seem pleased.

mhodos · May 28, 2005, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by Kvasir

In my experience, to make a true clone of your system, you need a firewire drive, formatted as HFs+. Then you can use any number of utilities, including DiskUtility (just select the "Erase destination" button).

I have some questions about this.

I have a FW 400/800 enclosure with large hard drive in 2 partitions. On one partition I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my last working copy of Panther just before going to Tiger.

I want to put a backup of my current working copy of Tiger onto the other partition, but Carbon Copy Cloner has some issues with Tiger and the easiest workaround (using Terminal) doesn't seem to work for me. I used the restore function in Disk Utility to make a copy of my powerbook onto the other partition of the external HD. It seeme that all the files copied successfully.

Unfortunately, this external backup would not boot (showed up as an option after booting with the Option key down, but gave me the circle/slash icon about a second after the apple icon showed up during the boot attempt). I don't know what that actually means, aside from the obvious.

I booted into the old Panther Partition and used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the powerbook hard drive (Tiger) to the external partition (erased/formatted).

Is there any reason why using the Restore function in disk utility wouldn't make a bootable copy? I didn't seem to have trouble making the backup while booted into the same system, should there be?

Thanks!

Mike

Kvasir · May 28, 2005, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by mhodos

I have some questions about this.

I have a FW 400/800 enclosure with large hard drive in 2 partitions. On one partition I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my last working copy of Panther just before going to Tiger.

I want to put a backup of my current working copy of Tiger onto the other partition, but Carbon Copy Cloner has some issues with Tiger and the easiest workaround (using Terminal) doesn't seem to work for me. I used the restore function in Disk Utility to make a copy of my powerbook onto the other partition of the external HD. It seeme that all the files copied successfully.

Unfortunately, this external backup would not boot (showed up as an option after booting with the Option key down, but gave me the circle/slash icon about a second after the apple icon showed up during the boot attempt). I don't know what that actually means, aside from the obvious.

I booted into the old Panther Partition and used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the powerbook hard drive (Tiger) to the external partition (erased/formatted).

Is there any reason why using the Restore function in disk utility wouldn't make a bootable copy? I didn't seem to have trouble making the backup while booted into the same system, should there be?

Thanks!

Mike

When using Disk Utility's Restore option - to make a bootable clone, be sure to choose the "Erase Destination" tab, otherwise it seems it's not a bootable copy.

Randman · May 28, 2005, 09:20 AM

I'm just holding out till CCC is Tiger-ized.

romeosc · May 28, 2005, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by Randman

I'm just holding out till CCC is Tiger-ized.

CCC works fine with Tiger if you drop it on Pseudo. Psuedo allows CCC to work properly with Tiger!

http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/pseudo.html

ZXspectrum · May 28, 2005, 08:53 PM

superduper is the best out ther . never had a problem and tried all the other apps. it's simple fast and give you a few options like safe clone which is very nice