[rgoer]

Is there a utility available for X that allows for a bit-by-bit transfer of data from one partition to another? Here is my situation: I've got two physical disks in an old box. I just got a new box, and am going to be using this old one for a webserver. The webserver doesn't need the forty gig disk that is sitting in it; I feel that it should be fine with ten. However, the system partition happens to reside on that forty gig disk. Is there a way to transfer a system installation in this fashion? And, yeah, it probably would be easier to just re-install... but I've got everything set up the way I want it! ;^)

[wulf]

Carbon Copy Cloner

[starman]

Carbon Copy Cloner is sh*t. I tried it twice and it wouldn't back up everything, resulting in an unstable clone (you know what they say about cloning ).

Use imageJaguar. You can find it on versiontracker.com. Not as user firendly, but the thing WORKS.

Mike

[rgoer]

Originally posted by starman:
Carbon Copy Cloner is sh*t. I tried it twice and it wouldn't back up everything, resulting in an unstable clone (you know what they say about cloning ).

Use imageJaguar. You can find it on versiontracker.com. Not as user firendly, but the thing WORKS.

Mike

Hey, thanks for tossing imageJaguar my way. I'm experiencing some hiccups, though, so (if you don't mind) let me explain my situation before asking another question:

I've got two physical disks:
10 GB and 40 GB.

Here are their partitions:
10 GB = all one partition, and it's empty.
40 GB = two partitions: 3 GB system (boot) partition, 37 GB other crap (not all full)

I want to move that 3 GB system partition over to the empty 10 GB partition.

So, I looked to imageJaguar. I did a sudo imageJaguar and set the "partition to image:" to "/" (well, without the quotes). That is, here are all the options I chose:

partition to image: /
new volume name: XVolume
image name: XImage
save image(s) here: /volumes/Sprawl/
image type (asr/netboot): asr

run using defaults? N
server or client: c
prep for ASR restore: Y
boots into Setup Asst.: N
segment ASR image: N
compress image: N
erase network settings: N
repair permissions: Y
make image portable: Y
backup Netinfo db's: Y
clear caches: Y
clear logs: Y

OK, so that's what I tried. imageJaguar, however, seems to have choked. At 18:10:03 it started it's "preflight" operations, and in the 2.5 hours since then it hasn't made it past "Determining volume size..." (the first step). Before I reboot and try again, is there anything glaringly wrong (that you can tell) with the options I chose? Are you not allowed to imageJaguar the "/" partition? Well, in any case, you've been quite helpful, and if you've got any further advice I would be very appreciative.

[Evan]

Originally posted by starman:
Carbon Copy Cloner is sh*t. I tried it twice and it wouldn't back up everything, resulting in an unstable clone. Mike

Hmmm... guess that must be why Apple hired the author of CCC (or so I read).

You failed to mention what it didn't backup (some files are recreated every boot and therefore useless to waste space backing up). You didn't detail the instability (you weren't trying to boot from the clone and repair the original were you?).

[chris v]

Originally posted by starman:
Carbon Copy Cloner is sh*t. I tried it twice and it wouldn't back up everything, resulting in an unstable clone (you know what they say about cloning ).

Mike

I'm sorry that you had trouble with CCC, and I'm not trying to discount those troubles, but I've had great success with CCC over the last year. I use it to keep 3 machines backed up, and it's pulled mt @ss out of a crack more than once. It has crashed on me mid-clone one time, in maybe 20-25 full-on system backups. It may not be perfect, but it's easy to use, and the author has been relatively helpful, and responds to people in the forums he set up on his site. I think calling it sh*t in a blanket statement is a little harsh.

CV

[starman]

Originally posted by Evan:
Hmmm... guess that must be why Apple hired the author of CCC (or so I read).

You failed to mention what it didn't backup (some files are recreated every boot and therefore useless to waste space backing up). You didn't detail the instability (you weren't trying to boot from the clone and repair the original were you?).

For some reason it refused to backup whole directories. I got "<such and such> is a directory. Do you want to skip it?". Uh...if it's a directory, why not treat it like one and BACK IT UP?

Let's see, specifically it crashed the very first time I ran it, wouldn't back up the Applescript examples directory, one of the System directories which resulted in NO apps being able to launch, and a handful of other problems.

Mike

[starman]

rgoer,
Try backing up the drive while running from a different partition. It's never good to back up the partition you're currently running on.

Mike

[rgoer]

Originally posted by starman:
rgoer,
Try backing up the drive while running from a different partition. It's never good to back up the partition you're currently running on.

Mike

Good call, Mike, and thanks for the whack with the obvious stick; apparently, I needed that.