[mattyb]

I ran Onyx and it spotted a problem with the hard drive. I used CCC and backed up to an external Firewire. I then booted in target disk mode using the external. I then used Disk Utility to do a Verify Disk. This is the message that I got :



What now ?

[64stang06]

Well, if booting from an external drive or OS disc to do the repair fails, then you can either try using Disk Warrior to repair the drive ($100), or, since you created a backup, boot from the OS disc and do an erase and install.

[seanc]

I see you've got a Boot Camp partition. Boot into Windows, download and run Speeed Fan. Go to to the S.M.A.R.T tab.
Select your hard drive from the drop down tab - what are the status bars at the bottom like? On a good drive they'll be full or 2 blocks from full.
Click the 'perform an online in depth analysis'. Have a look at those results and see what it says about your hard drive, also post the permanent link here so we can have a look at it.

[Simon]

Why get CCC to clone when DiskUtility woud have let you clone right then and there?

[mattyb]

seanc, boot camp partition, but non-functioning boot camp partition. Haven't gotten around to deleting it.

Simon, I chose CCC after asking in these forums, other forums and what people said on the internet about a backup regime. I have another drive - firewire as well - would a clone using Disk Utility help me out?

[TETENAL]

I thought your CCC clone is bootable? You could have used Disk Utility as well, but there is no need to do it again if it worked fine. The cheapest way to fix your drive now is format it and clone back everything from your external copy. Maybe make another copy onto that other external drive in case something goes wrong.

Still check the SMART-status of the internal drive in Disk Utility (press the Info button) to make sure the problems are not due to a failing drive.

[mattyb]

TETENAL, it is and I booted from it in order to run Disk Utility on the internal hard drive. So yes it is bootable. I'm no expert, but aren't these logical errors? And if the clone is a true clone, won't these errors also exist in the clone?

The full log from Disk Utility below.



Just checked in Disk Utility for the internal hard drive, SMART Status : Verified.

[TETENAL]

If you erase (format) the drive yourself then use Disk Utility's restore feature to transfer back the data and choose not to turn on erasing before restoring there, then I'm pretty sure it will not copy over those errors. I'm not sure what it does with erasing turned on.

I don't know how CCC behaves. Check your external drive with Disk Utility. You will see whether it copied over the errors.

SMART-status verified means the drive thinks it's still fine.

[mattyb]

OK cheers TETENAL.

[seanc]

The drive may still think it's fine - many failing drives do.

Your best bet now is to download smartmontools.
Install MacPorts http://www.macports.org/
Run this command in the Terminal after installation so the Terminal knows where it's installed

Code:
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

Install smartmontools via the Terminal

Code:
sudo port install smartmontools

In the Terminal type

Code:
sudo smartctl -A /dev/disk0

Paste the results here in code tags.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Simon, I chose CCC after asking in these forums, other forums and what people said on the internet about a backup regime.

Outdated advice. CCC and SD were recommended a long time ago because at the time there were no other GUI methods to do clones. ASR was command-line only.

But since quite a while already DiskUtility does clones. While CCC and SD have both caused trouble in the past and while SD is a complete rip-off ($28 !!!), Disk Utility does clones for free. It's included with every OS X install, it's on the installer DVD, it's always available. It makes bootable clones. It's rock stable. And it's by far the fastest way to make a clone.

[Simon]

SMART says your drive is OK. But that doesn't mean it has to be. You should follow seanc's advice to find out more.

If you can verify the drive is OK, you can restore your internal drive. I'd start out with formatting the internal drive and then use Disk Utility to restore from your clone. If you still get the same errors, make sure you run DiskUtility from the installer DVD (so you do not boot from the volume your are attempting to repair).

If that still doesn't help you can try booting into single-user mode (hold cmd-s while booting) and using fsck on your disk. I that fails as well you could consider trying out a commercial solutions like DiskWarrior or you could set up a fresh Leopard install and migrate manually or assisted from your clone. As you see there are several options you have. You should take it step by step.

[mattyb]

Dumb questions :

Which type of package do I need for smartmontools ? On their site they have a tarball for BSD style OSes - is this what's needed for MacPorts?

I should also install this on both the internal (where the error is) and the external (where my clone is, and where I have booted from) ?

I'm not a complete noob regarding installs from source, the command line etc (been using Linux for a couple of years) but I've never done this in OS X. I'm going to reclone using Disk Utility onto another external FW that I have, cheers for the suggestions.

[seanc]

Download the DMG for Leopard and run the installer http://svn.macports.org/repository/m....5-Leopard.dmg

[mattyb]

Cheers again seanc.

I'm doing lots of backups onto DVD at the moment before I take the plunge with actual recloning the internal. Trouble is, iTunes library is 30G (that's after getting rid of stuff that I don't listen to, don't want, doubles etc), iPhoto now stores ALL your photos in one file - wonderful so backing up is less easy than previously.

[seanc]

Why even bother with DVDs - you'll be there for hours popping discs in and out. I'd just copy it all to another HDD.

[QuadG5Man]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Outdated advice. CCC and SD were recommended a long time ago because at the time there were no other GUI methods to do clones. ASR was command-line only.

But since quite a while already DiskUtility does clones. While CCC and SD have both caused trouble in the past and while SD is a complete rip-off ($28 !!!), Disk Utility does clones for free. It's included with every OS X install, it's on the installer DVD, it's always available. It makes bootable clones. It's rock stable. And it's by far the fastest way to make a clone.

On my iMac 24" 10.5.5 system I used SD to clone 10.5.5 before updating to 10.5.6. The update (.6) made my iMac sleep function unusable, and made Safari crash more often. From what I read it's related to having FW drives connected to the iMac, whether they are powered on, or not. Some people have recommended installing the combo updater if you are experiencing this. But that did not work for me, so I went back to 10.5.5 from the HDD clone done by SD.

Finally my question,

Now that I'm back running 10.5.5 on my internal HDD on the iMac, should I use DiskUtility to clone the drive again, or be happy because everything is running so hunky-dory? Would DU offer a 'better' clone?

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by seanc 

Why even bother with DVDs - you'll be there for hours popping discs in and out. I'd just copy it all to another HDD.

Using both mate My data is PRICELESS !!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by QuadG5Man 

Now that I'm back running 10.5.5 on my internal HDD on the iMac, should I use DiskUtility to clone the drive again, or be happy because everything is running so hunky-dory? Would DU offer a 'better' clone?

No, keep running whatever you are running now since it works fine.

In the future however, rely on DU for your clones.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Outdated advice. CCC and SD were recommended a long time ago because at the time there were no other GUI methods to do clones. ASR was command-line only.

Yes... CCC came first. (i can't recall when SD arrived, but it was after).

Originally Posted by Simon 

But since quite a while already DiskUtility does clones.

Yes... Apple did eventually add a "Restore" panel. (and how i detest that word "restore" used in a back-up context).
IIRC, DU came out with its "Restore" feature the same year that Mike Bombich started working at Apple.
[which may just be a total coincidence... but it sure didn't seem so at the time. ]

Originally Posted by Simon 

While CCC and SD have both caused trouble in the past and while SD is a complete rip-off ($28 !!!), Disk Utility does clones for free.

I'm not sure that saying either CCC or SD have "caused" trouble is a fair statement. The only tricky business i can recall ended up being some quirk which turned out to be that Tiger's (original) install/upgrade operation did something funny to the /var/db/volinfo.database file... as documented here:

• Floating ownership nearly sinks us
• Slowly going insane while waiting for a fix

As for the $28, most people know that SD still does *full* clones for *free* -- and it always has. The $28 buys incremental (or "differential" if you prefer that terminology) backup features. What else did SD do differently? Well, according to these articles (from 2006), SD was the top cat in the "preserving the most metadata" department:

• The State of Backup and Cloning Tools under Mac OS X
  
• Mac Backup Software Harmful
  
• Apple’s asr Badly Broken in Mac OS X 10.4.6?

 
Since those articles first appeared, many backup utility authors quickly upgraded their products
to comply with at least some of the issues raised there. But... SD had that whole deal down first.

Originally Posted by Simon 

It's included with every OS X install, it's on the installer DVD, it's always available. It makes bootable clones. It's rock stable. And it's by far the fastest way to make a clone.

Mostly true i guess. Only: "fastest" may be debatable. First of all, a newbie is gonna stare at that "Restore" panel for a while until they gradually accept that what Apple means there is "clone". (perhaps the word clone isn't "freely" available! ).

Second. CCC allows us to exclude folders from the root of the source. (i used to use that to skip copying Norton database files way back in Jaguar). So... if there's anything there the user wants to exclude, CCC might could be "faster" (theoretically).

--

But anyway... i just thought a different spin was called for there.

[Simon]

CCC and SD do file copies. DU and asr both also do block copies. That is without any doubt much faster. There is simply no good reason to use a third-party commercial tool when Apple's free and included tool does the same faster. Not spin, facts.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by Simon 

CCC and SD do file copies. DU and asr both also do block copies. That is without any doubt much faster. There is simply no good reason to use a third-party commercial tool when Apple's free and included tool does the same faster. Not spin, facts.

Then let's update your facts (to CCC version *3*):

Bombich Software Forums > Carbon Copy Cloner Discussion > CCC 3 not using ditto?

> Wed Oct 03, 2007 9:10 pm

> rsync for the "Copy selected items" cloning method.

> I use asr (Apple Software Restore) for block-level clones,

> and I use my own tool for file-level copies 

> when using the "Copy everything" cloning method.

(and that rsync there refers to the latest version... 3.x ? -- which is better than what OSX has).

Plus, CCC isn't "commercial" either so . . . stop spinning.

--

Just to clarify that a bit: CCC is considered donation-ware (uncrippled shareware).
Much like SD, if you use it once in a blue moon to do a single-shot full clone for
some emergency you're experiencing, then it's basically free. If someone winds up
running it weekly and taking advantage of the '"incremental"' backup feature that
enables speedy synchronization (something that DU does **not** offer), then yes,
pony-up the fee. It's worth it. [[ CCC is always free to students and educators. ]]

[Simon]

Thanks for the update.

So basically if you want fast clones you can either use asr/DU directly or rely on "donation-ware" that also uses asr but has in the past caused people trouble and rendered bad or non-bootable clones. I don't know about you, but I prefer the direct and hassle-free way. I'd rather trust Apple's built-in tool than rely on somebody else's GUI hack on top of those tools. And IMHO every other serious user should too. Clones are usually far too serious to fool around.

And re: spin I think it's quite clear the spin here is you trying to plug (your?) third-party software. CCC had its glory days. They're over. Now let go.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Thanks for the update.

So basically if you want fast clones you can either use asr/DU directly or rely on "donation-ware" that also uses asr but has in the past caused people trouble and rendered bad or non-bootable clones. I don't know about you, but I prefer the direct and hassle-free way. I'd rather trust Apple's built-in tool than rely on somebody else's GUI hack on top of those tools. And IMHO every other serious user should too. Clones are usually far too serious to fool around.

And re: spin I think it's quite clear the spin here is you trying to plug (your?) third-party software. CCC had its glory days. They're over. Now let go.

You've missed the mark on many points, but i will drop it (as you suggested).
Your reference to Bombich as "somebody else" and his wares as a "GUI hack"
would take too much time for me to correct. Perhaps one of your peers
here will straighten you out.

Meanwhile, this is worth reading: http://www.bombich.com/software/netrestore.html

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by Simon 

So basically if you want fast clones you can either use asr/DU directly

Getting back to the topic at hand (i.e., post #1 sentence #1), one might question the wisdom of your advice: enthusiastically suggesting running asr to block-copy a disk which has exhibited directory problems. That method of cloning will quite accurately reproduce the same problem on the new copy. I.e., a file-copy algorithm would be the preferred choice in such cases. [unless of course, "quickly" duplicating the problem is the desired goal.]

[Simon]

My advice to the OP had nothing to do with block copies. I brought up block copies in a reply to you about fast cloning. That discussion was off-topic though so it's probably best we just drop it (as I thought we both already had actually).

Anyway, back on topic I do agree with what you just posted. If you do a block copy of a partition with directory problems you will likely end up replicating those directory problems. I think the proper course of action would be for the OP to find out if his clone is OK or if it is showing directory problems as well. If it is, he will have to recover by copying files back to a fresh installation (I guess to some extent MA could do that). If not, he can clone back from the backup. In any event I guess he should first find out if his primary disk is OK or if the directory problems are in some way linked to underlying hardware issues.

[OreoCookie]

The only solution is to use a software that fixes the problems while copying. The software has a name, Data Rescue. Data Rescue does not work like Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro, it doesn't fix your old harddrive. What it does do, however, is a way to transfer data from the damaged volume to a new one. It only reads from the old volume, i. e. it doesn't make matters worse. The only time it failed on me was when I tried Disk Utility and Disk Warrior before using Data Rescue.

Do not clone a faulty drive! It doesn't matter what way of cloning you use, chances are that the clone is either incomplete or faulty.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Do not clone a faulty drive! It doesn't matter what way of cloning you use, chances are that the clone is either incomplete or faulty.

The exception to that is when a hard drive has physical issues, such as bad sectors. In such cases, I've found that the only thing that works is a block copy to a disk image, but not using ASR - I used the dd command-line program, with the 'conv=noerror,sync' options. If you use this to dd the defective hard drive onto a good one, you end up with a file that Disk Utility will treat as a disk image if you give it the '.dmg' filename extension. At this point you can mount it (or use hdiutil attach with the -nomount flag if it won't mount normally) and run DiskWarrior on it, and if DiskWarrior's reason for failing earlier was hardware errors, that issue should now be out of the way, allowing DiskWarrior to salvage whatever it can.

The caveat, of course, is you need a really huge hard drive for this, because the free space on it has to be at least as much as the entire size of the defective drive. I suppose using dd to clone onto another hard drive would probably work just as well, although I haven't done this - then you'd have moved whatever data is salvageable to a working mechanism that DiskWarrior could fix unimpeded.

So yeah, that's the benefit of block cloning a defective drive, if the drive has hard errors. If it only has software errors such as damaged directory structures or whatever, of course, this does nothing for you, and you should try something else.

[mattyb]

OK, to say that I'm confused is an under-statement.

Situation : I now have two clones on two different external Firewire hard drives. One clone using CCC another, done last night, using Disk Utility. I have not yet tested the Disk Utility clone. The CCC clone works, has been used, etc.

I have the error posted above on the internal disk. I have not done a Disk Utility Verify on either of the clones. I shall do this tonight. I shall boot from the internal to verify the external clones.

I have not yet installed and run smartmontools. After verifying the clones I shall install smartmontools and post the results of seanc's commands. I also have a Disk Warrior disk. I shall boot from it/run it after seanc's commands. I shall attempt to use DW to resolve the error.

If non of this resolves the error that I have, I shall erase and re-install.

Does this sound acceptable?

[seanc]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

OK, to say that I'm confused is an under-statement.

Situation : I now have two clones on two different external Firewire hard drives. One clone using CCC another, done last night, using Disk Utility. I have not yet tested the Disk Utility clone. The CCC clone works, has been used, etc.

I have the error posted above on the internal disk. I have not done a Disk Utility Verify on either of the clones. I shall do this tonight. I shall boot from the internal to verify the external clones.

I have not yet installed and run smartmontools. After verifying the clones I shall install smartmontools and post the results of seanc's commands. I also have a Disk Warrior disk. I shall boot from it/run it after seanc's commands. I shall attempt to use DW to resolve the error.

If non of this resolves the error that I have, I shall erase and re-install.

Does this sound acceptable?

Sound good. I would point thought that if smartmontools tells us there's a problem with the drive, then there's no point with Disk Warrior or erasing & installing.

[mattyb]

This is the sort of reason that I got fed up with Linux and switched to Apple.

Code:
ram31-1-82-234-77-52:smartmontools-5.38 matty$ export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
ram31-1-82-234-77-52:smartmontools-5.38 matty$ sudo port install smartmontools
Password:
--->  Fetching smartmontools
--->  Attempting to fetch smartmontools-5.38.tar.gz from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/smartmontools
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for smartmontools
--->  Extracting smartmontools
--->  Configuring smartmontools
Error: Target org.macports.configure returned: configure failure: shell command " cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_sysutils_smartmontools/work/smartmontools-5.38" && ./configure --prefix=/opt/local --mandir=/opt/local/share/man --with-initscriptdir=/Library/StartupItems " returned error 77
Command output: checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... ./install-sh -c -d
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... no
checking for nawk... no
checking for awk... awk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for C++ compiler default output file name... 
configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.

Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

EDIT, grabbing the latest Xcode but only at 9KB/sec FFS. It'll take me 30 hours to get it.

Also :

Code:
ram31-1-82-234-77-52:smartmontools-5.38 matty$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: i686-apple-darwin8
Configured with: /private/var/tmp/gcc/gcc-5363.obj~28/src/configure --disable-checking -enable-werror --prefix=/usr --mandir=/share/man --enable-languages=c,objc,c++,obj-c++ --program-transform-name=/^[cg][^.-]*$/s/$/-4.0/ --with-gxx-include-dir=/include/c++/4.0.0 --with-slibdir=/usr/lib --build=powerpc-apple-darwin8 --with-arch=nocona --with-tune=generic --program-prefix= --host=i686-apple-darwin8 --target=i686-apple-darwin8
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5363)

[seanc]

What the heck? I'll try installing it on a different Mac to see what happens.

Right I figured it out - I used MacPorts 1.6.0.

Download and install Darwin Ports http://smartmontools.darwinports.com/ - this will give you a Mac Ports 1.6.0 installer.

Then follow the other directions above.

[mattyb]

Do I need to un-install the 1.7.0 version somehow?

[seanc]

It's probably a good idea to remove the current version. Taken from the Mac Ports site:

How do I remove or uninstall MacPorts?

MacPorts can be removed by issuing the following command from within Terminal using the regular bash shell (${prefix} being the directory onto which you installed MacPorts, /opt/local by default):

sudo rm -rf ${prefix} \
/Applications/MacPorts \
/Applications/DarwinPorts \
/Library/Tcl/macports1.0 \
/Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 \
/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* \
/Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup \
/Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg \
/Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg \
/etc/manpaths.d/macports \
/etc/paths.d/macports

[mattyb]

Sorry, I should have looked. My only excuse is having to look after the two kids on my own tonight. I'll dedicate myself more tomorrow night. Cheers again for the help sean.

[besson3c]

mattyb: I've built an installer package for smartmontools using Macports which I can make available to you, if you'd like.

For others reading, another good smart test is:

sudo smartctl -t long /dev/disk0

this test will take several hours to complete depending on the size of your drive, but it will give you a good idea as to the health of your drive.

[besson3c]

Here is the package, for those that want it:

smartmontools-5.38.dmg

[besson3c]

Forgot to add, to see the results of this test when they are complete:

sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/disk0

[webraider]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

If you erase (format) the drive yourself then use Disk Utility's restore feature to transfer back the data and choose not to turn on erasing before restoring there, then I'm pretty sure it will not copy over those errors. I'm not sure what it does with erasing turned on.

I don't know how CCC behaves. Check your external drive with Disk Utility. You will see whether it copied over the errors.

SMART-status verified means the drive thinks it's still fine.

Erasing simply formats the drive first..If there is a physical error, no back-up will help you too much.. The drive itself may need to be repaired. More than not these days drive errors are caused by media physical errors.

[CharlesS]

No, erasing causes Disk Utility to do a block copy (if possible) rather than a file copy.

[mattyb]

I haven't been able to devote any time to trying to fix this recently, hopefully over the weekend.

[mattyb]

A friend came around and installed Disk Warrior, then I did a clone with CCC this morning and tried booting - no luck. Cloned with Disk Utility and booted no problem. Ran Disk Warrior and rebuilt the directory.

The results :



and



I've ordered Disk Warrior. $99 for peace of mind is cheap!!!

Cheers for everyone's help.