Hi,
I've been happy with 10.3, but I'm finally going to make the leap and upgrade to 10.4 (yeah, i'm cautious). I'd like to make a backup disk image before I upgrade, one that I could re-install if something doesn't work out for me with the new system.
I've got Carbon Copy Cloner, but, after reading through the instructions, I am not confident that I will be able to use it properly. I am especially unsure about the bootable & synchronize options. The drive I'm backing up to already has a system, and I don't want to overwrite or replace it. I just want to use it as storage for a disk image (compressed, if that's better). Is there anyone out there, who would be so kind as to give me the cliff notes on what I need to do so that the disk image I make will be fully usable if I copy it back onto my computer?
My drive is probably pretty fragmented by now, and I won't have time to do a clean install until the winter holidays. Would it be a good idea to take the disk image, re-install it on the computer and then update that, instead of updating from what I've got now? In that case, I definitely can't make a mistake, because it will have to work when I re-install it. Any thoughts on that?
Thanks!
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Wed, September 17, 2008 - 7:56 PMGet an external firewire drive so you can simply make a clone of your internal drive's contents to the external drive. Perform the install on the internal drive. If there are any problems, you can always boot back into 10.3.x on the external drive. That's the best solution to your problem. Without that, things get much tougher. Note that you can purchase a drive that is USB2 and Firewire compatibility--this hardware works on the latest machines so it will be a purchase well worth the immediate hassle savings and be useful for years to come as well.
Note that I'm not sure the CCC 3.1.1 (latest version) supports 10.3 fully...so, you might not be able to make the external drive directly bootable directly by cloning...usually that can be fixed by doing a repair on the cloned drive with Disk Utility 10.3.x and then picking that drive as the boot up drive in the Startup Preference panel. Also, does 3.1.1 support OS prior to 10.3.9? If not, make sure you've got all the latest system updates on your 10.3 drive before running 3.1.1. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Thu, September 18, 2008 - 3:28 AMThanks TMIbo. I currently have an external drive. The real problem is that I have read the CCC instructions, and I'm not positive I understand them correctly. It is important that I don't overwrite the current OS and backed up files on my target disk (my external HD), which I think I can avoid by making a disk image. It is very important that I can use the disk image to re-install my system and files seamlessly onto my laptop and have everything like it was before, in the case that the upgrade goes wonky. I believe that my laptop hard drive is probably quite fragmented, and I am very interested in actually using the disk image to re-install my current system and files on to the laptop and then do the 10.4 upgrade to that. Does anyone know if that's a good idea or a waste of time? Since it seems that I will have to "Erase the target drive" when I re-install the backup, it is crucial that I create the backup properly, so that it is re-installable.
The external HD is running OS 10.4.11 with CCC v3.1.1, so I can use that to do the backup (my laptop is running OS 10.3.9 with CCC v2.3).
I'm in a time crunch, so I don't have time to make a mistake. I am making a big presentation in one month, and I have to install Keynote, learn how to use it and get everything done by then. That's why I need to update to 10.4 but don't have time for a clean install. I will actually be purchasing a portable drive to take with me, but this needs to be bootable from 10.4 as well, so that I can run the presentation from that if my laptop fails. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Thu, September 18, 2008 - 7:27 AMDebra Kate,
Step 0) First, determine that you've got more free space on your FW hard drive than the total amount of data on your "live" system.
Step 1) Launch CCC
Step 2) In the left pane of CCC select your system
Step 3) In the right pane of CCC select "New disk image"... for the Where question, point it to your /Users/Shared folder on your FW drive
Step 3.1) For the sake of simplicity use the read-only option
Step 4) For cloning options use "Backup everything"
Step 5) Click the lock icon in the lower left corner, and authenticate
Step 6) Click clone
Now walk away and make some tea and biscuits :)
This should do it for a 1-time backup. The reason I suggested putting the backup image in /Users/Shared is because it will be readable even if the system thinks you're a different user.
Now that the clone is done, you can upgrade your mac. IF you're doing a clean install of 10.4, after the system installs, you can mount the disk image, and run Migration Assistant in /Applications/Utilities to transfer applications and /User file onto your clean system.
HTH
xoM -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Thu, September 18, 2008 - 12:59 PMMilo, those options are only available in CCC 3.x, which doesn't run on Panther.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Thu, September 18, 2008 - 1:13 PMwhich i just read her above post and now i feel like an idiot.
sorry.
head cold. i swear.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Fri, September 19, 2008 - 1:22 AMCCC 2.3 can make the image you need. Create an image on the external drive when booted from the internal one running 10.3. CCC 2.3 also works well enough in 10.4 too. However, now that I'm only on 10.4.11 and 10.5 OSes primarily, I only use 3.1.1--it has way better automatic backup capabilities than v2.3.
Frankly, if all your other stuff runs fine in 10.4, you'll probably not need that image for very long. (That's been my experience with upgrading folks from 10.3 to 10.4...only a few esoteric apps...and, alas, some external devices...have problems making the transition...and those are rare for the most part. There are also some differences on how Appletalk behaves...in mixed OS9/OSX network environments...although that too is now a rare circumstance.) -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Fri, September 19, 2008 - 5:07 PMThanks everyone!
It didn't quite work out, and I'm hoping that I can get some feedback on how to fix that. Here's what happened so far:
- i made a disk image of my entire laptop using CCC 3.1.1 and backed it up on my large external HD in the Users/Shared folder (following Milo's instructions).
- Got a portable HD, formatted it for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and loaded 10.4.0 + 10.4.11 upgrade.
- Now I'm running my laptop booted from the portable HD.
- I clicked on the dmg of the disk image of my laptop drive (which took forever to verify and open) and got an error message. I forgot to write it down, but it was something to the effect of: this disk might be damaged and could damage your system and/or the contents of your drive if you proceed. I wasn't that worried, because there isn't anything on the portable drive for me to lose yet, so I mounted the disk image, but didn't open any of the files.
- I opened Migration Assistant and got the following options, which have subtle differences in their descriptions, but I have no idea what those differences signify.
- In the "From another Mac" option, I can select:
- "Debra's iBook G4 on large external" (where I stored the disk image) with the same icon i see for external drives.
- "Debra's Computer on MAC" (the name of my laptop drive) with the same icon i see for external drives.
- In the "From another volume on this Mac" option, I see both of the previous options plus
- "Debra's Computer on MAC" with the same icon that I see for my laptop drive.
Both my laptop drive and the backup disk image are called MAC, but neither of the two options called "Debra's Computer on MAC" have the same icon as the volume that expanded from the backup disk image, so I don't know if I can access it from the Migration Assistant. Since I got the error message when opening the disk image, I'm not sure if I should try to retrieve information from it anyway.
The regular files can just be dragged over from the laptop to the portable drive, but how do I get my preferences to work? I accidentally updated my laptop to 10.4.0 when I meant to be installing that on the portable drive, so I can't get a new disk image of the 10.3.9 system anymore.
Thanks in advance for any help with this.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Fri, September 19, 2008 - 6:32 PMI remounted the disk image (took some time, it's around 70 GB), and the exact message was:
The disk image you are opening may be damaged and could damage your system. Are you sure you want to open this disk image?" -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Fri, September 19, 2008 - 6:59 PMI'd run disk utility (or diskwarrior) on your internal drive from one of your external drives (or the diskwarrior cd).
Once the internal volume has been repaired / verified, recreate your drive image (trash the one you already made, if it doesn't verify it's useless).
-- Tangental here, I've had better success, tho slower, with creating valid disk images with disk utility
-- rather than CCC. I use CCC to clone from the images, but if you select a volume inside disk utility
-- and click new image, it will create a dmg file wherever you specify.
Once you have a valid disk image, you can migrate either from that disk image or the source drive that you created that image from.
If you are making a intending to creating a fully working image on your external drive before you clone it onto your internal drive -- which is what it sounds like -- then you should (after you mount your image and confirm that it verifies successfully) migrate from the internal drive without the image mounted. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Sat, September 20, 2008 - 2:42 AMThanks! I'm creating a disk image using disk utility right now, using the "compressed" format for space saving purposes. I am saving the disk image to a drive, which I use for backing up data. This is not the drive that I will be making into a boot drive.
Mr. Kitty wrote:
"If you are making a intending to creating a fully working image on your external drive before you clone it onto your internal drive ... then you should (after you mount your image and confirm that it verifies successfully) migrate from the internal drive without the image mounted."
I want to make sure I understand that correctly - Does that mean that I should make an image of my internal drive for the purpose of having a backup, but that I should do the actual migration directly from my internal? The point of mounting the disk image would then be solely to see if it verifies, which would indicate that it's a functional backup. Is that correct? In that case, should I also handle the laptop in the same manner - clean install 10.4 and then migrate from the external directly and not from the backup disk image?
btw: It was my intent to use the new portable external as a test run, to get 10.4.11 and all of my files running on it, and, if all went well, either re-create the process on my laptop or import somehow from the portable external. In the meantime, I accidentally upgraded my laptop to 10.4.0 anyway, which I'm a bit nervous about, but I guess I have to roll with that now, since the backup I made when it was running 10.3.9 is useless. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Sat, September 20, 2008 - 1:57 PMwell.... the point of the disk image IS backup, right? that part didn't seem to be in dispute.
You *can* migrate from the mounted disk image; migrating from the internal drive is advantageous ONLY for speed.
Seems to me you've kinda already defeated the belt & suspenders safety that you were trying for, so *I* would -- after the disk utility disk image is verified -- just do:
1. an erase and install install of Tiger, creating an unused admin account
2. then run all the updates,
3. install your applications
4. migrate your user over from the disk image (Migration Assistant will be in Applications/Utilities)
5. restart into that user and go (you can set that user to automatically login in System Preferences > Accounts > Login Options) -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Sat, September 20, 2008 - 3:43 PMThanks. Is there any way that I can get all of the programs and settings and preferences over to the portable external in one fell swoop without re-installing the programs (it already has 10.4.11 installed on it)? Or wipe the external, install the complete backup and then install 10.4.11 as an upgrade? I don't really have time at the moment to find all of my programs and install them individually, but I can do a single task that lasts a long time while I'm sleeping. That's what I was trying to ask about in the beginning when I asked how to make a disk image that would be fully usable if it was copied back onto my computer. I was hoping to transfer the whole thing in one block and then update it to 10.4. Then the idea of installing 10.4 and using Migration Assistant idea was suggested, so I thought I could bring everything over with the Migration Assistant, but it only listed "pick users to transfer to this machine", so it seems like it will only transfer the user/home folders, not everything.
I would prefer to do as little messing about with my computer as possible until after all of my projects are safely finished in November, but I need Keynote for an important presentation next month, which I have to start on ASAP. Installing Keynote for that presentation is the only reason I'm upgrading to 10.4 now.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Sat, September 20, 2008 - 5:06 PMOn a side note, I've pretty much hit my multi-task limit with all the things I need to get done before I leave town for my presentation (hence loading 10.4 on to my laptop drive instead of the external). A process with fewer steps will mercifully mean less chances for me to mess something up due to distraction and being tired. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 12:26 PMI wouldn't worry about that message too much. I've gotten that message from known good backups that do not get that message on 10.3 or OS 9. The thing is that 10.4 is doing a lot more file structure and security checking on images and some of the older directory structures may not be perfect enough for 10.4.
In any case, when you use the migration tool from 10.3 to 10.4 and pick a volume, you can do a custom migration and you can look at the files on the volume. You can also quit the tool, rename your internal drive's volume name temporarily, reboot, and then perform the migration...it will be clear which volume is which at that point.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Tue, September 23, 2008 - 2:00 PMChoice A (if you still have 10.4.0 on your internal drive): Run the 10.4.11 Combo update. Essentially, go to software update, select all, and update. Repeat 2 or 3x as necessary.
This doesn't serve to "clean up" your installation, in any sense, but is a quick completion of the upgrade install.
Choice B (if you have a working 10.4.11 image on your external that you are satisfied with): Boot off the external, carbon copy clone it to your internal.
Choice C (cleaner, but still not squeeky): Erase and install 10.4.0 on the internal drive, run all software updates (2 or 3x as noted above). Then migration assistant selecting applications and users. MOST apps will be fine with this. Apple's Pro Apps (final cut pro, aperture, etc being the exception).
Choice D (squeeky, but time consuming): Erase and install, all software updates. Install apps, migrate users.
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Wed, September 24, 2008 - 2:05 PMDuring the process of loading 10.4 on to the portable external, I named the user account User2 so as to differentiate it from the user account on my internal, User1. I migrated User1 over to the external, where it became a second user folder. I wiped the internal, loaded 10.4 and updates. When creating the new user account on the internal, I used the name User1 again, because I wanted to sync the info back up from User1 on the external. When I used the Migration Assistant to bring stuff back over to the internal, there was an option, which seemed to indicate that I could replace the info in User1 on the internal with the info from User1 on the external, but the option was grayed out. I was directed to rename the user folder that I was migrating, because there was already a user called User1 on the internal. So I changed the name from User1 to User3.
It's not terrible, but it's a bit confusing, because now, instead of one user folder on each drive I have two. The contents of User3 on the internal is the same as User1 on the external. There is also a user folder name User1 on the internal, which I am not using, and which is basically the same as User2 on the external, which I'm also not using. What I would prefer is to have one user folder on each drive with the same info (sans iTunes on the external - takes too much space). I would also like the user folder on the internal to be called User1 and the one on the external to be called User2, so I know exactly which one I'm dealing with. Is this possible? The USB port on the external doesn't work, so I have to trade it in for a new one and start all over with that anyway.
Thanks for all the help! My laptop is running much smoother since it's not so fragmented. -
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Re: Disk Image Backup and Re-install
Wed, September 24, 2008 - 2:58 PMuhh... i didn't realize we were playing 3 card monty today.
System Preferences > Accounts >> You can delete any user that is not currently logged in.
That means... log into the user on your laptop you want to keep, go there & select the user you don't want and delete it.
Wash, Rinse & Repeat on any external systems.
You can't "functionally" change the short name of any user once it is created. Sorry.
(note, it *can* be done but it is a fairly excessively complicated hack which if done wrong causes all sorts of bad things to happen, so I won't even do it for people. let alone explain it over the interwebs.)
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