how to verify a successful clone

[joemac]

hi shirt pocket staff...sorry for the long first post.

i am new 2 mac last week. so of course new to unix, superduper and most things apple.
i read the 60 pg manual, the forums here and lots of other mac docs in the last few days...
so perhaps the answers to my questions have already been through my brain...but didn't stick.

intel macbook pro os 10.4.7...
smartdisk firelite 120gb firewire
downloaded superduper trial...
i will register tomorrow likely.
wanted to make a clean clone (is it called a clone?)

i followed the instructions and think i've made a clean copy of the mac hard drive as new and after the autoupdate for mac&tiger.

now i want to check for success...
--so it looks like i restart with option key and select the firewire drive? this will load the cloned copy and i'll be working from there?

--if i open any applications or files, i expect they will be a little slower running from the firewire...
but if i made any changes to these files while using them what happens?
or if i down load applicaitons or surf....all from the clone what happens to it?
does it change in any way?

--also if i update the cloned copy after a day or a few days, how long will this take.
i understand times may vary based on volume of changes...
but lets say i've added 500mb of photos, a few bookmarks and an application or 2...?

it took over an hour to complete the first clone which was about 20gb of 'new mac' drive stuff.

--i'm complusive on my pcs at backing up files
and my understanding on the mac is i should use .mac, another hard drive or other storage media for file back ups...
is that best even while using superduper?

--i did occasionally need to use the system restore feature of winxp,
taking my drive back to a previous state (usually related to a software download that didn't work as expected)...
super duper doesn't make indexed backups that allow this does it?
i'd need to rotate 2 ext hard drives each with clones to do this, correct?

i've read that restoring, repairing, recovering with the new mac os is easier than winxp
but i'm not ready to give up the old habits of multiple recovery options...
but any easier game plan is appreciated...

again thanks for answering my newbie questions...

the download and initial backup process went smoothly and was pretty simple...

regards
joemac

[dnanian]

Ugh -- I composed a long reply to your previous post and now it's deleted, and I lost the text. Don't do that, joemac: you can simply EDIT your previous post.

To reiterate, less expansively this time:

- Yes, you'll hold down Option and start from the backup, or choose it in the Startup Disk preference pane.

- If you're running from the copy, you're running from the copy. Changes you make will modify the copy.

- An update takes various amounts of time given the system, number of files, changes, etc. I'd expect your case to take less than 20 minutes or so.

- More redundancy is better than less, so be as compulsive as you feel is necessary.

- System restore is, in general, not necessary on the Mac, because apps don't squirrel away tons of things in unexpected and problematic places. But we do have a feature called "Sandbox" that might prove helpful.

Hope that helps.

[joemac]

Ugh -- I composed a long reply to your previous post and now it's deleted, and I lost the text. Don't do that, joemac: you can simply EDIT your previous post..

thanks for the speedy reply but don't shoot me over a forum issue...

after submitting my initial post, i received a 'not logged on message'...luckily i had copied my text beforehand...

then after logging on again i reposted...only to then see 2 copies of my post.

so then i deleted one copy...and didn't see any reply yet....

surely you don't have these forums set up so users who delete a post, delete the whole thread? that wouldn't be wise...

so thanks for the answer.
perhaps you should copy text before posting too so the really long answers aren't lost and sort out the forums so newbies can't delete YOUR answers...

and perhaps i want to rethink using your product...if you are going to spank new customers for system issues...

regards
joemac

[dnanian]

Didn't shoot you, joemac -- just requested that you edit rather than delete. You didn't see the reply because you turned it around quickly -- by the time I posted my reply, you had deleted your message... so there was nothing to reply to. :)

[joemac]

well dave you are certainly welcome to the last word...it's your place.

i'm just a customer....rather potential customer.

isn't it easier or wiser just to be nice to us?

if a post appears twice the only 'edit' function available to rectify that is 'delete' right?
how else does one edit a duplicate post? i suppose one could just leave it up and the admin (you) could clean it up...

so do you want to correct me again for a forum systems issue?

why not just agree the forum has a glitch or apologize...

is this how you normally deal with customer feedback? telling them 'don't do that'..

no welcome, no thanks for trying the product, nothing nice...?

think about it...

joemac

[dnanian]

I'm sorry, joemac, while I totally welcome you here and show my appreciation by rapidly answering your questions in full, I don't think my rather basic request -- which wasn't phrased in an antagonistic manner -- was "not nice". I'm sorry you took offense.

[joemac]

so your rather basic request is 'don't delete duplicate posts, edit them?'

how does one do that...

and why is the forum software setup to allow users to delete or edit anything other than their own posts?

i've used vbulletin on other forums and never seen that as a possiblity...

so again i didn't delete your reply. i don't think that is possible either...

sometimes vbulletin has a problem saving posts when 2 users hit the send button at the same time...but IF you had posted a reply, i don't think i can delete it.

go back and read what you did post...clearly frustation with losing text...we've all been there. followed by 'don't do that'...but i didn't DO anything to your post. then you suggest the retyped answer is briefer...as if a result of my doing something to the longer version...

we all get frustrated occasionally but laying that onto a brand customer isn't useful ever. just think about it.

regards
joemac

[dnanian]

In general, I would have deleted the original post, joemac, not the one you double-posted (which was the second). But, yes, I assumed that you were in a situation where you could have simply edited the post to make a change, and I was explaining why you shouldn't delete existing posts.

It was intended to be helpful, so you could get a better, faster response.

I never suggested you deleted my reply. You deleted the post I was replying to -- your original post -- and that caused the reply to the post to be lost, because the original was no longer there (which also removed the thread). The software is not set up to allow a user to delete or edit anything other than the own post... but since you deleted the only post in the thread, the thread was deleted.

The re-post contained all the information from the previous post, but was less narrative. Nothing but niceties lost. :)

Honestly, I wasn't "laying my frustrating onto you". Rather, I was trying to offer a suggestion to improve the responses I can deliver in a timely fashion. Which, in the end, is the idea: trying to deliver the answers you need as quickly as possible.

Anyway, enough said -- your points are well taken, my apologies for any unintended offense or assumption about what you did or didn't do. My first reply must have come off much harsher than I intended, and I'm sincerely sorry about that.. Anyway, as you said, we've all been here -- so let's move past it and get back to the questions you asked, eh?

[davep]

Joemac -- I've used alot of Macintosh software since 1984. SuperDuper! is one of the best backup products ever, and the support Dave gives is top-notch. To really appreciate SD and Dave's support you should try some of the others, like Retrospect or .Mac and others. You'll really appreciate the fact that there are no proprietary backup formats used... all of the backed up files are Finder compatible. Yes, it's a good idea to rotate drives used for cloning. The prices of drives these days are unbelievably low so you can easily afford to keep one offsite. There's a good eBook on backups called "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups" that you should read. Welcome to the world of Macintosh!

[joemac]

hi davep and dnanian...

i'll look over the ebook suggested...

made the purchase and have used the product....

i've run the smart update every few days just to get a feel for the process

back up times are 7-9 minutes including the initial repair step. so that is pretty good...

didn't like how/where the mac/iphoto handled my old photo library.

i deleted 10gb of photos and reloaded as i wanted them, then ran superduper.

first mounted the fw hd; took a look in finder/users/and confirmed where the original data was...

then ran superduper, took about 12 minutes again with 10gb of deleted and 10gb of new data, not bad for time.

here is the problem after s/d! was finished i clicked the drive, finder opened.
followed the directory path and everything looked exactly AS BEFORE the smart update...same old filenames, same locations, same photos in the wrong place...

confused i ejected and remounted the fw hd and AFTER THIS STEP the new data and path changes showed up. along with the new photos.

so my question is DO YOU NEED TO EJECT AND REMOUNT external disks to show the update, or did i miss a step?
perhaps this is covered in the support docs or has been asked before....

thanks again.

joemac

[dnanian]

That's unfortuntely a bug in Finder, joemac. It doesn't always update as it should when it doesn't make the copies itself. Ejecting/remounting or restarting Finder (Control-option-click its Dock icon and choose "Relaunch") will work around its bug.

Glad it's working well for you.