Can’t boot from clone - Tiger

[boboq]

Hi everyone:

I have searched the forums for an answer to this question but cannot seem to find it, so I am posting a new thread. If this has been answered elsewhere and I simply did not find the right thread, I apologize in advance.

I have been a faithful user of SuperDuper for many years. I backup my MacBook Pro to two different external firewire drives, usually a couple of times a week. I am planning to upgrade from OS X 10.4.11 to 10.5.3 in the next few weeks and so I have been trying to get my laptop in a condition where I can get the OS upgraded without too much hassle.

As part of that, I tried to boot the laptop from the external drive(s) and found that I was unable to do so. I now have clones of my MBP on three different drives and none of those will boot, even though I have SD set to “make bootable.” When I try to boot from the external drives, the clone shows up when I start up the laptop with the Option key down, but then I get the grey screen and the little beach ball spins. I have waited about 15 minutes or so for the clones to boot with no success.

I have no idea why this is occurring. However, any insight would be appreciated. There is probably a simple solution that I am missing.

Thanks in advance.

Bob Q.

[dnanian]

Drop me a note to support, Bob, and we'll try to do some diagnostics.

[desertboomer]

"Hi everyone:

...... I tried to boot the laptop from the external drive(s) and found that I was unable to do so. I now have clones of my MBP on three different drives and none of those will boot, even though I have SD set to “make bootable.” When I try to boot from the external drives, the clone shows up when I start up the laptop with the Option key down, but then I get the grey screen and the little beach ball spins. I have waited about 15 minutes or so for the clones to boot with no success.

I have no idea why this is occurring. However, any insight would be appreciated. There is probably a simple solution that I am missing.

Thanks in advance.

Bob Q."

Hi Bob:

I had a similar problem- but I too have no answer
(my thread, posted today- "SD Clones don't Boot . . . on first try"

In my cases (and probably yours) SD indicated the clones WERE made. However, here are a few things I noticed.

1- I did NOT do my usual ritual of running DiskWarrior (DW) before cloning. The macs were running fine, and running DW takes a lot of time & restarts. But maybe that was it . . . . maybe not. Sorry.

In my case, I WAS able to get a 'bootable' clone. I just repeated the SD procedure (SmartBackup) and that clone booted fine. btw- I noticed the 2nd backup went much faster, so perhaps the part that makes it bootable had a problem on the 1st try. Needless to say, from now on, before I disconnect the external drive, I'll make sure the clone WILL boot. But why I'm having to do TWO SD passes (on BOTH Macs)- I don't know. Again, maybe DW fixes something.

hth

rich

[dnanian]

Unlikely to be the same issue, Rich. See my other reply to you.