New sparse image clone won't open

[kny]

This is my first try of SD, and I used it to make a clone of my hard drive onto another internal hard drive. It seemed to complete the operation OK, but when I tried to open the sparse image by double-clicking it, I got a message that said it failed to mount because of an input/output error. And it fails to show in Disk Utility. Here are the details:

Source was my Seagate 500GB internal drive, on which I run 10.5.5, with about 30GBs used.

Target was my built-in internal 80GB, on which I run 10.4.11, with about 50GBs to spare.

The only anomaly I can see in the log is the next to last line:

| 06:11:33 PM | Info | PHASE: 3. After Successful Copy
| 06:11:33 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Making Seagate500backup bootable
| 06:11:33 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Blessing OS X System Folder
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | Successfully blessed Mac OS X folder on Seagate500backup
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Blessing OS 9 System Folder
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | Did not bless Mac OS 9 System Folder on Seagate500backup because it does not exist.
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Restoring Spotlight state on Seagate500backup
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Restoring Spotlight search indexing state on Seagate500backup
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Unmounting Seagate500backup
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Unmounting '/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/KNYPI/Seagate500backup.sparseimage'
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | hdiutil: detach failed - No such file or directory
| 06:11:34 PM | Info | Copy complete.

I ran disk repair on both drives, and there was only a minor repair on the 80, "volume header needs minor repair."

I tried to copy the sparse image to the 500, and got a message:

"The finder could not complete the operation because some data in 'sparse image' could not be read or written."

I'm wondering if this is just a simple anomaly, and therefore if I should just try to create another new sparse image clone. Any ideas?


Ken

[dnanian]

It sounds like the drive you're storing the image on is experiencing problems (boy, I wouldn't cut things that close in terms of space). You might find details of the errors in the system.log (use the Console application to view it)...

[kny]

OK, even tho Disk Utility shows it's OK, I should get another disk utility app and check it? Also, I don't know what I should be looking for in the system log.

On the size, do you mean that 50GB on the hard drive is a little too small to use for creating/storing this 28GB sparse image? That the process requires more space? Also, does the total capacity of the source drive (500GB) effect things, even though only 30GB is actually used?

In the mean time, I trashed the first sparse image and created a new clone. SD appeared to run OK, and even tho 3a says "unmounted ___sparseimage" it was still mounted on the desk top. I was able to open it OK. I dragged the icon to the trash, then went to the 80GB hard drive on which it's stored, double-click on the file, and altho it took a minute or so, it mounted OK.

Ken

[dnanian]

You'd look for I/O errors or similar items, with a device ID that you can then match to the source or destination in your log (or System Profiler report).

I mean I wouldn't store, on a drive that only had 50GB free, a 30GB image (that could grow).

[kny]

No, I don't see any I/O errors in the system log. I'll keep an eye on it.

About the space, you're right, not much space for the clone to grow, but I can clean up the drive and get rid of things, so that should work for now. I don't have an external FW drive to use, and I think I'll store a copy of the clone on a networked Mac too.

Ken