Am I on the right track ?

[prot]

I just bought SD the other day, and looked over the users manual, which, I might add, was excellent. However, my mind is numb, and me brain stuck.

My set up is a G5 with an external 160 gig USB drive (I know its not Firewire, but, for the time being it is all I have) & a 12" Power Book G4 (the best laptop I have ever had). Both are running Tiger 10.4.3

I have SD on my Power Book as I tend to put it through its paces more than the G5, mainly because I'm nosey and been poking around, I tend to break things.

Because I don't have a external Firewire HD is this my best option;

Backup over the network to the external usb drive, attached to the G5 using Read / Write "Sparse" Image with Smart Update ?

When I go to restore should I use the Disk Utility or just drag the contents of the image across the network and onto the PB's HD ?

Would it be wise to do both over an ethernet cable, or is wireless ok?

Kindest regards,

Andy.

[dnanian]

OK... hopefully I'm interpreting your question properly.

Since you're not connecting directly to the PowerBook you should, indeed, use a sparse image as described. Ethernet will be a lot faster than wireless, especially for the first backup.

If you want to restore a single file or two, just mount the image and use drag-and-drop, as you would with any disk image.

If, on the other hand, you want to do a full restore, bring the USB drive to the PowerBook and follow the steps in the Guide with your Tiger DVD and Disk Utility.

Make sense?

[prot]

Makes perfect sense.

Is there away to create a "Disk Utility" startup CD or should I just make a copy of my Tiger DVD?

Thanks again.

[dnanian]

Just make a copy of -- or use -- your Tiger DVD.

[prot]

Many thanks.

[prot]

Well, it appears my image was created without any problems. I can open it up, and everything appears to be there.

But, when I boot from the Tiger Install disk and open Disk Utility, I can select the sparse image as the source (from the external USB drive) and I am selecting HD as the destination, I click restore and a couple of seconds latter I get an erorr message "Restore Failure, an erorr(1) occurred while copying. (Operation not permitted)

I must be missing the instructions covered by either my 3 year olds coloring attempt, or the coffee stains.

I've broke it did'nt I ?

[dnanian]

Nope -- just use File > Open Disk Image first, and then choose the volume, not the image, when restoring. Sparse Images can't be restored "directly" like that.

[prot]

You are a bloomin' genius mate, appears to be working a treat !

Outstanding. Many thanks.

[dnanian]

You're quite welcome -- glad it's working properly!

[prot]

Because I'm backing up to the external USB, for all intent and purposes as a network drive, does it make sense to;

1. Keep a sparse Clean image which basically is Tiger with all updates (currently available) and my little tweaks here and there.

2. Then following the instructions from the FAQ How do I update an image? create a seperate sparse image, Weekly, and use this for my rolling updates ?

If I'm missing the point completely, just yell at me.

[dnanian]

What is the "clean" image going to do for you that an archive-and-install won't? Or -- even more so -- a Sandbox?

Rolling updates on Weekly seems like a perfectly good idea, but remember you could lose up to a week's work that way (if you don't also have a "daily" backup).

[prot]

"archive-and-install" in the OS X sense and not a function of SD! correct ?

The "clean" image is an old windows habit I have, using powerquests Drive Image, I'll try and shake it.

Truth be known, the Sanbox scares me, and that is because of my lack of understanding.

But, if I understand what I have read, in my case (lack of bootable firewire drive), I would create a partition on my actual Power Book, and after going through the copy process, I would select the Sandbox as my Startup Volume?

Completely off the subject of SD! but do you know of an application that compares & lists directory contents and gives a nice side by side comparison?

I can get by with diff at the comand line for smaller directories but the big ones turn my brain to tapioca.

All these questions make me feel guilty, I'll have to buy some more SD! licenses for christmas presents or something.

[dnanian]

Archive-and-install is an OSX function, and works really well. The equivalent isn't possible on Windows. Seriously -- don't keep a "clean" OS image, as it won't really help you any more than the installer will, and perhaps less.

If the Sandbox scares you, there's no reason to use it. But it does work well! :)

If you don't have a bootable FireWire drive, it's likely to be difficult to create a partition on your main drive for the Sandbox, though. You might not want to use one if it's that inconvenient....

Unfortunately, I don't know of a directory lister, but I'm sure there is one!

[prot]

Thanks mate.

Tapioca it shall be for a while longer then.

[prot]

Everything working perfectly ! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

What would happen if I take the backup of my PB and retore it on my G5 ?

[dnanian]

It depends on what version of the OS it is. If the G5 normally works fine with that version of the OS, it should work fine. If not, then it won't boot... typically this is true when one system is released after the other, with its own special version of the OS.

In that case, the best thing to do is to clean install Tiger and then migrate your files and apps off the backup with the Migration Assistant.

[prot]

Both Tiger 10.4.3

[dnanian]

Should work: try booting directly from the backup first, to test!

[prot]

Well, I'm not goinng to even begin to pretend to understand how it did that.

But it seems to have worked.

I have noticed a few things.

1. When it booted, the name of my PB changed to accomadate a machine with the same name appearing on the network.

2. Some applications needed me to re-register with the vendor, not a problem.

3. I can't seem to find a way to turn the Bluetooth icon off that appears next to the spotlight icon, top right menu bar.

Other than that looks like it worked perfectly.

How on earth does it take into account things like the difference in video cards, harddrive etc. ?

Amazing.

[dnanian]

I'd love to say that the whole thing was a giant miracle of my own design, but it's not: this is something that OS X does, all by itself. Neat, eh?

You can turn off the icon by Cmd-dragging it off the menu bar.

You'd have to rename the machine, of course -- that's all in the Sharing preference pane.

Not too shabby, eh?

[prot]

Not too shabby at all.

Has Apple always been this elegant ?

I should have converted years ago.

[dnanian]

It has, indeed. Welcome! :)

[prot]

Dave, everything is working perfectly, the amount of time SD! has saved me is incredible.

So far I have managed to keep my 12" PB & G5 identical, and any messin' around on my PB is fixed in a metter of minutes.

I think that I'm at a point where I need two seperate backups, one for the PB & one for the G5. Mainly because the applications between the two machines begin to change at this point, and it will be simpler to maintain two images than removing apps that I don't want on the PB, vice-versa.

But before I start down that road, I have one last backup to make with the two machines being identical.

I installed Darwinports on the PB because I want to start using Unison and a couple of other "ports".

When I do my smart update will the Darwinports stuff still work off of the G5 when I restore that image? Or, do I spend the time installing and configuring the Darwinports stuff on the G5?

Sorry for rambling, hope this made sense.

[dnanian]

As long as the Darwinports stuff is on the source volume, and you're using Smart Update, it should work fine. After all, they're just files... and the basic environment (the OS) is the same, so reinstall shouldn't be necessary.

[prot]

I love my Mac's and SD!

I am really confused though.

My Darwin & Fink stuff has survived it to my G5. What I just don't understand is, I compiled from source, Darwinports, Fink, PostgreSQL, 'n a few other things using make etc.

Now I did this on the G4 Power Book, how come it still bloomin' works on the G5 ?

I thought when you compiled from source it was for that specific computer.

Either way, to say I'm impressed with SD! & OS X is an understatement.

[dnanian]

Probably because Fink/configure didn't make things *overly* specific to the G5, and used the G4's instruction set (or maybe even the G3's).

Glad everything worked out as -- or better than -- expected.