Ok, what did I do wrong?
 

I've got a Core Duo 1.83GHz MacBook. Its got a 60 Toshiba hd. I used Super Duper to make a couple images, one in Jan. and one in Feb. Two weeks ago my hd crashed, and Apple replaced it in under a week with the same size and type of drive. Now I'm trying to restore from at least one of the images I made before, preferably the Feb. one, but either one will get me most of my kids pictures back.

One of the images, the Jan. one, is a XXXX.sparseimage file, and the Feb. one is a XXX.dmg.sparseimage.

When I try to restore, using disk utility from the OEM install disk, one of the images from a firewire drive I can't. The restore window doesn't allow me to select an image from the external drive, and even when I manually type it in I can't type anything in the destination drive box. The restore window of the Disk Utililty says to just drag the drives to the desired locations, but nothing is "dragable". I can attach the image, but if I try to scan the image I get an "invalid argument" or "disk busy" error. This occurs with both images.

These images were made with an unregistered version of SD. I got no errors when they were made. Any chance of getting my files back?

Thanks,
Matthew

Did you follow the steps in the User's Guide "Recovering from a disaster"? You should mount the sparse image (open it), then use its volume as the restoration source...

Right, I've got the PDF user guide open on the PC here on the desktop, so I am trying to go step-by-step, but I must be confused about some of the directions.

I've got the image mounted, according to Disk Utility, and it's showing up as "Mount Point: /Volumes/mattMacbook" on the information section of DU, but I cant drag it over to the "Source:" box, and when I use the "Image" button to try to select the image I just get a Finder window that shows the image as a drive and I can't select it (the "Open" button is shaded and unselectable).

I've erased the HD, and it's partitioned and formatted, with no OS. When I click on either the Toshiba HD or the Volume/Untitled under the HD, and go to the restore tab, I can't select the mattmacBook.sparseimage I have on the firewire drive for the source. The external drive has both firewire and usb, and I've tried both ways. The image is listed in the drives contents, but it's shaded in the finder window when I try to select it as an image source. If I select "Scan Image for Restore" from the Images menu of DU I get an error message that says "Unable to scan "mattMacbook.sparseimage"- Invalid argument.", but the image mounts anyways.

I've got an old G4/350 running Panther here, could I do something via firewire to push the image on to the MacBook via that?

Thanks,
Matt

OK: take a look at this post and its comments for a workaround...

Thanks! I'll give that a try if the current attempt doesn't work. I am running the macbook in target mode, with the G4 DU restoring the image remotely. This might take a while to see if it works:( , but if it does I'll be wayyy happy.

Thank you!
Matt

That should work too...

Well, using target mode and DU from a 10.3 PPC box didn't quite work. The image got copied, but I couldn't select it with the Startup Disk Utility.

What did finally work was getting a 10.4 disk from an iMac, and even though that disk doesn't allow installation on the MacBook, it does allow DU to run, as well as Startup Disk:D .

I was able to restore my image from the firewire drive and boot to it.

Looks like I might try getting Apple to replace my OEM media... wish me luck.

Thank you sooooo muuuccchhh SuperDuper team!!!

Matt

Good luck, matt.