Only allowing backup to a "disk image"?
 

I have a 1TB Fantom USB drive on a G5 iMac which I automatically backup my Intel Macbook to wirelessly. I share it over the network using a program called "Sharepoints". Thus, my Macbook can "see" the USB drive when just using the Finder.

The problem (if it's even a real problem) is that the SD only gives me the option to backup to a "disk image" and it doesn't pull-up the actual drive in the "To" selection-box. (Whereas on the iMac, SD can see and backup to the actual partitions I've created on the attached USB drive). I'm not exactly sure what the difference is here.

HD is reformatted to MAC OS Extended (Journaled).

Will having my Macbook's internal drive stored as a "disk image" allow me to do a full restore of the internal hard-drive should my current internal one fail?

If I had to replace the internal Macbook drive, I assume I'd swap in the new drive, boot off of the System CD, and then plug the USB drive directly into my USB port (not having to "see" across the network) and use the "Restore" function in Disk Utility to get everything back from the disk-image onto my internal hard-drive?

Would that work?

That's basically right. See the User's Guide sections "Backing up over a network" and "Recovering from a disaster".

Hi. Is the User's Guide available online somewhere (separate from the software -- I'm on a non-Mac computer at the moment)

Yes, you can download it from the right hand sidebar on the SuperDuper! page.

Dave,
Thanks for the quick response. I just have a couple of clarification questions:

1. "mount the network volume, and then choose Disk Image… from
the destination pop-up." How do I get the destination pop up? When I mount the network volume, I usually do it through Finder and connect to my server through the "places" sidebar. I get no pop-up.

2. "Please ensure the network volume is HFS+, NTFS or ext3, all of which
support large files." Does this mean I can back up to a non-Mac backup server using NTFS (Windows Server 2003)?

The destination pop-up is in SuperDuper! itself - it's the 2nd pop-up.

Yes, you can back up to a non-Mac server, as long as it fulfills the requirements for file size, etc.

That is great news! Thank you for the information.