Help: strange behavior of SD/Sandbox
 

During using SD Sandbox function, I encountered a strange thing:
All files on original Macintosh HD become invisible and system boot into backup copy on second HD instead of into Sandbox.

Using SD 2.1.4 on MacPro, first, I made a clone copy of 10.4.x on my second internal HD, without set it active and reboot. Then I boot into Linux SystemRescue CD to shrink Macintosh HD to make room for a Sandbox partition by Gparted. It was successful. I boot back into Tiger, formatted the new Sandbox partition by disk utility, everything went well until this point. Files on both HDs are untouched and visible.

Second: I proceeded into making sandbox with “shared users” option, copy files from Macintosh HD to the newly created 30 GB sandbox with default settings. Copy went on surprisingly fast, about 1-2 minutes for the 28 GB files, Sandbox created with no complaining. Then I reboot the machine, miracle appeared:confused: all the files on Macintosh HD disappeared under Finder and no files visible within Sandbox. Finally, I found from System profiler that I actually booted into the backup partition on the Second HD although I did not choose this. Get-info showed right size, used and free disk space on both partitions in Macintosh HD but simply no file listed under Finder. Shell -df shows the two volumes are mounted with right size also.

Reboot with option key pressed did not get a bootable partition list, only that backup partition on second HD is listed for pickup. Obviously, the machine did not take the original HD and Sandbox as bootable.

What is wrong and what should I do now? I am not panic since I still have a functional system. I wonder, if I simply restore back to macintosh HD, what will happen? Everything goes back normal? But if I want to use sandbox, I have to solve this puzzle, not just return to beginning.

Thanks for help in advance.

Vince

I have no idea why this might happen, except to suggest that the Linux SystemRescue CD might have done something, Vince: a Sandbox is just another copy of the OS, and wouldn't hide your files!

Dave: thanks for the quick reply.
It is unlikely the Gparted to be blamed. After it shrank the disk, I was able to boot back into Macintosh HD and run disk util to format the new Sandbox into HFS+, and it is not just files being hided, the two volumes lost bootable flag.

One abnorm thing during Sandbox creating: the On succesful completion option list has Restart from Sandbox, Set Sandbox as Startup Disk two items grayed-out. Any clue?
It seems, I have to use Disk util to fix the Macintosh HD first and restore the OS. Thanks to SD! user manual's emphosizing backup first before doing anything, I still have an OS to go.

That would typically be true only if the drive was not support for startup on your Mac (e.g. USB on a Power PC).

I've really never heard of this kind of thing happening before, Vince, and can only continue to suggest it's related to your Linux manipulations.

Dave. you are right: Gparted was the trouble maker.
I deleted the hidden partitions and re-partition them with Tiger's disk util, and copy the backup to it with SD, every thing is fine now. It took less than 20 minutes, but the trouble-shooting took one week. I knew it should be faster if just backup it, but my curiosity drives me.

It is also worthwhile. Through reading elsewhere, I know now that Linux parted is not GPT compatible and it will mess up partition table. The gptsync from rEFit can repair this. Also I learned during the struggle that disk util from Leopard can dynamically partition disk without data destruction, just like the BootCamp assistant.

Thanks again Dave, and happy birthday although it's a bit late.

Vince

Thanks, Vince -- and I'm glad you're out of the woods.