SD not deleting files on destination
 

Hello,

When I ran my first back up with SD I chose 'Back up - all files' where I was notified that the existing files on my destination external FW hardisk would be erased. Fine. When the process was completed I noticed that these files were still in place, all 20GBs worth; SD had not erased the destination volume first.

Was there something I missed or was this a glitch with the session? My machine is a PB 1.67 with 10.4.2.

Personally, I'd like to be able to use the hardisk for other files too, but I'll tackle that one later on :) (re: adding files to a disk image, or something).

Many thanks,

Petter.

If you used "Erase then copy" or "Smart Update", Petter, the files should definitely have been erased. Perhaps the Finder didn't update? Try restarting your machine and taking another look...

If that doesn't help, please send me a copy of the SuperDuper!.log (use the support email address), which you'll find off your Home folder in Library/Logs. I'll take a look and see if there's an explanation in there.

Partitioning
 

I have a related partitioning question. I have an 80 GB main drive on my Mac Mini and a new 160 GB external drive that I plan to use for backup. Before I run my first copy using SuperDuper, should I partition the external drive in half, so that I can use 80 GB as backup space and the other 80 GB as "scratch paper" for big downloads and such? Or should I allocate the space differently? I understand that the "scratch" space will not be backed up by SuperDuper. That's OK with me.

Also, the external drive came pre-loaded with about 2 GB of utilities, freeware, etc. I'd like to set this stuff aside into the scratch space before I partition, and sort through it later. However, it looks like partitioning will wipe all files on the new drive. Is there a way to save this stuff without moving it to my main drive or burning it to CDs and then deleting the originals? Hmm.

Ben --

You should definitely partition that drive. 80/80 is the most conservative split, and will guarantee that, no matter how much you put on the internal drive, you'll be able to back it up.

Regarding the utilities, you can either copy it off the drive and back, or you can use a program like iPartition to partition with the data in place. It's up to you.