[DrDan in MA]

On our new Mac Mini, my acct has Admin privs, and my wife is a "normal user." She can't install to /Applications w/o my password, and can't see any of my ~/Users/Dan/* files except my /Public and /Sites folders. When I'm logged in there, I can install to /Applications -- but can't see any of Users/Deb/'s files except /Public and /Sites.

Questions on behalf of my wife, whose Mini I'm backing up onto my Ti-PbG4's ext HD:

(1) "SD! seems to work fine when run from Dan's login on the Mini. He's got Admin rights there; I don't. Given that Dan only "sees" my /Public and /Sites folders and can't see my 'Private' folders, can SD! run from his acct make a backup of my entire acct?

(2) And assuming that the answer to (1) is Yes, does SD! need to be scheduled and run from an Admin rather than a 'garden-variety' user like me? If I can run it, will the disk image (or smart update) SD! writes when run under MY account on Dan's ext HD contain not only all of my account on the Mini, but all of his as well?"

(3) and finally a question on my own behalf. I see the .DMG files (sparse image files) that SD! creates and "pushes" across my LAN to my Ti-PbG4. They can, of course, be mounted and they look for all the world like a "normal" .DMG file in behavior. I've read thru the neighborhoods of all occurrences of "disk image" and "target mode" in the SD! manual, but I still must confess I don't know exactly what I would do if the Mini crashed and needed to be restored from a backup .sparseimage file on my ext HD.

I've seen how to make a "sick, unbootable Mac" find an ext HD with a bootable image and boot from it in Target Disk Mode. So what do I do if the Mini becomes unbootable or its data become corrupted? Do I detach my ext HD, make a direct FW connection between it and the Mini, and boot holding down T? Will the Mac then "find and offer me" all available bootable partitions and also all bootable .sparseimages [within folders in other partitions], and let me select which one to use -- and thus, using the SD! on the chosen part of the ext HD, push a complete copy back to the "sick, unbootable (or file-corrupted) Mac"'s HD? Is the answer to this question somewhere in the Manual? If so, a pointer is all that I need, I guess... TIA