[mr_ed]

Hello Folks... I've read the manual and I think I understand it but I wanted to quickly clarify a few things.

I am trying to achieve this :

I use my machine pretty heavily and over time the OS will more than often break. I'm tired of having to re-install the OS and all my apps. I would like to create a work area I use daily but also have a bootable copy of that area I can restore from.

How I am going to achieve this :

-Create two partions on my internal HD, one called Macintosh HD. One called Sandbox
-Install 10.5 to Mac HD
-Clone Mac HD to Sandbox
-Use Sandbox as my daily working start up and smart update back to Mac HD weekly as long as everything is running fine.

Questions

-Is this the best way to do it?
-How should I Backup my Mac HD using Time Machine? I won't be booting it often so time machine will not activate but it holds my home folder/original files. Can I use time machine to back up my sandbox? Will this follow the symlinks to Mac HD and copy all my home folder files?

I HAVE ANSWERED THE LAST QUESTION MYSELF - Just checked a TM backup I did before when I was experimenting with sandboxes and SD. It backed up everything but the symlink files.

-So should I use SD to back up my Mac HD to an external drive whilst booting from the sandbox...blimey all a bit confusing I know..


Any help much appreciated.

Matt