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Old 05-16-2005, 12:47 PM
macWish macWish is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 75
Disk Utility problem after cloning

I have G4 1 Ghz iMac, 512 MB RAM. OS X 10.4

After installing Tiger on internal HD, everything seemed to work without any problems (but don't ask me about Spotlight!).
I then set up my External LaCie D2 Firewire 400 HD with three partitions:
1. Backup: a partition for backup of Documents and other User files using DataBackUp 2.0.5;
b. HD Clone: bootable 'Backup All Files" clone of internal HD created with SuperDuper! 1.5.5;
c. Startup Clone: bootable "Safety clone - shared users and applications" created with SuperDuper. I use this as my startup disk.

When I startup up on my Internal HD and launch Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair disk on the partitions on the External Firewire HD, no problems reported with any of the partitions

If I start up on the Startup Clone on external HD and run Disk Utility, I can perform the Repair Disk function on the other two partitions on the external hard drive. However, when I try to Repair Disk on the Internal HD, a task which always worked prior to installing Tiger, I get the error message: Unable to Unmount Volume - the first step of verifying and repairing a disk. The reason for this failure appears to be an open file/application on the hard drive.

The same problem occurs if I boot from the External HD Clone (i.e. the complete clone).

The same problem occurs if I boot from an eDrive created with TechToolPro 4.0.4 on its own partition on the external firewire drive. Disk Warrior on the eDrive also fails to unmount the internal HD.

However, it I boot from a bootable CD or DVD containing Disk Utility, then the latter functions without any problems and fails to find anything to repair on internal HD. Can also repair internal HD by launching it as single user and repairing internal HD with AppleJack.

There seems to be a problem with the cloning process with both SuperDuper! and TechToolPro such that Disk Utility (and Disk Warrior) act as if there is an open file/application on the internal hard drive when the startup disk is on a cloned drive on an external firewire drive.

The following did not correct the problem:
1. Disabling Spotlight via terminal use of mdutil and deleting .Spotlight index files from all drives;
2. Disabling Dashboard by quitting Dock.

Any suggestions?
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