Multiple Bootable Clones

[clcgit]

Greetings,

I've been using SuperDuper! for a while and am very impressed by just how easy and reliable it has proven for my backups.

I have, however, been running into issues (perhaps not with SuperDuper! itself) when trying to create bootable clones of my two Macs (one Intel and another a G4). This is what I've done:

1. I create two partitions (HFS+ Journaled, Apple Partition Map, on a 1TB LaCie)
2. I ask SuperDuper! to create bootable clones into each of these partitions

But when I attempt to boot from these partitions (by holding the option key), only the most recently backed up partition shows up. I can still see the data in the other partition that did not show up on the boot menu (so stuff is backed up properly; just not bootable.)

I've tried this on an Oxford Semiconductor-based enclosure with WD drives and get the same error.

As of now, I only create sparse images, but it would be awesome to get multiple bootable clones working. What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for your work!

[dnanian]

Well, Intel Macs really only support boot with GUID partition schemes. Power PC Macs use APM...

[clcgit]

Hmmm... I'm imagining that PPC Macs don't support GUID?

I'm just confused as to why only the last backed up Mac (PPC or Intel) shows up.

Also, assuming I had two intel Macs, could this "multiple bootable partitions" idea work with GUID and the correct hard drive?

Thank you for your help

[dnanian]

Right: PPC Macs don't support GUID, and Intel Macs don't 'officially', and this may be one of the reasons why.

Does the other partition show up as a possibility in the startup disk preference pane?

[clcgit]

The "Startup Disk" pane pretty much shows the same behaviour as holding down the option key at boot: it only shows the last backed up partition (Intel or PPC).

Now that I think of it, I can try making two bootable partitions of the same Intel mac using GUID to see if they both show up. If yes, I can repeat the experiment with my PPC mac and APT. If successful, I'll yell at Apple for 5 seconds, get two hard drives for two macs and get done with this

Or is there a better way to go?

[dnanian]

I have no idea why the startup disk preference pane would only show one partition in that case. But I've certainly had many bootable partitions on one drive...