OS 10.4 Server does not boot after restore with SD

[Ceasar]

So, we are currently running OS 10.4 server on a Powermac G5. But we also have an unused Xserve (also G5), and I'm trying to migrate everything from the PMG5 to the Xserve . I figured SuperDuper would be the best way to go about this. I have been using SuperDuper to backup the G5 nightly to an External FW Segate drive.

When I take the External FW drive and plug it into the XServer and boot the Xserve directly off the FW Drive, it boots up and works fine.

BUT, when I use SD to restore the files onto the Xserve from the FW Drive, then the Xserve doesn't boot up. It gets to the splash screen, the progress bar freezes about halfway, and then the login window appears over the splash screen. I am then unable to login. When booting into single usermode and looking at the logs, I see that launchd is unable to launch any services, particularly netinfo. It just continues to try to restart those services and then fails with exit code 1 (so the log says)

So, just to recap, the Xserve boots up perfectly and runs fine when running directly from the external drive. But does not after restoring from the external drive.
So I take the External drive to another machine (an iMac g5) and boot the Imac G5 with this external, works great. Restore the iMac G5, and I get the exact same problem: freezes at the splash screen, login window appears and doen't let me log in.

Any thoughts, or suggestions?

[dnanian]

Weird. I had another user with this problem recently, too.

Try naming the XServe's drive the same as the original source. then, Smart Update from the backup and let's see if that works.

We can also try removing the network plists, but let's do this first...

[Ceasar]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Try naming the XServe's drive the same as the original source. then, Smart Update from the backup and let's see if that works.

It already is actually. Both were called Raid-0. However on the iMac G5 (the second machine I tried to restore) it was not called Raid-0 it was just Macintosh HD. I'll double check the volume names again.

Originally Posted by dnanian

We can also try removing the network plists, but let's do this first...

Yes, I'll definitely give that a shot. Thanks for the reply!

[dnanian]

OK! Let me know what you find.

[jaime_sf]

I have been unable to restore our x server uing SuperDuper. The backup was made with super duper. I can boot via fire wire from that backup with out a problem. If I restore using SuperDuper, i get a circle slash upon bootup.

If I use Disk Utility to restore the backup made with SD, I am able to boot.


hmm..

Notes:
Server: Intel 10.4.10 w/ Raid 1
I erased the drive with Disk Utility in both restore tests since SD was unable too.

[dnanian]

That's weird, Jaime. It sounds like either the drive is mispartitioned, or that the wrong script is used to restore. Is the server RAIDed?

[jaime_sf]

The server is RAIDed as Raid 1 using Apple's raid utility (disk utility).
Note: i had the same login progress bar stuck/login window problem at one point too..i can't be totally certain of the circumstances but i'm pretty dang sure it was with SD. however, the above are the results of my retries after reading this post.

Is SD apple raid friendly?

[jaime_sf]

I also should say that use SD to restore once while booted as the source volume and again while booted from a third disk. Same results.

[dnanian]

SD! is apple raid friendly, but I know that there are recent problems with bless that cause the hidden RAID partition to not have its kextcache rebuilt as it should be. Running kextcache -f -u /Volume/the-restored-volume might fix it... give it a shot.

[jaime_sf]

That command did the trick. Thanks!

[dnanian]

Glad to help.