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  #1  
Old 02-09-2006, 07:39 PM
DrDan in MA DrDan in MA is offline
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Question Account privs & SD!; crash recovery with .DMGs?

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
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Old 02-09-2006, 10:11 PM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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To answer:

1) Yes.

2) It doesn't need to be scheduled from an Admin user, but it needs to be unlocked by an admin user. That user doesn't have to be logged in, they need only specify their name/password.

3) Well, remember they're Sparse Images. And if you want to restore the image, yes, connect directly, boot from your Tiger install DVD, then use Disk Utility (in the Installer menu) to mount (File > Open Image...) and restore the data.
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Old 02-09-2006, 11:52 PM
DrDan in MA DrDan in MA is offline
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Perfecto!

Thanks again. Wow, whatta product. If I had stars to hand out, you'd get six!
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Old 02-10-2006, 07:51 AM
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I'm holding out for 10!
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Old 02-14-2006, 08:17 AM
DrDan in MA DrDan in MA is offline
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Question

Well here I am with my HD on the Ti-PBG4 having become unbootable. Gotta replace that freakin HD ASAP I guess because this is the second time in a month that's happened.

Fortunately (thanks to you guys) I have an ext LaCie HD with two partitions, one of which has a SuperDuper backup (not a sparse image, but a full copy because it was directly connected via FW) of that disk as of Mon 13 Feb at 0300, which will be fine -- I believe it was done prior to any difficulties on the Ti-Mac's HD. That Mac runs 10.3.9 so the duplicated contents will boot as Panther when it is eventually restored.

Going over the restore drill prior to my SECOND question...

So what I do next is to stick a bootable CD into that sick Mac's drive, boot again while holding down the C key so that it reads the drive first, and bring up the OS therefrom. Since the ext HD is already connected to that machine, its Finder will "see" the two ext partitions (there's another with a "sparse image" of the Mac Mini that I'm writing this on).

All's I've got to do next is to

* view three logical disks available on the desktop of the Ti-Mac as booted from the CD. One will be the internal one (that's become unbootable, but which I hope will still be visible on the desktop -- if I can't see it, I'll just have to get that new HD ASAP), and another two partitions of the Ext LaCie HD.

* Start up the copy of SD! that's on the ext partition having the backup corresponding to the Ti-PbG4's HD,

* Tell it to copy the disk image it's running on BACK ONTO the internal HD of the Ti-Mac itself (which will effectively wipe that HD clean before writing the contents of the full SD backup onto that internal HD)

* Allow SD! to make the copied image bootable (thus hopefully restoring bootability to the Ti-Mac) and then

* Remove the CD from the Ti-Mac and allow it to boot normally from its internal HD.

Question ONE: Do I have this scenario right? Corrections welcome.

Question TWO: I'm having trouble locating the Panther CDs that came with the Ti-Mac. I have the set that came with the Mac Mini, which are Tiger. So I may not be able to use a 10.3.* CD to boot from, which is the OS level that's on the disk image that corresponds to the Ti-Mac's last OS level. Can I boot with the Mac Mini's bootable TIGER CD, use it to discover the ext HD partitions, and run SD as described above, thus recreating a bootable PANTHER OS and disk contents? Or must I only boot-from-CD using a PANTHER-specific CD?

TIA for any corrections and advice, as usual...
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Old 02-14-2006, 09:26 AM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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If you want to start from CD, you'd use your Tiger/Panther CD/DVD to start the machine. Then, choose "Disk Utility" from the Installer menu. (NOTE - if you're dealing with Panther, you must NOT use the Tiger DVD to restore Panther. Use the other technique below.)

With that, I'd first erase *and zero* the internal drive to clean it up. Then, use the "Restore" Tab to restore from the external drive to the internal.

If you want to use the Tiger DVD, you'll need to upgrade to Tiger. To do that, also do the Disk Utility erase and zero of both data and free space. Then, clean install Tiger to the drive. When it prompts to migrate data/applications from an old mac, point it at the FireWire drive. It'll import your applications and settings.

Finally, you can also try erasing and zeroing, then booting from the LaCie and using SD! to copy back.
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