carbcon copy cloner

[greenguy4]

I have an external hd with a lot of data on it. I want to back up my iBook on to it as well using CCC but do I need a new partition in order to do that without losing my data?

Can I make a new partition still as well without having to move all those files?

 

[windowpain]

If you are using leopard than you can create (or modify) a partition on a disk without losing your data.
If you have tiger I don't think you can do this...

I also think that CCC will delete everything on the partition it uses.

 

[sickmacdoc]

If you are using leopard than you can create (or modify) a partition on a disk without losing your data.
If you have tiger I don't think you can do this...

I also think that CCC will delete everything on the partition it uses.

Yes, CCC will do that IF you do a "backup everything" or an "incremental backup" with the option to remove files from the destination that do not exist on the source selected.

So one could keep the existing files on a backup disk by doing an incremental backup without selecting the remove files option mentioned above.

That really would not be workable though since CCC backs up individual files rather than something like making a disk image-- thus the final backup drive would just be a giant mismash of files that already existed on it mixed in with files that CCC just backed up.

To work correctly as a bootable backup device, either a clean partition or a complete clean drive needs to be dedicated to the CCC backup.

 

[thevibesman]

If you haven't, check out SuperDuper!, if you don't need to boot directly from the backup drive, you can store as many backups in sparseimages as you'd like--I've got 19 cloned copies of my drives (mostly system--yeah I'm obsessive, but doing live audio, I need to keep a pristine system). Also, once it moved to v3, I was not happy with trusting the reliability of backups made with CCC, and I also had problems when I needed to make bootable backups.

 

[sickmacdoc]

If you haven't, check out SuperDuper!, if you don't need to boot directly from the backup drive, you can store as many backups in sparseimages as you'd like--I've got 19 cloned copies of my drives (mostly system--yeah I'm obsessive, but doing live audio, I need to keep a pristine system). Also, once it moved to v3, I was not happy with trusting the reliability of backups made with CCC, and I also had problems when I needed to make bootable backups.

While I have not had any problems whatsoever with the latest 3.12 CCC, I do agree 100% that SuperDuper is worth looking into too. I use both for different tasks (with 7Gb of stuff to backup in two sets of backup disks that I rotate out to an off site location) and they are both good tools.

Just make sure if you are planning to use SuperDuper that you go ahead and register it (approx $27 currently I believe) since several features (including incremental backups) are locked in the free demo version.

 

[thevibesman]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. The paid version of SuperDuper! is really handy. And for the record, I ditched CCC at 3.0.x, so take my negative opinion of it with a grain of salt....although I have not once missed it since switching to SuperDuper!.

 

[greenguy4]

maybe i will just upgrade to leopard then...On leopard I can definitely create a partition without wiping out a drive?

 

[windowpain]

Yes, And it will tell you exactly what it will do before it does it. See pic.

 

[greenguy4]

sweet--now here is to hoping that this 4 year old beast can handle the upgrade!

 

[windowpain]

Hold on- just found this...

now im not so sure...sorry.
I always thought you could..


also, on a separate note, I have the same model of ibook. It runs leopard at a very similar speed to tiger.imho.
I'd go for it.

 

[greenguy4]

haha damn....anyone have a clue on this? whaatabout when you run time machine--does that require a partition?

 

[windowpain]

whaatabout when you run time machine--does that require a partition?

No, it just creates a self-contained file on a partition.

See the time machine FAQ for more details.

 

[sickmacdoc]

haha damn....anyone have a clue on this? whaatabout when you run time machine--does that require a partition?

Keep in mind the the doc that windowpain pointed to only applies to drives that were originally formatted for Windows that have MBR (or Master Boot Record) for the partition scheme.

Unless I have missed something through this I can't see that your external drive necessarily does have an MBR partition scheme. If you select the drive in Disk Utility and look at the bottom (see attached) you will see the current partition type under the listing "Partition Map Scheme". If it is APM (Apple Partition Map as I suspect yours will be) or GUID Partition Table (mainly used with Intel Macs) the non-destructive partition resizing with Leopard's Disk Utility will work fine. Only MBR drives will not work with it.

 

[windowpain]

Thanks Sicmacdoc! You got me out of a hole there!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Anytime!