Cloning

[TheZA]

When previously on Tiger I used SuperDuper to create bootable clones on an external FW hard drive = no problem. Since switching to Leopard I've used Carbon Copy Cloner with apparently no problem at first. I'm able to boot from the external clone, but sometimes applications crash where they don't when booted on the internal version. Typically deleting the plist has cleared up the problem. In one case I couldn't print when booted from the external, but that fixed when I reloaded the driver. It seems to be a problem when booted from the external and I'm using some other external device (a printer, another external hard drive, etc.). I would like to have the confidence that I can restore, or defragment, from the external clone by cloning back over into the internal hard drive.

So my question:
Is this type of thing not going to be a problem if I reclone from the external back to the internal, or will it be able to easily be fixed if I reclone back over by simply deleting a plist, for example.

Thanks for any assistance.

Oh, and

Mac OS X 1.5.1; 17" C2D 1.83GHz iMac, 2G RAM, external FW Lacie SAFE HD, external FW Lacie D2 DVD RW, external WD Elements USB2 HD

 

[TheZA]

Man, no responses!

Come on, somebody out there must be knowledgeable about this.

If I clone to an external, and I get communication glitches/conflicts when booted from the external, is it likely that if I clone back to the internal that those glitches won't exist. Or are those glitches only experienced with booted from the external the result of some sort of corruption of the clone.

 

[unity]

I read this before, I am just wondering why you are cloning a drive and running apps off of it. Why would you do that?

As for cloning, it depends on how you are cloning. Ideally you want a bit for bit or a disk image. If its just doing a "copy" then you could have issues.

So what are you trying to do in the first place? Just make a back-up?

 

[mad jew]

I'll go out on a limb here, but I think it might just be a connectivity problem. You say the issue comes up when other devices are connected. Maybe dust and dirt build-up between your enclosure, the Mac and the cable is limiting the power supply resulting in mini dropouts. Stranger things have happened.

Is it always fine when the drive is the only connected device?

 

[TheZA]

Thank you both for responding.

Unity: I'm only running apps off the external to check the clone. When I use Carbon Copy Cloner it tells me I don't have enough room on that partition of the external for a block-level clone. So it is just a copy; but it does get all the hidden files and such. I'm doing it primarily as a back up, and I have recovered from a clone before in the past under Tiger without issue. It was nice to know that you alway could get right back to where you were. I don't have the confidence in Time Machine, and it would be nice to be able to do a system-level recovery without having to also rely on the Leopard install disk that is required with a system recovery with Time Machine. Also, at some point I can see wanting to defrag my internal hard drive. And rather than buy iDefrag, I have heard it is just as fast if not faster to clone over to an external, and then clone back - plus, it is free. (I don't want this thread to degrade into a discussion of the merits of defraging or not.)

When I said I thought it was a connectivity issue, I didn't mean the actual physical connections of the devices, but rather how the OS is handling the inputs and outputs. For example, I can run Quicken when booted from my internal HD and can download stock quotes from the internet without issue. When I clone over to the external and boot from it, whenever I try to download stock quotes Quicken crashes. And I have had problems printing when booted from the external - like it reports that it isn't communicating. The external is FW connected, and the printer is USB. And I don't really care if that happens when booted from the external, but if I use it to clone back over to the internal, will those problems persist, or was that a glitch in the OS managing input/output.

 

[mad jew]

I still think it's a physical connectivity issue though.