What is disc copy and other related questions.

[PHARAOHk]

What do you use disc copy for? It takes forever and from what I gather from the help menu I'm not sure it's the best for just copying a disc. I want to back up the install disc for a trip. Should I just select copy to hard drive and then burn that in the finder? Or, use disc copy? I have tried using the help menu but it doesn't say much. It says disc copy makes an image but doesn't elaborate. If somebody could that would help,
Thank you
(((k)))

 

[Fukui]

Disk copy...copies disks.
If you copy it, you can just "image" it to a file, and, if the file is the right size, burn the image file to disk such as CD-R or DVD-RW. You can also use it to erase CDs and DVDs, you can even back up your HD with disk copy, and get a perfect image of you HD.

Disk copy is also used for storing encrypted files inside disk images, and disk images are also the "apple approved" way of dispensing software of the internet. A really cool thing you can do is create an image large enough to hold OS9, when you "mount" the disk, select it as your "classic" folder...after you eject the OS 9 image, when ever you need an OS 9 app, it will automatically load the image and start classic - an operating system, from a file!! Its actually pretty powerful what you can do.

I have backed up my Jaguar, Studio MX, MS Office, Dev Tools CD's to ISO disc images, so if I ever lose my disks, I can just burn another one...

If you ever had to go through Norton Ghost in DOS, you'll probably appreciate Disc Copy...

 

[PHARAOHk]

That makes sense. What are the benefits of making an image opposed to a straight copy? And is disk copy supposed to take a while? How does compression effect a copy? I have it set on master copy for semi-small discs. Thanks for the reply.
(((k)))

 

[Fukui]

What are the benefits of making an image opposed to a straight copy?

An image is exactly an image of the disk/folder you are copying, it will copy the invisible files, maintain special permisions of files/folders etc, you can't make a boot disk of OS X just by copying files because it is a multi-user sytem and some files need to have special permisions for security, not to mention many hidden unix folders would not be copied if you didn't image.
Imaging, in other words makes absolutely sure you are copying everything in its original state.

And is disk copy supposed to take a while? How does compression effect a copy?

It can take a while depending on if you use compression or not, it actually pretty fast, not really much slower than copying with the finder, and with the finder, I have found that it messes up file names etc when copying many times...
Compression doesn't affect the data really, just the size of the final image file...usually about 3x smaller, but if you image a CD, its better to just use the CD-Master setting and it will make an ISO disk image that can be burned with toast/easy CD creator etc.

P.S I would absolutely recomend using disk copy to back up your installation disks etc, its much more convenient to handle a single file than a bunch of directories with thousands of files that the finder may or may not copy...including those stupid "locked" files...

 

[PHARAOHk]

I backed up the recovery disc as an "image" with disc copy. It works except that when holding down c at startup it does not start from the disc. Is this because it needs to be mounted to the desktop, opened, and then run(disc images)? If so I think for programs like disc recovery and techtool that need to be run at startup should be burnt in the finder as a regular copy? This is my first mac(17" PB) and so far so good. The help documentation barely covers anything. I like big PDF manuals that you get to read about the computer. I deon't know all the lingo or best ways to do things on a mac. I probably won't need these recovery discs but I like to be prepared for the worst and I am going out of town for a while. Thanks alot for helping me Fukui.

(((k)))

 

[Fukui]

I backed up the recovery disc as an "image" with disc copy. It works except that when holding down c at startup it does not start from the disc. Is this because it needs to be mounted to the desktop, opened, and then run(disc images)?

Ok, what you do is, after imaging the disk to a file, you open disk copy, and choose File>"Make CD/DVD from Image", select the image file you made, and then it will burn to disk. If the size of your recovery image is to large for say, a DVD, then it will give an error, otherwise it will burn fine. Then insert the disk into the disk drive, and restart holding the 'c' key, or hold the "alt" key and you'll get a list of disks you can boot off of (your in the bios mode), the CD/DVD should show up...I have successfully backed up my installation disks and burned them, so it should work...if you mean accessing the applications on the image, yea you can just copy them to your hard disk and use them.

If so I think for programs like disc recovery and techtool that need to be run at startup should be burnt in the finder as a regular copy? This is my first mac(17" PB) and so far so good.

Ok, so are you backing up your Hard Disk or just something like techtool? If it is techtool, I think it only boots up in OS 9, since apple switched to UNIX based OS, techtool won't boot-up on your 17" PowerBook...didn't techtool say so on the box? I checked on their web site and it said that TechTool 4 will work on OS X but it will be another 6 weeks or so....have you been able to boot-up using the original techtool cd?

The help documentation barely covers anything. I like big PDF manuals that you get to read about the computer. I don't know all the lingo or best ways to do things on a mac. I probably won't need these recovery discs but I like to be prepared for the worst and I am going out of town for a while.

You should check this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=52091
If you don't have it yet, PDF internet plug-in:
http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/
So you can view PDFs in your browser window instead of just downloading...

Thanks a lot for helping me Fukui.

No problem.

P.S What I recommend for the best back up (most reliable) is to buy a firewire hard disk, (one of the smaller notebook size ones are more convenient), when you connect it, use disk utility to partition the disk into two volumes, with one being smaller at maybe 3.0GB (this will keep the OS and your data separate), then use the install OS X install disk to install OS X to the first partition (smaller one), then once you have booted up from the firewire disk, just copy your "home folder" to the second larger partition on the firewire disk. After it finishes copying, go to system preferences and choose "start up disk" then choose to boot up from your HD on your laptop.

Now, when ever you need to do a back up, you can do it that way. And if you ever have any trouble with you laptop, all you need to do, if say, you re-installed everything, is to copy the contents of your home folder (Documents,Movies,Pictures, etc folders) back to your home folder, and everything will be back to normal (your preferences etc, are all stored in your own separate folder for your user)...pretty convenient, and it has saved me many times from bad hard disks dying on me...the added benefit is that you can easily boot up from a firewire disk, and you can load any tools etc that you want in addition to your own files, unlike a CD or DVD that is static and cant be changed after its burned...unless you erase it again, and you can boot up from the firewire disk even if your laptop hard disk compleltey fails, just boot up with the "alt" or "option" key and select the drive!

P.P.S You home folder is in the /Users/
folder so if my user name was Jon, my home folder would be in /Users/Jon/

 

[PHARAOHk]

I can't thank you enough fukui. I am new to macs and am a computer novice. I didn't realize that a bootable disc had to be

 

[Fukui]

Yea, no problem.