SuperDuper 2.6.2. question-new to SuperDuper

[Gary S]

Hi everyone,

I have a dilemma on my hands. I'm running Tiger X.4.11 on a G4 desktop. Right now I have 2 internal drives.

I bought a new Seagate internal drive and was wondering if I could clone the drive I'm taking out to the new drive?

I do have SuperDuper 2.6.2..

I can't find my 10.4 disks    I can find my Jaguar and Panther disks!!!!

I have a feeling my son may have taken them to the U of Wisconsin, because he left his X.5 Mac pro install disks here after I reminded him to take install disks to school with him.

Anyways, can I clone the drive I'm taking out to the new drive, using SuperDuper 2.6.2.

Any help will be appreciated.

TIA

[jwboyd]

Contact Dave Nanian at

support@shirt-pocket.com

He knows all about SuperDuper, and he is always prompt with his responses.

Joe

[jchuzi]

According to the developer's website, SD 2.6.2 is compatible with OS 10.4 and later (scroll down to System Requirements). It should work.

[Paddy]

Shouldn't be a problem, Gary - I've cloned to new (larger) drives many times over the years, using SuperDuper. I don't know which G4 you have - one of the older ones that supports 2 internal drives, or one of the more recent ones that supports up to 4 internal drives. If it's the former, simply take the drive out that you're NOT cloning from (even if it's just a temporary removal) and then put the new one in and clone to that. Then do whatever switching around you need to do with the drive you're taking out etc. Make sure you get the jumpers set correctly, as these are ATA drives. Jumper settings are often shown on the stickers attached to the drive and each manufacturer is different, so if you don't see them, you should look them up on the manufacturer's website. If you can only put two drives in at a time, then one should be master and the other, slave. If you can put 4 drives in, then there are (I think) 2 drive buses and each one should have a master, with the additional drive set to slave. NOTE: if any of the drives are Western Digital and there is only the WD drive on one of the buses, you need to set it to "single" - WD is the only manufacturer that has this setting.

[krissel]

Hi Gary!  Go for it.   I've cloned many Tiger and Leopard installs (Intel and PPC) and SuperDuper works like a charm.  The only problem I've encountered is from using "Copy Newer" with clones of clones, if you can imagine that.  Don't use that option if you expect to create a bootable clone.  In your case you will be using the basic erase and copy for the initial clone.  After that, read the manual to understand which type of cloning you should be doing for future backups.

[Gary S]

Thanks jchuzi and jwboyd. I emailed Dave last night and here is his response:

Here is the email Dave sent:

Sure. Here's how: Upgrading to a new drive is easy.

First, prepare the new drive (in a drive dock or similar) by partitioning it:

* Start Disk Utility
* Select the external drive hardware in the sidebar
* Click the Partition tab (if it doesn't appear, you selected the volume, not the drive hardware above it)
* Use Disk Utility's controls to divide the drive as needed, even as a single large partition. Use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format type and name appropriately
* Click Options
* Choose the proper partition scheme (GUID for Intel macs, Apple Partition Map for Power PC) and accept the page
* Click Partition.

Then, make a full "Backup - all files" with "Smart Update" or "Erase, then copy" to the new drive.

Rename the drive to have the *same* name as the original.

Now, shut down and swap the drives.

Power back up -- you'll notice it'll take a while to start (it's looking for the original drive). When it finally boots, open System Preferences and select the new drive as the startup drive in the Startup Disk preference pane.

That's all there is to it! Note that some copy protected programs might notice that the new drive is different than the old one and may need to be 'reactivated'.

--
Dave Nanian
Shirt Pocket

Hi Paddy and Krissel,

I was hoping one of you would respond because I was pretty sure you
had experience with SD. I got both!!!

Listening to you two it sounds like a snap.

Paddy,
What you suggested was what I planned to do ie:It's a Quicksilver one of the older ones that supports 2 internal drives, simply take the drive out that you're NOT cloning from (even if it's just a temporary removal) and then put the new one in and clone to that.

Could you read the email above that came from Dave Nanian and see if I'm missing something. Do you think I should select
"Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" ? The reason being that every time I journaled a hard drive the Startup time is slow as is the whole journaled HD, I get the spinning wheel often when saving files and it seems as though it's looking for something.

BTW-the Hard Drive I'll be cloning is Journaled. Does that cause a problem if I don't journal the new Seagate?

Thanks for all your help!

[jchuzi]

QUOTE

BTW-the Hard Drive I'll be cloning is Journaled. Does that cause a problem if I don't journal the new Seagate?

Journaling is the closest thing there is to a free lunch. Why wouldn't you want to do it?

[Gary S]

QUOTE(jchuzi @ Oct 10 2010, 04:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

BTW-the Hard Drive I'll be cloning is Journaled. Does that cause a problem if I don't journal the new Seagate?

Journaling is the closest thing there is to a free lunch. Why wouldn't you want to do it?

Jon,
The only reason I asked about Journaling is because I have 2 HD drives in this computer, one journaled and one not journaled. The one that's journaled is the one that's giving me trouble (get the spinning wheel often when saving files and  at startup) and the one that's not journaled runs fast and well. So I just thought I'd ask.

I know the purpose of journaling, I just wondered if it may be causing trouble.

[jchuzi]

The problem with the journaled drive is probably unrelated to journaling. All four of my internal drives are journaled and all are working fine. I have a main drive, a cloned (with SD, of course) backup drive, a Time Machine backup drive and one drive that stores files that are humongous (mainly scanned photos) but otherwise replaceable (if I rescan).

Have you run any hardware tests on the problem drive, such as SMART or a surface scan?

[Gary S]

QUOTE(jchuzi @ Oct 11 2010, 12:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The problem with the journaled drive is probably unrelated to journaling. All four of my internal drives are journaled and all are working fine. I have a main drive, a cloned (with SD, of course) backup drive, a Time Machine backup drive and one drive that stores files that are humongous (mainly scanned photos) but otherwise replaceable (if I rescan).

Have you run any hardware tests on the problem drive, such as SMART or a surface scan?

Thanks Jon,

I haven't  run any hardware tests on the problem drive, such as SMART or a surface scan?

I don't know what a surface scan is.

I ran Disk Utility-No biggies.

I'll run DiskWarrior as soon as I have a chance and run the SMART hardware test. Maybe tommorrow.

Thanks again Jon

[jchuzi]

You can run SMART with Disk Utility. See the instructions here (scroll down to SMART Status). Bear in mind that SMART is inappropriately named because it can be wrong if it gives you the OK. If it says that the drive is failing, however, believe it.

To do a surface scan, you'll need TechTool Pro or Drive Genius. Disk Warrior doesn't have that feature. Basically, a surface scan checks each and every block on the hard drive to see if they are good. If blocks have failed or are failing, it's possible to map out bad blocks by zeroing the drive (resulting in the loss of all data) but, once blocks start to go, the chances of drive failure greatly increase. If I were to find bad blocks, I would replace the drive.

[Gary S]

QUOTE(jchuzi @ Oct 11 2010, 04:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can run SMART with Disk Utility. See the instructions here (scroll down to SMART Status). Bear in mind that SMART is inappropriately named because it can be wrong if it gives you the OK. If it says that the drive is failing, however, believe it.

To do a surface scan, you'll need TechTool Pro or Drive Genius. Disk Warrior doesn't have that feature. Basically, a surface scan checks each and every block on the hard drive to see if they are good. If blocks have failed or are failing, it's possible to map out bad blocks by zeroing the drive (resulting in the loss of all data) but, once blocks start to go, the chances of drive failure greatly increase. If I were to find bad blocks, I would replace the drive.

Unfortunately I don't have TechTool or Drive Genius. I'll try Disk Utility.

Thanks Jon

[jchuzi]

In case you didn't know, Disk Warrior can run SMART tests as well as Disk Utility. If you bought Applecare, you received TechTool Deluxe as part of the package. TTD can run a surface scan. If you feel comfortable using Terminal, see this FineTunedMac thread. If you are even braver, look at Bad Blocks? badblocks!.

Personally, I'm not brave enough to use Terminal for this, nor Linux but you may be a better person than I.  

[Paddy]

Chiming in late here, but I too have 4 internal drives, all journaled, and no issues. I've never NOT formatted a drive using journaling. Three of the four drives are bootable, BTW - 2 are daily and weekly clones of my main startup drive, and one is a TM disk. If one of them was used strictly for media (for example) then I might consider turning journaling off as per this article:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_journaling.html

[krissel]

In Dave's reply he assumed you were going to do it via an external drive kit. You don't need to do it that way since you can just use the second drive bay in your Mac as Paddy suggested.  You'll do an Erase, then copy which will give you the cleanest clone. Future updates will most likely by of the Smart Update type if you want to create and exact copy of the original drive.

There should be no measurable hit to having journaling implemented. When it was first introduced some claimed there was a noticeable slowdown but the OS has been tweeked since then so it really shouldn't make a difference.  It is an insurance policy of sorts and worthwhile. If you were running a server accessing data in large volumes you may find it less appealing as speed might be affected. The average user won't notice.