Disk Cloning and/or Backups

[nano2nd]

Hi, can you guys help me?

I saw a while ago a how-to from Gotoh on cloning OS X drives and then later booting off the drive in the event of failure. I'm about to update my 10.4.8 install and want to make sure I have a backup but can't find Gotoh's original piece.

If I can gain some level of security through backups and get into safely applying the final two 10.4.x updates I'm in real danger of moving to the Hackintosh as my main machine and putting the MDD out to pasture....

Thanks in advance,
Chris

[ritalin]

nano2nd said:

Hi, can you guys help me?

I saw a while ago a how-to from Gotoh on cloning OS X drives and then later booting off the drive in the event of failure. I'm about to update my 10.4.8 install and want to make sure I have a backup but can't find Gotoh's original piece.

If I can gain some level of security through backups and get into safely applying the final two 10.4.x updates I'm in real danger of moving to the Hackintosh as my main machine and putting the MDD out to pasture....

Thanks in advance,
Chris

Here is a copy of Gotoh's original post. I have used this method myself with no problems.

you will need some tools from the guy who wrote a commnd line cloning tool.
what you need :

startupfiletool
setboot
bless

open terminal

diskutil list
## write down the volume name and disk identifier info example: (disk1s1)


## unmount the disk that needs the boot loader
## remove quotes if you do not have space
diskutil unmount "/Volumes/volume name" (or unmount from disk utility)

## replace out 1s1 with your disk# and partition #
## this installs boot1h in the 1st 512 blocks
dd if=/usr/standalone/i386/boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s1 bs=512 count=1

(if you don't have boot1h file in this directory, use the one from your Tiger boot DVD, same location)

## replace out 1s1 with your disk# and partition #
## this installs the 2nd stage boot loader to the target disk
/Applications/Clonetool/sbin/startupfiletool /dev/rdisk1s1 /usr/standalone/i386/boot

## bless the target device
sudo /Applications/Clonetool/sbin/bless -device /dev/disk1s1 -setBoot -verbose

## replace out 1s1 with your disk# and partition #
## note this entry is NOT a raw disk
## mount device
diskutil mount /dev/disk1s1

## remove quotes if you do not have space
## Bless the mount
sudo /Applications/Clonetool/sbin/bless -mount "/Volumes/volume name" -setBoot -verbose

I tried it several times, it always worked fine...

[reddrag0n]

Wouldn't Carbon Copy Cloner do the same thing? Or is that not an option?

[nano2nd]

Thanks for that!

I've looked into the clonetool Gotoh recommends and it looks like it has moved on significantly - see the URL below:

nicemac.com

Looks to be a pretty useful tool now.

[aquamac]

Actually, Cloning a hackintosh is easy and you need no special tools or programs, save CCC or Superduper or whatever your fav cloning program is.

This is what you have to do. Open Disk Utility and select the HDD you wish to save your data to. Select partitions and then the options button. Click the checkbox next to "Master boot Record" and make sure the disk is set to Mac OS extended (journaled).

When the disk has finished being partitioned (takes 10-15 secs) you are ready to use CCC or Superduper. Don't forget to repair permissions before you boot with it!

You're Done!

[nano2nd]

Thanks looks straightforward.

In the end I took a chance and just installed 10.4.9 anyway (taking care to backup/restore the relevant kexts and the kernel).

I seem to have an unrelated problem anyway right now which means I cannot write to a FW HDD (that works perfectly on my other Mac) from the Hackintosh. This kind of stops me making backups until either my new 500gb SATA internal drive arrives in the post or I 'donate' a PATA drive from my MDD... Again, I'm sure I read of other people having this read-only external HDD issue so I'll crack the problem eventually.

[aquamac]

I have no problems reading/writing to FW HDD's with my hackintosh. However I cannot boot from them as there is no option in the bios to do so. Also I have not been able to boot from External HDD's using USB 2. Once again, to boot from a HDD on a hackie the HDD needs to be formatted as Master boot record, but when I do this the external disk becomes invisible on the desktop. It only reappears when I reformat as Apple partition map. However, cloning internal disks is easy and as my motherboard supports e-sata, cloning means I can plug a bare sata disk into the back of my hackie with the external power wire and hey presto, an external disk that works at the same speed as an internal disk that is bootable!