Serious problems with backup from 2.1.4
 

Our hard drive is partitioned in half. The first half is OS X. The second is used for storage. We needed to take some room from the storage side and give it to the OS X side. No problem, it's very easy to do with the disk utility, the only problem is that it would delete OS X in the process. But even that was no real problem (or so we thought) because SuperDuper could replace OS X right back where it belonged with a single mouse click. So with no problems in sight we re-partitioned the disk, it literally took less than a minute. Then we copied our OS X backup to the new OS X partition, and logged back in. We 'thought' we were done, but now we're noticing some weird operating behavior, mostly on the desktop.

If we try to move a folder or file on the desktop the entire desktop flashes. The file or folder never moves, as if they're stuck in the old position. If we try to open a folder, click on a file to place it in that folder, the open folder immediately changes into the 'desktop' folder. For the most part anything that we try to do on the desktop and the entire desktop flashes.

We have tried to fix permissions, but that did nothing.

We have tried to reboot, but that did nothing.

So here we are, wondering what to do next :eek: :D

Another problem has surfaced. Out of the blue the entire system is crashing now. It's also very slow with lots of 'beachball' activity. Also, Safari is always shutting down on its own now. You'll be on the net one minute, and the next it's gone :( Is there any program that we can run from Apple that will check all of the files that SuperDuper copied over to make sure they are not corrupted? :confused:

That's weird. It sounds like your internal drive might be damaged. I assume you were running fine from the backup, right? If you restart from that, is it still OK?

Nope. Drive is fine.

We just booted up from the backup now and are testing it, but 'so far' it appears that the backup works great.

We also noticed something else that was a little weird. The copy of the copy of the backup (the one that's giving us all this grief) had a lot of spam links imported into Safaris browser folders. For example; there was a news folder with a lot of links for Yahoo and MSN, etc, and a few other folders that shouldn't have been there. None of them are on the backup copy. We deleted them all. It had no effect but it was just weird that they were there in the first place.

We are going to try deleting the OS X partition and do another copy of backup tonight.

BTW - all of our backups from the previous versions of SuperDuper worked fine. It's just 2.1.4 that's giving us problems.

Why, specifically, do you think the drive is fine? Disk Utility doesn't tell you...

SuperDuper! can't mysteriously add links to Safari. We're only copying the files on the (known good) Backup to the internal... you sure this drive was properly partitioned/erased/etc?

• It happened the very second that we started using the copy of the backup from SuperDuper 2.1.4.
• There are two other operating systems on the same drive. They both work just fine.
• The only thing on the drive which has any problems is the copy of the backup from SuperDuper 2.1.4.

Yes we know, which is why it struck us as being so weird. All we know is that they weren't there before we partitioned the drive and copied the backup over to the OS X partition, and they were there immediately after.


It's pretty straight forward on a Mac :D We opened up disk utility, clicked on the Partiton button, resized it, made sure that format was set to journal and Apple Partition map, and clicked on the 'Partition' button. We did not 'wipe' the drive, we just resized it (which should have been fine) but tonight we will wipe it and start from scratch just to make sure.

I think that's a good idea. Really, this was not due to 2.1.4: and, clearly, the backup -- which was created with 2.1.4, right? -- is fine...

I don't remember if it was made from 2.1.4 or the previous version, but when I log into the backup it seems fine. Fingers crossed about redoing it tonight :D

Redoing the restore, I hope! Don't mess with the backup! :)

Yes we meant the restore :D

We're treating the backup as if it were gold since it is the only working copy that we have. If we can successfully move (copy) it to our OS X partition, then we will be a happy camper :)

I can imagine. :)

MMM, are you using the Finder to copy back the SuperDuper clone from the backup disc?
The way you have written of your problem, it does not seem as though you have booted MacOS X off the backup disc and then used SuperDuper to restore the clone to the internal hard drive.

Unless you use SuperDuper, when booted into the clone, to clone from the clone back to your original drive (which you should erase first), you won't get a working system on that original drive. If you "copy" or "move" your system from the clone back to the original, it won't work properly. You need to

(a) boot into your cloned backup
(b) run SuperDuper from that backup drive
(c) clone from the clone back onto the original drive, which should first be erased.

No, I don't even think it allows you to do that does it? We logged into the backup copy and set it to look like this:

<OS X Backup> ---> <OS X>

Tonight we downloaded 10.4.9 and everything "appears" so far to be back to normal ;)