which settings to do this specifically...
 

Okay, I think I know the answer to this, but what I want to do doesn't seem to be one of the scenarios anyone anticipates (because it's a dumb idea? nah...) and is not so much of a backup as a reconfigure need.

I want to move my system (tiger, that is) from one partition to another, and the other partition may already have data on it that I wouldn't want to disturb. So, can I get a bootable system with all existing info and etceteras cloned to an existing drive without erasing anything on the target drive? what specific settings would be most desirable/efficient/safe?

thanks

You can do this, one time, as long as there are no conflicting folders. Use "Backup - all files" with "Copy Different", and it'll copy everything over as it should, and make it bootable.

But, again, one time only.

thanks, that's about what I thought.

But, just out of curiosity, what would happen if I tried it a second time??? Say just one new file on the source disk?

That would potentially work, but since files would never be removed from the destination, it means that your drive would eventually no longer be bootable (and would likely fill). Don't do it.

Never touch the RED button! Oooooh, now I want to.

But I won't do it. Which is okay, because this is exactly what I wanted to do anyway, a one time move.

(In case anyone is curious, its because my boot drive is failing and I want to RMA it, but don't really have another clean partition to move to while waiting for the replacement drive.)

Maybe this will give you an idea for another addendum to the docs.

Well, this didn't work out.
 

disk utility may have delivered a final blow, but only after the new copied system failed to boot in spite of being selected as Startup Disk in System Preferences.

Mistakenly thinking I had booted from the new system, I ran repair permissions on that drive. (I know, I could have told I was not booted from it if I'd noticed the enabled "repair disk" button.) So, repair permissions proceeded to do something I've never seen it do before, "repair" a symbolic link. to wit:

"Repairing permissions for “haffanikkel”
Determining correct file permissions.
Symbolic link ./mach->mach_kernel repaired

Permissions repair complete"

What would be the ramifications of this? And any hope of ever making this disk bootable at this point?

That's actually expected: we purposefully don't copy that particular link because it's automatically recreated when you start from the volume.

well, what happens if it's copied from the wrong drive. In other words, I was booted from the original drive but repairing permissions on the target drive. So, did it link to the wrong drive? Or is this irrelevant to the non-booting issue?

No, it's not relevant to non-booting.

What kind of drive is it?

It's an IDE, one of those garden variety Western Digital digital drives, internal attached to a PCI card. (an acard 6280M to be precise.)

OK: I assume that the drive is partitioned with "Apple Partition Map" -- have you tried installing "straight" OSX to it to see if that's bootable?

No, I haven't tried a straight install yet, but no reason to think it won't work. I have the same card in a similar machine at work and the drives boot.

Further elements I have realized:

None of the systems attached to this card will boot now. 2 OS X and 1 OS 9. However, I also realize they are all recently relocated with Super Duper also.

Another However, I subsequently did the same Copy Different operation to an external firewire drive, and it DID boot.

So it strongly appears that the problem involves both the card AND Super Duper! very frustrating.

I take it back
 

I got a firmware update from acard. Even though their updater still only runs in OS 9, they must have added something new to the .bin file, because they are all bootable now.

Now I have to get back to figuring out which drive I really want to be the system, and how to shuffle the data back around so it makes sense.

Weird, I don't know why -- as you indicated -- it was bootable before. It certainly seems like it was the card alone. Strange.