repair permissions takes so long.
 

I repaired the permissions on my HD with Apple's Disk utility, restarted my computer and started up SD. It is now repairing the permissions on HD prior to making a full backup. It has taken 2 hours so far, where Disk Utility took about 3 minites.
What does this mean? thanks, John

Two hours to repair permissions? We've literally asked Disk Utility to do it for us, so if it's taking a long time it's likely because it's actually going slowly. Are you sure that's what it's doing?

Open the log (Cmd+L) and scroll to the bottom. Is it, perhaps, saying it's "Refreshing disk arbitration"?

If so, it's likely that an attached device isn't responding right. Power everything off, including all peripherals, disconnect whatever you don't need, then power back on and try again.

Here's the Log, looks to me as if it was Refreshing Disk Arbitration but now its not. What do you think?
05:49:01 PM | Info | Copy Mode : Smart Update
| 05:49:01 PM | Info | Copy Script : Backup - all files.dset
| 05:49:01 PM | Info | Transcript : BuildTranscript.plist
| 05:49:01 PM | Info | PHASE: 1. Prepare to Copy Files
| 05:49:01 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Preparing G5 OSX 10.4
| 05:49:01 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Verifying the integrity of volinfo.database
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | volinfo.database OK
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Enabling permissions on G5 OSX 10.4
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | Refreshing Disk Arbitration ...
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Verifying that permissions are enabled for G5 OSX 10.4
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | Permissions on '/Volumes/G5 OSX 10.4' are enabled.
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | ...ACTION: Repairing permissions on G5 OSX 10.4
| 05:49:02 PM | Info | ......COMMAND => Repairing permissions on G5 OSX 10.4

OK. So, for some reason, Disk Utility is, indeed, taking a very long time to repair permissions. I really don't know why that would be, especially since you're not under Leopard. Perhaps stop it and restart your Mac.

I am using Leopard (the disc I am (G5 OSX 10.4) copying is my backup Tiger disc). I just restarted and tried to repair permissions with Disk Utility, it took less than a minute. I will restart and see if SD is ok with it now.

I restarted after disk utility repaired permissions, now SD took less than a minute to get to "Copy Files".

all is good,
thanks for your help.

Glad you're all set.