SDAgent xxx is not running as root

[fork]

This is my wife's laptop. No external drive except the backup drive which is only connected for backup. Neither I nor my wife use Spotlight because we don't use that many different apps. SD was installed from the DMG. But I tried again and no dice UNTIL I did the reverse of what you suggested.

I launched SD. The lock was unlocked. The text next to it says Click to require password authentication before copying. Clicked and entered the password. I then locked the lock in the main window and clicked Copy Now without unlocking it. I was expecting the next step would be the sw asking me to enter a pw again but it didn't. It jumped through the prep steps in locked mode and started the backup normally.

I'm happy but confused as to why when SD was unlocked on my wife's laptop it wasn't working.

On my computer I just tried SD and after launch it shows as unlocked and clicking Copy Now starts the way I expected my wife's backup to work...