is the user guide current AND complete ?

[joemac]

hi dave

after replacing a failed hard drive and before doing a "recovering from a disaster" with s/d!...

i printed and reread the user guide dated 2003-2006...

there are less than 2 pages (ok 3 if u count the fluff) on the recovering from a disaster process...

however while actually DOING the recover/restore i found several options NOT covered in the user guide...

basically at the restore/copy now screens in s/d! there are 3 or 4? drop down menus...

each with 3-6 options...

these are not exactly straight forward for the NOVICE, for example ...

1. should the repair permissions box be checked or not on the source drive?

-i really didn't wanna alter my last clone even to repair permissions, since the clone seems to work PERFECTLY as i use it...

2. smart update or erase and re-write?

-on a new drive there really isn't anything to erase, but smart update is implied to be the 'faster' approach...

-and in fact, since my first attempt at recovering FAILED with s/d!, i did use timemachine which worked pretty darn well.

-had i known that s/d! would erase this t/m stuff as part of the "recover from a disaster" process,

-i would not have rebooted the drive from the install disc and erase/formatted/repaired it again with disc utility.

3. make bootable? again think novice. i know what this means but wondered WHY the option even existed to do/not do this.

4. do nothing? shut down? restart? and so on...

-a page in the user guide explaining what each of the 5 or 6 choices will do EXACTLY...

-would be in keeping wiht the matter of fact/clear and well explained nature of superduper!

so is there any plans to UPDATE the user guide to include MORE info on the MOST CRITICAL feature of s/d!

namely "recovery from a disaster"????

thanks again for great software.

joemac

[dnanian]

They're not mentioned because their settings don't matter, actually -- and, since you've already done the copy the other way, and you're doing exactly the same thing when restoring, the settings are fine at their defaults.

So, while I might tweak the section a bit, I don't plan to expand it too much, no -- it hasn't seemed to be a problem for most users...

[Anne R]

I'm doing my first Smart Update external drive from Mac HD.

So does it not matter whether the box is Checked or Unchecked for "Repair Permissions on Mac HD"?

What are "Permissions"? What is the benefit of checking?

[dnanian]

It's just a convenience for users who feel the need to do this before each backup. In general, it's not necessary, which is why it defaults to 'off'.

[Anne R]

That's great, thank you.