sandbox question

[zdoob]

greetings! another few questions...

i have an external FW 300GB drive partitioned into 4 volumes: clone, sandbox, archive, and other. i have successfully created a clone. now, i just created a sandbox, but had an error at the end. i chose in OPTIONS to restart from the sandbox. once the copying was finished, i got a dialog box saying that logout failed because SD timed out on quit. not a big problem, but worth mentioning.

after i finished, i wondered if i should've created the sandbox from the clone rather than from the internal HD which was the current boot drive. does this matter? is it okay to make a sandbox from the drive you are currently booted from? also, is it okay to continue to work or surf the web while SD is doing its thing?

also, once i run the system updates (and itunes, quicktime updates) on the sandbox... are there procedures or suggestions to determine if the updates are cool and ready to administer to the internal HD? how long do YOU usually wait? AND, once i select my internal HD as the boot drive, and run software update, will those updates show up as installed updates or new software available?

and just a general FW drive question... do i need to "eject" it and turn it off before i shutdown?

thanks!

[dnanian]

The shutdown/quit issue is known, and is something we're working on. We think it only happens when you erase-then-copy a volume, rather than using Smart Update.

You should definitely not create a sandbox from a clone -- you want the shared files to be on the original, boot volume. And, in general, it's OK to do light work while SD is copying (especially a Sandbox).

You don't need to eject FW drives when you shut down -- that happens automatically.

Hope that helps, zdoob.

[zdoob]

you're too fast! you answered my question before i finished editing it to add more questions!!

thanks again for an awesome product and fantastic support!

[dnanian]

There's no hard and fast rule to know when things are ready for applying to the main volume -- you just have to make that judgement yourself...

[zdoob]

hey thanks. also, out of curiosity - if i have my FW drive set as startup/boot (sandbox), and then turn on my mac without having the FW drive on, what will happen?

[dnanian]

It will likely boot to the first internal volume it can find.

[zdoob]

another question (sorry). i have been running from my sandbox. i opened an InDesign file and my Palatino font was missing. it is installed in the system library of the internal HD, but not in the sandbox. i opened fontbook and tried to install it, but nothing happened. i had to reboot from my internal HD to see the font in the file. is there something about the sandbox that i'm not understanding?

thanks!

[dnanian]

Do you see the file when you look at /Library/Fonts, zdoob? We copy all the fonts in the System library.

[zdoob]

yes. i see it that way, but it doesn't show up in fontbook or in InDesign.

[dnanian]

That's strange. Even across a reboot? Perhaps your Font Cache needs to be rebuilt...

[zdoob]

when the font was unavailable, i booted from the internal HD because i needed to work on that file. the font showed up as expected. i will reboot from the sandbox and see if it's there now.

[zdoob]

just rebooted from sandbox, and opened fontbook... palatino is not there. i've got a lot of fonts, so it's tough to tell if any others are missing. though i just noted how many fonts there are, and will reboot from the internal HD and see how many fonts are listed there.

[dnanian]

Try deactivating Palatino and reactivating it on the Sandbox.

[zdoob]

fontbook counts 275 fonts when booted from the sandbox, and 276 when booted from the internal! how amazing is it that the ONE font that didn't work is the one i needed... i should mention that the sandbox is running 10.4.3 (and all of the most recent updates), and the internal is still on 10.4.2.

obviously this isn't a huge issue - i just thought i'd point it out to you. i can't even load palatino on the sandbox... i don't get any errors, it just doesn't load. maybe there's something wrong with the font? it's still strange that it would be there on the internal, but not the sandbox. maybe the font is somehow incompatible with 10.4.3?

[zdoob]

just an update here. i booted from sandbox again, ran InDesign - no palatino. opened FontBook and tried to install palatino from several different sources... no luck. browsed to the file that SHOULD be showing up in fontbook (sandbox/library/fonts) and did a "get info" on it. suddenly, it appears in fontbook. go figure.

thanks for bearing with me!