Am I on the right track ?

[prot]

I just bought SD the other day, and looked over the users manual, which, I might add, was excellent. However, my mind is numb, and me brain stuck.

My set up is a G5 with an external 160 gig USB drive (I know its not Firewire, but, for the time being it is all I have) & a 12" Power Book G4 (the best laptop I have ever had). Both are running Tiger 10.4.3

I have SD on my Power Book as I tend to put it through its paces more than the G5, mainly because I'm nosey and been poking around, I tend to break things.

Because I don't have a external Firewire HD is this my best option;

Backup over the network to the external usb drive, attached to the G5 using Read / Write "Sparse" Image with Smart Update ?

When I go to restore should I use the Disk Utility or just drag the contents of the image across the network and onto the PB's HD ?

Would it be wise to do both over an ethernet cable, or is wireless ok?

Kindest regards,

Andy.

[dnanian]

OK... hopefully I'm interpreting your question properly.

Since you're not connecting directly to the PowerBook you should, indeed, use a sparse image as described. Ethernet will be a lot faster than wireless, especially for the first backup.

If you want to restore a single file or two, just mount the image and use drag-and-drop, as you would with any disk image.

If, on the other hand, you want to do a full restore, bring the USB drive to the PowerBook and follow the steps in the Guide with your Tiger DVD and Disk Utility.

Make sense?

[prot]

Makes perfect sense.

Is there away to create a "Disk Utility" startup CD or should I just make a copy of my Tiger DVD?

Thanks again.

[dnanian]

Just make a copy of -- or use -- your Tiger DVD.

[prot]

Many thanks.

[prot]

Well, it appears my image was created without any problems. I can open it up, and everything appears to be there.

But, when I boot from the Tiger Install disk and open Disk Utility, I can select the sparse image as the source (from the external USB drive) and I am selecting HD as the destination, I click restore and a couple of seconds latter I get an erorr message "Restore Failure, an erorr(1) occurred while copying. (Operation not permitted)

I must be missing the instructions covered by either my 3 year olds coloring attempt, or the coffee stains.

I've broke it did'nt I ?

[dnanian]

Nope -- just use File > Open Disk Image first, and then choose the volume, not the image, when restoring. Sparse Images can't be restored "directly" like that.

[prot]

You are a bloomin' genius mate, appears to be working a treat !

Outstanding. Many thanks.

[dnanian]

You're quite welcome -- glad it's working properly!

[prot]

Because I'm backing up to the external USB, for all intent and purposes as a network drive, does it make sense to;

1. Keep a sparse Clean image which basically is Tiger with all updates (currently available) and my little tweaks here and there.

2. Then following the instructions from the FAQ How do I update an image? create a seperate sparse image, Weekly, and use this for my rolling updates ?

If I'm missing the point completely, just yell at me.

[dnanian]

What is the "clean" image going to do for you that an archive-and-install won't? Or -- even more so -- a Sandbox?

Rolling updates on Weekly seems like a perfectly good idea, but remember you could lose up to a week's work that way (if you don't also have a "daily" backup).

[prot]

"archive-and-install" in the OS X sense and not a function of SD! correct ?

The "clean" image is an old windows habit I have, using powerquests Drive Image, I'll try and shake it.

Truth be known, the Sanbox scares me, and that is because of my lack of understanding.

But, if I understand what I have read, in my case (lack of bootable firewire drive), I would create a partition on my actual Power Book, and after going through the copy process, I would select the Sandbox as my Startup Volume?

Completely off the subject of SD! but do you know of an application that compares & lists directory contents and gives a nice side by side comparison?

I can get by with diff at the comand line for smaller directories but the big ones turn my brain to tapioca.

All these questions make me feel guilty, I'll have to buy some more SD! licenses for christmas presents or something.

[dnanian]

Archive-and-install is an OSX function, and works really well. The equivalent isn't possible on Windows. Seriously -- don't keep a "clean" OS image, as it won't really help you any more than the installer will, and perhaps less.

If the Sandbox scares you, there's no reason to use it. But it does work well!

If you don't have a bootable FireWire drive, it's likely to be difficult to create a partition on your main drive for the Sandbox, though. You might not want to use one if it's that inconvenient....

Unfortunately, I don't know of a directory lister, but I'm sure there is one!

[prot]

Thanks mate.

Tapioca it shall be for a while longer then.

[prot]

Everything working perfectly ! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

What would happen if I take the backup of my PB and retore it on my G5 ?