Backup, upgrade, then reverse backup

[seatom]

good morning!

first, thanks for creating a "Super" app. i've read and reread the pdf on how to operate superduper and found it very easy to understand once i "understood" all the terms used.

here's my question, i have backed up to an external drive (from a pb 12"), booted from it, and everything checked out fine. then, i upgraded the external drive from jaguar to panther, updated all of the system software updates for panther and checked that everything worked, ie, printer, scanner, etc.

now i would like to copy the external drive back to the pb via erase then copy. does this sound like an ok operation? also, is it always the correct practice to hold the shift key down when restarting the boot drive prior to doing any backing up or smart updating?

thanks,

tom robison

[dnanian]

Good morning, Tom -- thanks for the nice comments!

Your operation sounds just fine... note that we suggest that you name both the backup and the main drive the same for this kind of thing -- see the discussion elsewhere on the forums about aliases for more information, should you need it.

You don't *have* to boot with shift down from power-on, nor do you have to do it when you log in. But doing so ensures that the fewest number of interfering processes are running at the time of the backup. So, if you don't do it and you have no problems -- great. But if you run into difficulty, this is one of the first things to try.

Hope that helps -- let us know how things work out!

[seatom]

thanks for your quick response to my question. my external drive is named, "OWC Mercury Elite". if i want to rename it to, "Macintosh HD", what would be the best way of doing that, if possible?

thanks, again,

tom robison

[dnanian]

Just select it in the finder (on the desktop), click the filename, and type in the new name. I'd then reboot.

[seatom]

hi dave,

i selected "OWC Mercury Elite" on the desktop and renamed it, "Macintosh HD", rebooted holding shift down, and, after login, my desktop came up with the new name for the external hard drive but then my powerbook, also named, "Macintosh HD" would not show up in the finder window, though is was visible on the desktop. i then launched SuperDuper, and for the source drive selected, formerly named, "OWC Mercury Elite", now named, "Macintosh HD", and the destination drive in the drop down list showed my powerbooks hard drive renamed to, "Macintosh HD 1". in other words, there seems to be a problem having two hard drives with the same name.

what would happen if i just backed up all the files from "OWC.." hard drive to the powerbook hard drive named, "Macintosh HD"? I have since gone back and renamed the external hard drive, "OWC Mercury Elite".

thanks in advance,

tom robison

[dnanian]

That's interesting: it certainly should show up in the Finder (we do this all the time).

We automatically name the drive "Macintosh HD 1", even though it's called "Macintosh HD", to help you keep track of it. And, since SuperDuper! won't let you choose the boot drive as the destination, you can properly select the one you want to back up to as well.

If you want to back up from OWC -> Macintosh HD, that's fine. Just make certain that you've disconnected the external drive when you boot for the first time: if the aliases can't resolve to the old ("OWC") location they should try to resolve to the current drive, and all will likely be well.

[seatom]

thanks, dave, i'll try the backup to the powerbook, Macintosh HD, later today and hopefully i'll be up and running panther tomorrow. right now, panther is running great off the external drive.

thanks, again, for your help in this matter!

tom robison

[slboettcher]

Hi Dave,

Understanding the reasons for renaming the drives to be the same, would it matter (for the sake of ease of use and peace of mind) to name the drive -after- the reverse?
I would think that this should work, but I'll ask for your expert opinion, if you don't mind?

SB

[dnanian]

Yes, that would be fine -- as long as you don't boot from it. It doesn't matter what it's called during the actual copy operation.

[seatom]

hoorahhhh!

just a quick reply to let you know that my pb 12" is now running panther. everything went well. i didn't have to rename anything since my pb hard drive already was named "Macintosh HD". After backing up from the external and then booting up the pb i did a repair permissions with disk utility and then optimized the pb hard drive with Disk Warrior. very nice os, "expose" is very cool.

again, thanks for the help and the great application in SuperDuper.

tom robison

seattle, wa

[dnanian]

Congratulations, Tom!

[brich]

Originally Posted by seatom

hoorahhhh!

just a quick reply to let you know that my pb 12" is now running panther. everything went well. i didn't have to rename anything since my pb hard drive already was named "Macintosh HD". After backing up from the external and then booting up the pb i did a repair permissions with disk utility and then optimized the pb hard drive with Disk Warrior. very nice os, "expose" is very cool.

again, thanks for the help and the great application in SuperDuper.

tom robison

seattle, wa

Since you mentioned DiskWarrior, I found it very convenient to run DW from the external FW drive to optimize the internal drive...often do this after a smart backup and re-boot from external. I've been using SuperDuper! for close to a year...in my opinion, it's one of the very best utilities for OSX!

[sjk]

FireWire target mode can also be useful for checking a system's internal drive. It's still relatively new to me so sometimes I forget I can do it.

[dnanian]

Yep -- but you still have to boot from *something* to attach it as a FW drive!

[seatom]

Originally Posted by brich

Since you mentioned DiskWarrior, I found it very convenient to run DW from the external FW drive to optimize the internal drive...often do this after a smart backup and re-boot from external. I've been using SuperDuper! for close to a year...in my opinion, it's one of the very best utilities for OSX!

hi brich,

if i run DW from the external HD, should i run it from the clone that SuperDuper created of my internal HD, or, should i install DW on a separate partition of the external HD and run it from that? also, if i run DW after a smart backup, why do you reboot from the external?

thanks,

tom robisonn