Booting from Sandbox

[slh]

I'm just going through the manual before installing SD, and came across this rather emphatic statement:

So, make sure you use Sandbox as your startup volume.

My plan is to use my external FireWire drive for backup & clone operations, but what to do when I pack up my iBook in the morning & head out to work? Should I use the Safety clone – shared users mode & just boot from my HD as usual?

Thanks.

[dnanian]

If you're creating a Safety Clone, you need to run for it or your system isn't really 'protected'. So, if it's on an iBook, the best thing to do is to create a partition on the internal drive to use as the Sandbox. That way, you don't need an external drive for it.

Your backup, though, should be on the external. And, make sure you back up the original volume, not the Sandbox (there's really no reason to back up the sandbox).

The appendix of the manual explains how to repartition for a Sandbox, but you can also use the program iPartition, from Coriolis Systems -- we use that here, and it works well.

Hope that helps!

[slh]

I'll try it out as soon as I can. It certainly looks like a good product, & I really appreciate the quick response. I'll let you know how it goes.

[jar.en]

Hi Dave,

following on from slh's thoughts... here's what i'm thinking of doing but i will need your advice on whether i'm on the right track

i have a 250 gig seagate and an internal 60 gig pb4 running on panther. i'm currently using about 40 gig of my 60 internal (including music and stuff. pretty light user i think!).

i have partitioned by seagate to- 100 gig clone, 120 gig of misc and about 25 gig for sandbox.

i have already done a full backup to my clone and it has rebooted successfully with no glitches.
i haven't done the sandbox yet, i'm still trying to work my head around it.

with what you told slh, i've got a new idea to do my sandbox. then reboot using it.
then repartition my current internal drive so that sandbox can work from there without having the issue of having to drag around an external harddrive just for sandbox to work.

does that make sense to you so far? (i.e. does it sound safe?)
-----------------------
now to the second part of my project:
what i was ALSO thinking of doing... is instead of reinstalling my panther into the newly partitioned drive... is to get an upgrade to Tiger instead. would i have to:
copy back my panther and all my files into my newly repartitioned internal drive.
then install tiger on sandbox.
get happy with it.
then install tiger into my internal drive.

or. do you think i could just install tiger in my internal drive immediately after repartitioning?
i understand that there will be some changes in ical, isync and mail (read that post already) but i'm just concerned about being able to put all my programmes and data back where they belong once i install tiger in my internal drive.
my concern is that i wouldn't be able to use a lot of my apps that run well in panther (i.e. i will have to get these apps again- PS, Macromedia etc.) and i want the entire process to be as seamless as possible but i'm not too savvy about the ongoings of linux to make the informed decisions.

hope you can help.

warmest,
en

[dnanian]

Hi, en. No, you definitely can't do that -- since the internal drive will be active when you're booted from a Sandbox, you cannot partition the internal.

On top of that, you really don't have enough space on your internal, given your data set, to have a Sandbox. It's just too full.

In your case, I'd probably just upgrade the internal after doing a backup (and ejecting the external drive). Make sure everything works well but don't do anything you want to save, just in case you need to restore (from the backup).

Hope that helps.

[jar.en]

Thanks, i was so close to trying it out.



en