Can I revert from Tiger to Panther?

[nightofneih]

Am I screwed up here? I made a "safety clone - shared users and applications" backup of my Panther OS on my PB to my firewire drive last night. I then upgraded my main OS to Tiger instead of testing the upgrade on my safety clone. (Read your manuals before running off half cocked.) I now realize that I don't want to use Tiger in its current form due to PC network compatibility issues . Can I do a "Backup - all files" from my firewire drive back to my PB HD to restore Panther as my OS?

Thanks for the help.

[dnanian]

Well, first try booting from the Safety Clone and make sure it's what you want (it should be). If it works OK, then you can "clone back", but you must be careful.

First, make a backup of the main drive.

Then, follow the following steps exactly.

- Select the safety clone volume in the first (source) pop-up
- Select the "main drive" in the second
- Select "Backup - all files" as the script
- Select "Smart Update" as the "during copy" method in options

Triple check your selections, make sure you have a backup, and then press Start Copying. Reboot from the main drive, and you should be OK.

[nightofneih]

I'm trying to do a full backup of my main drive so I can attempt to copy my safety clone back, but the copy keeps exited due to errors. I then tried doing a smart update to the full clone so I hopefully wouldnn't have to wait forever again, and it get most of the way done, then exits with errors again. I have uploaded the system and superduper log files (ext changed to .txt). Any assistance you can provide would be appreciated.

[dnanian]

Ok, NofN. It looks to me like you're running into a weird, rare problem where the hotfiles cache is active and won't copy.

To fix this, you need to do the following:

- Choose File | New Copy Script
- Enter a description in the first tab
- In the second tab, include the "Backup - all files" script
- In the third, navigate to the ".hotfiles.btree" file in the list box below.
- Click add, and make sure the command in front is "ignore" (it should be)
- Save to an appropriate name
- Select that script in the pop-up
- Run the backup again

This time, it should work. Let me know.

[rik17]

Just for info purposes, what does the hotfiles cache do?

[dnanian]

It helps the OS load things faster at boot time basen on their location. It's generated automatically, and will be regenerated once you boot from the clone a few times.

[rik17]

So shouldn't that file be automatically excluded from cloning? Or is it already?