Macbook + Lacie FW drive: Can SuperDuper images be made bootable?

[martin42]

Somewhat confused about this topic, despite other threads here!

I have a white Intel MacBook, with a 300 GB Lacie Firewire drive storing sparse backups of the internal HDD. Disk Utility says the Lacie drive has "Apple_partition_scheme" with the volume on it having "Apple_HFS" format.

This is all working sweetly, but the Lacie drive doesn't seem to be bootable (Alt/Apple/Shift/Rubout does nothing - does it work on Macbooks? - and the Lacie drive doesn't show up in "System Preferences" / "Startup Disk").

Thanks to Shirt Pocket's timely support during an HDD upgrade last month, I do know that I can successfully restore a backup by booting from the MacOSX DVD, getting to a command shell and using 'asr' (sadly the Disk Utility on the MacOSX DVD has a broken 'Restore' tab otherwise the 'asr' trick would not be needed). So the vital stuff is all covered OK: it just seems a bit fiddly.

I'm just wondering whether there are any better options. Specifically, can I build the Lacie drive in some better way, so as to make it directly bootable for a speedier recovery another time? Or doesn't that work on intel Macbooks?

e.g. if I remove my internal HDD, boot the MacOSX DVD, then wipe the Lacie drive and install a minimal MacOSX system on it, will that do the trick? If so, are there any gotchas to watch out for, or is there a better way to go about all this?

Thanks in advance!

- Martin.

[dnanian]

Why not copy directly to the drive, Martin?

[martin42]

Because that only gives me one snapshot, not thee or four...

But maybe I could do it both ways. I could divide the Lacie drive in two halves: one matching the size of the internal HDD, and one for the rest. I could then use Super Duper to image the HDD to the first partition regularly, whilst storing occasional spare images onto the second partition and/or to a network share. Presumably the Lacie drive would then be bootable.

Thanks!

- Martin.

[dnanian]

You can have as many copies as you have space for, as you said: just partition the drive (or use images). And, yes -- the first partition would remain bootable.

[martin42]

So, the key thing is to send my routine backup directly to the first Lacie partition (not to an image) so that the Lacie can be used immediately in the event of my main hard disk crashing.

Many thanks,

- Martin.

[dnanian]

Bingo! I think that'll work best.