Jump to content

BACKUP the F$#ing OSX86 :)

ArkaPro

By ArkaPro,
in OSx86 10.4 (Tiger)

 Share
22 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

ArkaPro
ArkaPro
Posted
Posted

OK, I installed a fresh fully functional OSX 10.4.10 on my friends machine.

 

now before install additional progams I want to back it up. you know, to have a nice fresh backup with everything functioning and no software...

 

Can I backup OSX86? will there be any trouble with Darwin etc?

 

Boot record?

 

Right now Im running he's OSX from a physical HDD, with no other partitions on it!

 

Here are some specs:

mobo: GA-P35-DS3 - LAN works, sound in\out\mic works!

GPU: 7300GT 256MB - DVI works with NATIT 0.2

HDD for OSX

HDD for winXP

no boot-loaders! - I just use the BIOS boot loader to choose between HDDs to boot from!

 

Can I use DISK UTILITY backup?

What about SUPERDUPER!?

 

waiting for your answers!

thanks amogos and chickas ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
hecker
hecker
Posted
Posted

I like to use superduper to clone my OSX partition onto another physical partition and it works perfectly. I have read about people having trouble restoring from an image though, so you might want to check out other solutions if you're planning to use images instead of partitions for backing up purposes.

 

Cheers,

 

hecker

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lactobacillus P
Lactobacillus P
Posted
Posted

Use a disk utility like Acronis True Image to create a fully working backup including the MBR of an OSX machine.

Install Acronis True Image on a Windows machine and create a bootable cd with it with a working version of true image (this can be done from within True Image).

Use that disk to boot your friends hack with an external USB drive attached to it large enough to hold the backed up partition - little compression is possible so you need a large external USB drive. The True Image interface resembles a WindowsXP interface and it allows you to select the partition/drive you want to backup and the destination you want it backed up to. You can opt to create a single image file, but you can also opt to chop the image into manageble bits that fit dvd's or cd's. You'll end up with a backup of OSX that resides in a restorable image file that can be moved around, copied and restored. And mind you restoring is just as easy.

Acronis can only work with the entire OSX partition and doesn't allow to extract specific files.

Works like a charm though.

Cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites
accountname
accountname
Posted
Posted

This is why I really wish someone out there would develop a simulated Target Disk Mode boot cd for PCs.

 

I don't know too much about low-level stuff, so I'm not sure how it would work. I imagine with all the hardware diversity in the PC world, it would be quite a challenge to get something that would work. On the other hand, something like Knoppix gets you most of the way there, so maybe someone could pair down a Live Linux CD and add Klartolipop* functionality.

 

 

* i don't know what the real name is for the Firewire protocol that allows storage devices to be accessed, so i used this word instead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
i_am...me
i_am...me
Posted
Posted

let me know how it goes and if i can help in any way i have a rapidshare premium account, i too want to back up my leopard drive i cant tell you how many times i have re installed leopard after f*#&ing something up.

 

I have tiger on an external drive and that makes it alot easier since i dont have to installed tiger twice then install leopard over one

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ArkaPro
ArkaPro
Posted
  • Author
Posted

Something is very weird.

1. I installed Acronis true image 11.

2. I created a bootable CD using the "Create bootable rescue media" option.

3. I restarted and booted up from the Rescue CD I created but immidetly I get this error message:

Starting Acrons loader...

 

Acronis loader fatal error: boot drive (partition) not found.

Press <enter> to try boot your OS

WTF!!?

when I press ENTER I continue to my XP with no problem..

I don't know why Acronis boot loader fails to start properly.

can I create an image (including MBR) of the HSF drive from within the True Image program on windows?

should I use the sector by sector approach?

 

Are there any other simple alternatives to backup my HFS jrnld OSX drive?

there is gotta be a way!

And again, what about SUPERDUPER!?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ArkaPro
ArkaPro
Posted
  • Author
Posted
I like to use superduper to clone my OSX partition onto another physical partition and it works perfectly. I have read about people having trouble restoring from an image though, so you might want to check out other solutions if you're planning to use images instead of partitions for backing up purposes.

 

Cheers,

 

hecker

 

So let's see if understood you correctly, you are saying that SUPERDUPER works great as a cloning solutions... but not as a BACUP IMAGE solution?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
accountname
accountname
Posted
Posted

You can create an ISO quite easily from Linux via the command line (just 2 or 3 commands), so perhaps a better solution is to download a live dvd? If you want the Boot Sector, you can save it this way too.

 

Imo ideally you want (this doesn't work on my X86 hardware with the 10.4.8 DVD btw) to boot to an OS X86 install DVD, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, and save a DMG of the correct partition to and another drive (eg: a USB or Firewire drive). On my own machine I can Restore *from* a DMG using this method. Sadly, trying to actually *create* the image fails a few minutes after I start. If I were you I would stay away from Acronis, as I believe it does not use a standard image file. I feel more comfortable using a DMG or a vanilla ISO image, since you get more compatibility (especially with the latter) so you don't need to forever keep a Acronis around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Headrush69
Headrush69
Posted
Posted

I've never been a big fan of backing up to an image file. (If you every have any corruption, accessing anything CAN be a pain.)

 

I regularly use Clonetool Hatchery to backup my partitions. Never had a single problem and have used second internal HD, external USB hard drive and an external Firewire hard drive as the target backup device. It handles blessing the target on Hackintoshes and copying to different sized partitions is not a problem.

 

Best feature is I can boot off any of these backups at anytime by selecting it in BIOS boot menu.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ArkaPro
ArkaPro
Posted
  • Author
Posted

Great I too created an image (DMG) using superduper! very simple procedure, now I hope that when I'll try to restore it using the Install dvd's disk utility - it will restore smoothly!

 

BTW, do I need to use special options when using disk utility restore?

 

cheers all people!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
accountname
accountname
Posted
Posted
BTW, do I need to use special options when using disk utility restore?

 

Not really. The Restore tab should work just fine. Depending on how you Restore, you may find that a few system files are suddenly visible that ought to be hidden. There's a script you can run to rehide them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
xavier2
xavier2
Posted
Posted

I used DD.exe. It clones the drive/partition per block rather than per file so i never encounter a boot problem when i restore. I don't also need to reboot with a CD, i just boot to the existing windows xp and run dd.exe from there. it's fast and it's simple. Also you can have dd.exe to clone a certain target size so rather copying the entire 120 GB hard drive it'll just get the 12 GB that is actually being used, the rest are empty bytes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rhalls
rhalls
Posted
Posted

Hatchery Clone Tool seems very reliable but a bit slow when copying very large amounts of data.

I use a very dumb procedure when i decide that i want to use a new disk for using as my future backup: I first install any version of osx (normaly JaS 10.4.8) to the new disk. This sets all whats needed, as darwin boot loader an so. The i use any copy tool i want for a complete copy to that disk. That overwrites the old system but preserves the bootloader thing. Works well for me.

I really hope that the development of LEO installs will help us get rid of all those troubles. At the moment, the EFI bootloader development now enables to read normal GUID partitions and boot from them. So maybe our backup troules will be gone in the future...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Risr
Risr
Posted
Posted

Yes, and no. Yes, as long as you don't touch the Master Boot Record. Then the layout of the partition table will stay the same. No, if you were to start clean, reinstall all your OS's again. Then it wouldn't work, even if you were able to recreate the partition table bit for bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Magsy
Magsy
Posted
Posted

I used CCC yesterday and it does work but is unsatisfactory imo. I am new to OS X and all I wanted was Norton Ghost for OS X. I've used Ghost, Drive Image and True Image before, literally hundreds of times. I couldn't make Ghost work properly (need to Ghost the whole drive, ie. a 320gb image file) and True Image wouldn't boot. These apps will clone a Windows machine in minutes, 1gb a min is normal.

 

CCC took nearly 2 hours to clone 10gb to a USB 2 external drive.

 

The restore went ok but it takes maybe nearly 5 mins to boot the Leopard DVD, then 30-45 mins to 'scan' the image file and actually restored in something like 4 mins.

 

Then the machine would not boot, it was just like a fresh install off the ToH DVD. I reapplied the EFI bootloader and all is ok.

 

So it works but it is dog dog slow!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
mschilling
mschilling
Posted
Posted
Use a disk utility like Acronis True Image to create a fully working backup including the MBR of an OSX machine.

Install Acronis True Image on a Windows machine and create a bootable cd with it with a working version of true image (this can be done from within True Image).

Use that disk to boot your friends hack with an external USB drive attached to it large enough to hold the backed up partition - little compression is possible so you need a large external USB drive. The True Image interface resembles a WindowsXP interface and it allows you to select the partition/drive you want to backup and the destination you want it backed up to. You can opt to create a single image file, but you can also opt to chop the image into manageble bits that fit dvd's or cd's. You'll end up with a backup of OSX that resides in a restorable image file that can be moved around, copied and restored. And mind you restoring is just as easy.

Acronis can only work with the entire OSX partition and doesn't allow to extract specific files.

Works like a charm though.

Cheers, Mark

 

Would it work for a GUID EFI partition of osx backing up to usb? or is it only the above mentioned mbr?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...