snapel Posted May 3, 2002 Report Share Posted May 3, 2002 I used to do something really simple with Retrospect before OS-X. I have two identical disks in my dual 800 G4, and I nightly perform a disk duplication (replacing entire contents) of one to the other. With OS 9, if my primary drive were to die, I could simplly boot the other drive. Since switching to OS-X recently, I set things up the same way. Today, on a whim, I decided to change startup disks and boot the 2nd drive. Only it didn't boot. It just sat there. When I boot off the primary drive, the 2nd one appears fine on the desktop, and has the same files (actually a few extra alias icons appear on the 2nd drive...) and **approximately** the same amount of space used and free. So the question is, how do I set things up to make my second drive a bootable duplicate of the first? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snapel Posted May 3, 2002 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2002 I noted that I had never either (1) installed OS X on the backup disk or (2) ever erased (initialized) it under OS X. So I erased it using "disk utility" under OS X and then duplicated my start-up disk to it in the same way as before. The backup disk now boots up OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 just erasing/initializing a drive under os x does not appear to be enough to get retrospect to be able to duplicate to it and make a drive bootable. i just tried this and it didn't work. there is a page in the dantz knowledgebase that says that you have to install os x AND all the updates to bring it up to date with the current version of os X that you are backing up. then you do a restore (i guess overwriting 99.999999% of what you just installed). to me this is a huge gaping hole in retrospect's functionality. this is the number one thing i want to be able to do with a backup utility. duplicate my boot drive so i can recover easily if it goes bad. following dantz's suggested procedure takes me well over an hour to recover. boot from cd. install os. do the os 10.1 install from another cd. then download software updates.... i find it hard to believe that all this is necessary. and there are numerous utilities showing up out there that claim to create bootable disks ("boot cd", "carbon copy cloner", etc.). these utilities prove that it's possible. i'm thinking that the ~$200 i spent just to upgrade my copy of retrospect for os X support should have gotten me a better solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 > just erasing/initializing a drive under os x does not appear to be enough to get retrospect > to be able to duplicate to it and make a drive bootable. > > i just tried this and it didn't work. How so? What happened? > then you do a restore (i guess overwriting 99.999999% of what you just installed). Retrospect uses matching, even on restores, so you don't actually overwrite 99.999999% of what you just installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 i have a stable system running os 10.1.4, let's call it drive A. i cleared out space on another disk, drive B, shuffing stuff to other drives. i erased drive B from apple's disk utilities application under mac os x. running os X booted from drive A, i did a "duplicate" of drive A to drive B in retrospect. it seemed to work ok (no errors reported from retrospect). i then went to "startup drive" preferences and switched the startup drive to drive B. i was a little worried because the icon for drive A showed up with an icon with an "X" on it, but the icon for drive B showed up as a plain icon with no X. at startup, i got a smiling mac and a permanently spinning beachball cursor. i had to reboot from CD, launch startup disk control panel, switch startup back to Drive A, and restart. (by the way - does anybody know an easier way to do this - i had to dig out an old mac os 9 installer disk and do an extra restart, just so i could boot and switch startup back to Drive A - and booting from cd is no picnic - takes forever). i'm not sitting at my mac right now and am trying to recall details of the process from memory. if you have suggstions i would be happy to hear them - i'll retry the procedure again tonight and see if i have better luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbins Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 i had to reboot from CD, launch startup disk control panel, switch startup back to Drive A, and restart. (by the way - does anybody know an easier way to do this...) When restarting, hold down the "Option" key until hard drive icons appear on the screen. Icons for any bootable drives will appear, and you can choose one and click on an arrow to continue the startup. This takes a while, especially if you have a lot of disks and/or partitions, because the computer takes some time to decide what disks are bootable, but it's faster than the CD method. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 Is this an internal or external disk? If external, what interface? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 In reply to: i had to reboot from CD, launch startup disk control panel, switch startup back to Drive A, and restart Did you try selecting Drive B from the Startup Disk control panel? That fix has been reported here on this board, as well as by a Dantz employee on both MacFixIt and MacInTouch. There's something magical that the OS X Installer does that apparently Retrospect does not do. But once you "bless" the system it'll boot fine. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbins Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 I think davidduff's problem was that his computer was frozen during startup. He said: at startup, i got a smiling mac and a permanently spinning beachball cursor. That's why I suggested the "option key at startup" solution, although at a forced startup the computer should be able to find a bootable disk and/or partition anyway. I was thinking the same thing about "blessing" the system, though. It might very well be a viable system, and just need to be "blessed". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 yes, in case it wasn't clear from my post, i used the startup disc preferences (can we still call them control panels?) and selected Drive B. when i tried to startup from Drive B, it didn't work - machine just sat there with spinning beachball cursor. my original assumption was that if i do a complete duplicate in retrospect, that it should duplicate ALL relevant details of the drive and create a bootable copy. so far, this doesn't seem to work for me. when i looked in the dantz knowledge base, i came across an article that seemed to indicate that it was not sufficient to simply do a duplicate or a recover from retrospect, but instead i first had to install os x and all the updaters on the target drive (which would be a major pain). later, though, i came across a post in the forum from a dantz employee (irena? - can't remember) that indicated that knowledge base article i had seen was describing a procedure for a complete disaster recover or something and that installation of os x on the target drive was not necessary (but this explanation still did not make sense to me - i don't get why you would have to install os x and all software updates just so you could later restore over them with a retrospect recover). the only plausible explanation i can think of is that there is some kind of additional "blessing" of the drive - copying some hidden files or device drivers or kernel files or something - i don't know - that needs to take place in order to make a drive bootable and that retrospect duplicate or recover, by itself, is not sufficient. the fact that at least some peole seem to have managed to pull off the process of creating bootable copies seems to suggest that whether it works or not may depend on exactly what's been done to the drive. for example, doing an os x install, and then overwriting the install with a duplicate or a restore might still leave the drives "blessed" characteristics intact, maybe. i'd really love to see a complete and clear explanation of this. also - i'm curious about the advice of holding option key down at startup. i think i've read something about this before. i'm wondering if my machine (blue and white g3) might not have this feature, because it doesn't seem to work. the only things i know of that i can do to influence startup are holding the c key to boot from cd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbins Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 i'm curious about the advice of holding option key down at startup. i think i've read something about this before. i'm wondering if my machine (blue and white g3) might not have this feature, because it doesn't seem to work. Ah, I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking it was a feature of the OS, but it isn't. I looked it up in Apple's Knowledgebase. It's called the Startup Manager, and Apple says: The Startup Manager allows you to choose the startup volume on these computers and on any later models: iBook, Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics), Power Mac G4 Cube, PowerBook (FireWire), and iMac (Slot Loading). Ah, well. It won't work with your computer. :-/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 just tried again (ran duplicate A->B in retrospect, then tried to boot from Drive . it failed same as before. here's additional detail on the startup behavior: a smiling "classic" mac appears on the screen for half a minute or so. then a spinning beachball cursor appers in the upper left of the screen. (smiling mac stays on the screen). then after another minute or two, the smiling mac goes away and gets replaced by what looks like an icon of a folder with a rip through the middle of it. it's clearly trying to indicate a broken system folder. so i'm still looking for help on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 > Is this an internal or external disk? If external, what interface? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 irena, thanks for your attention to this problem. the drive in question (Drive is an internal western digital wd1200jb drive (120GB). it is IDE. it is attached to a VST ultratek pci IDE controller. it seems to behave normally in all respects. the drive was erased/repartitioned with apple disk utility under OS X. there is only one partition on the drive. the partition is HFS extended format. a complete erase/partition of the drive immediately preceeded both attempts to install and boot OS X, so afaik, there can't be any influence of any other content of the drive. in an attempt to make sure that there wasn't some problem with the drive or the IDE card not being bootable for some reason, last night before going to bed i installed a vanilla OS 9.1 install on the drive. i changed the startup disk in preferences, booted, and it worked fine. so whatever the problem is, it would not seem to me to be related to the drive or the interface. i suppose to be 100% sure, i should redo the experiment with a vanilla OS X install on the drive and see if it will boot. i suppose there's a slight chance that there's something about the way OS X accesses the drive that's different from OS 9.1 and that is somehow preventing it from working. as was discussed on an earlier sidebar to this thread... my machine does not seem to have the more sophisticated "open firmware" stuff that determines boot behavior (it is a blue and white G3 mac). for example, i can not hold down the option key to see a menu of choices at startup. is there something about retrospect's approach to creating a bootable drive that requires this functionality from open firmware? could that be why i'm having this problem? anyone have any other suggestions to try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 Do please do a clean install of OS X from the OS X install CD and see if this boots. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 Earlier, Davidduff wrote: >>I had to reboot from CD, launch startup disk control panel, switch startup back to Drive A, and restart<< It was clear from his post that the CD from which he started was an OS 9 CD, which contains the Startup Disk control panel. I then asked: >>Did you try selecting Drive B from the Startup Disk control panel?<< Which was my way of suggesting that he try selecting Drive B from the Startup Disk control panel. So I was a bit surprised to see the reply: >>yes, in case it wasn't clear from my post, i used the startup disc preferences (can we still call them control panels?) and selected Drive B<< Your original post was clear, so perhaps my suggestion was not. I suggest that you boot up from the OS 9 CD (as you did before) and select "Drive B" from the Startup Disk control panel (not from the Startup Disk preference pane under OS X). This seems to allow duplicated drives to boot when otherwise they won't. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 6, 2002 Report Share Posted June 6, 2002 thanks for the clarification, callmedave. so when i get some time tonight, i will try the following: 1. erase drive b. 2. retrospect duplicate A->B 3. boot into OS 9 4. run startup disk control panel while booted in OS 9 to select drive B as startup. 5. restart 6. if it boots into OS X, then i'm done - problem was fixed by running startup disk control panel in OS 9 (vs. startup disk preferences in OS X). 7. if it doesn't boot, then power-cycle, insert OS X cd, hold "c" key to reboot 8. do a clean install of OS X from the cd onto drive B. 9. restart 10. if it boots into OS X, then i know the problem is specific to something about the way Retrospect duplicates my system drive (or fails to). 11. if it doesn't boot, i must have some kind of specific incompatibility between OS X and, either with the drive (unlikely) or the ide card (slightly less unlikely), or something else i haven't thought of yet. to review findings reported earlier: + i can boot fine into OS X from drive A. -> no problems with my OS X installation. + i can boot fine into OS 9 from drive B. -> drive and interface seem to be working. + retrospect reports success duplicating drive A to drive B. + cannot boot from drive B after the dup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 7, 2002 Report Share Posted June 7, 2002 status update. i tried booting into os 9 after the retrospect dup of drive A -> B to switch startup disks. that did not seem to help. (machine did not boot at step 5). then i tried installing os X from the installer cd and this did not solve the problem either (machine did not boot up at step 9). so things were looking pretty bleak... however, i remembered what that dantz knowledge base page said about installing os X and then walking through all the upgrades... even though that didn't seem to make much sense to me, i figured i'd give it a try. after having installed os X from CD and had it not boot, i then went ahead and installed the os 10.1 updater from the CD. after the install, my machine booted from drive B! so does this mean that the drive is now somehow "blessed" and that it will always be able to boot? i don't know. what will happen if i now do a retrospect duplicate of drive a -> drive b (replacing all contents)? will it boot? i don't know. i'm letting it go ahead and finish all the software updates... which takes quite a while and requires a few reboots. ok now updates are done. when i go to do a duplicate from drive a -> drive b, i get a warning from retrospect that says that drive B has "ignore privileges on this volume" set. whoa! this is odd. i did not set it myself. i can't imagine what i could possibly have done to cause it to be set. about all i've done since starting with a freshly erased disk is run multiple apple installers, run software update, and reboot. how did this attribute get set? does it's being set have anything to do with my ability to boot from it, i wonder? should i leave it on? the warning from retrospect seems to suggest pretty strongly that things won't work right with it on and that i should turn it off. i turned off "ignore privileges" on drive b. started the duplication. not sure if i will finish before sleeping so i'll file this report now and followup when the dup is done and i've tried rebooting from drive B again (perhaps tomorrow) . some side comments: it seems strange that my machine could not boot from the drive after installing mac os X, but would boot after installing os X.1 update (or 10.1 or whatever). it must be the case that support for 3rd party ide cards was improved in os 10.1. it is certainly a pain to have to go through TWO system install CD's plus a bunch of software-update/reboot cycles to recover a "virgin" os. i think apple needs to do something about this. i think i will look into the possibility of getting a full system 10.1.5 install CD from apple. anybody know if that's possible? i can't imagine serious system administrators putting up with this kind of hassle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 7, 2002 Report Share Posted June 7, 2002 short status update: the retrospect duplicate worked and left me with a working, bootable copy. i'll save my conclusions for later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidduff Posted June 8, 2002 Report Share Posted June 8, 2002 here's a summary of a long chain of messages above: in my specific configuration (*), i found that doing a retrospect duplicate in os X of a drive with a bootable os X installation did NOT produce a bootable copy. the only way i could get a bootable copy was to first install os X on the target drive, then install os X.1 update, then do the retrospect duplicate. so there definitely seems to be something missing from retrospect's duplicate function for os x - there's some kind of missing driver or "blessing" or something that happens during an the install/upgrade of mac os X on a drive that can not be replicated by retrospect's duplicate function. * my configuration: blue and white g3/400 upgraded to g4/550 target drive was an IDE drive attached to a VST ultratek/66 pci ide controller card Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted June 9, 2002 Report Share Posted June 9, 2002 I'd be interested to know if Carbon Copy Cloner can do this on your specific hardware configuration. It might very well be related to your setup (cpu upgrade and/or IDE PCI board). Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docprior Posted August 21, 2002 Report Share Posted August 21, 2002 I have been reading all the mails but it is not clear to me how to get a bootable disk using retrospect duplicate. You seem to have managed this so I would be glad to get the exact instructions. Yesterday we had a total crash on the OS-X server. I had done a duplicate but was unable to restart from this drive (firewire). Using alt key at startup did not show the drive. So we went through all the procedure of reinstalling from CD and going through all the updates. Under OS 9 there is no need for all this hassle and I do now regret having bought retrospect. Life could be very easy if it were possible to create a bootable disk on Os X. How is it done? Much obliged for any hints! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 21, 2002 Report Share Posted August 21, 2002 First, the computer that you are booting from needs to have the capability to boot from an external firewire drive. (Not all do.) Next, the FireWire drive that you're duplicating to should be a newer drive, one that ships with the Oxford911 chipset (most new drives do). Next, the duplicate needs to have been done while booted into OS X. Finally, it crucial that the FireWire drive did not have the "Ignore Privileges on this volume" set at the time of the duplicate. OS X does certainly present a number of factors that weren't there with OS 9. These challenges are a factor of the complexity of the OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 21, 2002 Report Share Posted August 21, 2002 In reply to: Life could be very easy if it were possible to create a bootable disk on Os X In addition to Irena's excellent points, I'd add that the Destination drive needs to have been formatted with Drive Utility under OS X. And of course, it's always a good idea to test your backup strategy _before_ something goes wrong... Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhwagner Posted September 3, 2002 Report Share Posted September 3, 2002 Should this work (on a Pismo) 1. Install new Travelstar 40GNX in Oxford 911- based firewire enclosure. 2. Attach said enclosure to Pismo via Firewire. 3. Initialize/partition said drive while running MacOS X 10.1.5 using Apple Disk Utility. 4. Make sure "Ignore Permissions" option is off for all volumes on firewire drive. 5. Use Retrospect 5 to duplicate partitions on internal drive to corresponding partitions on firewire drive. 6. Swap drives: install new drive as internal drive on Pismo, install old drive in firewire enclosure. 7. Boot from new internal drive??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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