SteveJobs Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 I recently was setting up new PowerBook G4 (12 inch) and had a new backup when PB drive crashed for unknown reason with OSX 10.2.6 installed both Macs. Backup setup was as follows: Retrospect Desktop 5.0.238, 5.0 Driver Update was on Power Macintosh G4 (MDD). I used a high quality (Granite) FireWire cable to connect PM and PB. Backup (using "backup to file") was made with the PB in FireWire Target Disk Mode (which has proven quite accurate for me when using "Duplicate" with Retrospect) and with the Power Mac G4 in control I had backed up to ATA drive three, a known good (and fairly new) ATA 7200 drive which was connected to a Sonnet Tempo 133 PCI card which has shown no problems. There were no other drives on the second ATA bus being used or on the PCI card at the time. This drive is an "extra" bootable OSX drive which is used for odds and ends storage and had ample room for the backup from the PowerBook. No errors were found on the log for the clean backup (no incremental backups had been made). The target, backup drive had had "repair permissions" run since its setup and Disk Warrior 3.0 had been run recently as part of monthly/semi-monthly maintenance. The source drive in the PB G4 had been "cleaned up" with "repair permissions and Disk Warrior 3.0 after completion of the OS install, upgrade, additions such as DragThing, etc. I'd installed about 1.8GB of Applications/Utilities since the "cleanup" and know some of the Adobe and Microsoft had their usual minor problems but with no error reports during backup I assumed there was nothing major. After crash I booted the PowerBook with its install or a 10.2 install disk so I could format prior to running the Reinstall with with Retrospect. No FireWire devices were connected to either Mac when I ran the Reinstall from ATA Drive 3 (Master on 2nd bus) with the PowerBook again in FireWire Target Mode. Have no idea why reinstall failed. I may have had a USB printer connected to the Power Mac. Have read this may create problems for some of the "mirror/disk image" utilities being used. With reluctance I started over and reinstalled OS. I was able to use the backup set with no problems to reinstall /Library, /Users and /Applications (yay!), but setting up the OS again was a time burning nuisance. Could USB printer have created a problem? Is there an issue in restoring a bootable disk using FireWire Target Mode? I realize I did things a bit backwards in having Retrospect Desktop on the backup Power Macintosh instead of the Power Book, but am uncertain why this would cause a problem given the ease in using the Backup set to individually go through and restore the other three directories (also in FireWire Target Disk Mode). Any thoughts or comments will be appreciated. (yes, verification was on at all times as I never turn it off without very good reason) (and I did look at the desktop of the drive that wouldn't mount and it had the correct files and saw nothing unusual in CoreServices of /System/Library/ before formatting PB drive) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 With all that specific information, I fear your post remains confusing. It's not until paragraph 7 before you use the word "restore." Here's how I read your report: - PowerBook in Target Disk mode mounted on the Desktop of G4 - Retrospect is used to backup the PowerBook hard drive to file - Boot PowerBook from CD; format internal drive (New drive? Same drive?) - Reboot PowerBook in Target Disk mode, again mount on Desktop of G4 - Retrospect is used to Restore to empty PowerBook drive - Something failed You imply that your PowerBook crashed, so you re-formatted the drive and restored from Retrospect. That's a bit rash, no? OS X is stable, but it's been known to crash! You give some hints that after the "failure," you re-installed system software (which you did not say you did previously) and then were able to restore individual directories. What exactly did you do? The steps I list above should work fine if you want to backup with one Mac's hard drive mounted via Target Disk Mode on the Desktop of another: - Mount PB drive via TargetDiskMode. - Confirm that "Ignore Permissions" is not enabled on the volume - Backup to File Backup Set When it's time to Restore, simply: - Mount PB drive via TargetDiskMode - Use DiskUtility to Format the mounted volume you want to use (partitions work fine) - Confirm that "Ignore Permissions" is not enabled on the volume - Restore Entire Drive (Source: File Backup Set, Destination: erased mounted volume) That's it. You should be able to disconnect the PowerBook drive and boot it up. No need to install system software from the CD, since all the files were on the Backup Set. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveJobs Posted August 9, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 Quote: CallMeDave said: With all that specific information, I fear your post remains confusing. My apologies. I appreciate your thoughtful reply and comments. Quote: It's not until paragraph 7 before you use the word "restore." Sorry. See your point and also another area of confusion in my post. Quote: Here's how I read your report: - PowerBook in Target Disk mode mounted on the Desktop of G4 - Retrospect is used to backup the PowerBook hard drive to file Yes. Retrospect is located on the Power Macintosh G4. "File" is on ATA drive 3, 2nd ATA bus, of the Power Macintosh G4. That drive is also an OSX boot drive in addition to Drive 1. There was ample space on all involved drives of at least 30-35% freespace. Quote: - Boot PowerBook from CD; format internal drive (New drive? Same drive?) CD was used to format PowerBook G4 drive only after it would not cold boot after the "crash." PowerBook G4's internal drive is not partitioned. I think I ran two events together in my post. When PowerBook G4 "crashed" I mean so in the sense that it froze, no cursor movement, and force quit failed. Tried cold boot. It wouldn't boot. Question mark. Assorted attempts to revive it with fsck, Disk Warrior, et al failed. After failure to boot CD was used to boot PowerBook G4 and its drive formatted (no partition as before). Quote: - Reboot PowerBook in Target Disk mode, again mount on Desktop of G4 - Retrospect is used to Restore to empty PowerBook drive - Something failed You imply that your PowerBook crashed, so you re-formatted the drive and restored from Retrospect. That's a bit rash, no? OS X is stable, but it's been known to crash! Agreed. I've had a kernel panic or two with assorted Macs since installing OSX Day 1 (plus had the Public Beta). Only one I recall was due to a bad driver. I've had excellent success with OSX and am long time classic Mac OS user. I went 99.99% OSX the day 10.1 shipped and haven't looked back. "Crash" is a term we all seem to be struggling with a bit under OSX. We can't say Mac "bombed" anymore. But they used to also "crash" without putting up the dreaded bomb message. Whatever the term, I quite agree that "wouldn't boot" after it "crashed" would have been far more descriptive. Quote: You give some hints that after the "failure," you re-installed system software (which you did not say you did previously) and then were able to restore individual directories. What exactly did you do? What I did is much better described by borrowing your simpler (and shorter!) description of events: You then write: Quote: - Mount PB drive via TargetDiskMode. - Confirm that "Ignore Permissions" is not enabled on the volume - Backup to File Backup Set When it's time to Restore, simply: - Mount PB drive via TargetDiskMode - Use DiskUtility to Format the mounted volume you want to use (partitions work fine) - Confirm that "Ignore Permissions" is not enabled on the volume - Restore Entire Drive (Source: File Backup Set, Destination: erased mounted volume) That's it. You should be able to disconnect the PowerBook drive and boot it up. No need to install system software from the CD, since all the files were on the Backup Set. Agreed. My mention of system software on the CD confused the whole issue and I have no idea why I introduced that factor. I hate to second guess my own ignorant comment, but can only presume I was trying to explain that I used an install disk to boot the PowerBook. I then could use Disk Utility on it to format PowerBook's drive. I obviously could also have used Disk Utility on the Power Macintosh G4, with PowerBook's drive mounted on its desktop in FireWire Target Disk Mode, but it didn't occur to me for some reason at the time. I've had no other problems with the two involved drives, the PowerBook's or the one where File resided on the Power Mac. I question the relevance of where Retrospect was located but mentioned it. I've had no trouble using the ATA 133 PCI card and the ATA Drive 3 of the Power Mac, as I've referred to it, in backing up Drive 3 to external FireWire hard drives with Retrospect either doing Backup or Duplicate. I use external FireWire drives extensively for backup and other purposes (have 7 of them). Things happen. And the inexplicable is annoying. But you've confirmed my original faith in FireWire Target Disk Mode and I appreciate your comments. Have never done a full restore due to a "crash." I use some Mac or other 70-80 hours per week. OSX has been *very* good to me. Will check back to see if you have any further comments and will bookmark thread should a hardware problem turn up. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted August 10, 2003 Report Share Posted August 10, 2003 If following my shorter steps does not provide you with a bootable drive, there are two paths you can take to assure that you get up and running again. First way you could go is to do an OS X install on your "new" drive (the erased volume). Make sure to apply the same levels of OS upgredes/patches as the volume on the Snapshot. Then mount this drive as before and Restore it, using Replace Entire Disk. Retrospect will match most of the system files and leave then alone, replacing only the ones you've customized. A second way (that I've never done, but I think would be better) would be to take your Restored but un-bootable drive and re-install the OS software (using the Archive Install option). This will take all your user prefrences, applications, etc, and use them for a new system. You may have to shuffle some files around, but your valuable data will be in place. All I can think is that your Retrospect Snapshot may have scrambled something in the complex relationship of files in your OS X system. I have some theories about this, but I'm not sure. It appears that 5.1 deals with something that OS X now does with preference files that 5.0 didn't handle right. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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