Further questions on de-Time-Machining a Snow Leopard Mac

Question

Please help a somewhat computer illiterate through some questions, if you would:
1."CCC clones a whole OS X boot drive to another drive. Which is hold option bootable."
I understand the first sentence, but not the second -- what is "hold option bootable?"
2. "Use only one drive per CCC clone so you get the hardware redundancy protection as well.
I had planned to use only one drive, but do you mean I can't clone my "Macintosh HD" drive AND my "1TB" drive to the same volume (2TB)?but I don't understand "so you get the hardware redundancy protection as well." Could you please briefly explain that?
3. "TM is supposed to be computer illiterate resistant, so your going to have to make sure it's no longer a TimeMachine drive, OS X's "Mandatory Access Controls" may interfere with other methods."
What are "OS X's "Mandatory Access Controls?"
New questions:.
4. Is there a way I can get rid of Time Machine from the system entirely?
5. The "Backups.backupdb" folder on the 2TB drive I want to put a system on (and it won't let me because of Time Machine, even though this drive is no longer listed in TM's preferences as the "backup drive), has 4 Time Machine backups on it right now:
6-13-2011: 
Macintosh HD
6-16-2011:
Macintosh HD
1TB (a bootable USB drive that also has a Drive Genius 3 bootable e-disk partition, which has -- obviously -- a system (10.6.8) and several utilities on it, including Apple's Disk Utility, ProSoft's Drive Genius 3, and Micromat's TechTool Pro 5, all at latest versions.
6-22-11:
Macintosh HD
1TB
6-26-11:
Macintosh HD
1TB
What becomes of these Time Machine backups, once Time Machine -- hopefully --goes away?
And again, as you can see, I've been backing up TWO volumes at each backup -- the iMac's internal start-up drive (Macintosh HD), and a volume called "1TB" (see question 2)
Given my situation: 27" Core 2 Duo IMac, OS X 10.6.8,  with these 3 drives:
internal Serial-ATA, 1TB (named Macintosh HD), Partition Map Type GUID, file system Journaled HFS+, S.M.A.R.T. status verified
USB-to-Serial-ATA-bridge 2TB (named, cleverly, "2TB") drive, Partition Map Type GUID, file system Journaled HFS+, S.M.A.R.T. status not supported
USB 2.0 1TB (equally cleverly named "1TB") drive, Partition Map Type GUID, file system Journaled HFS+, S.M.A.R.T. status not supported, which I often use as a mule to an iBook G4 PPC running OS X 10.4.11. Also listed on this 1TB drive is the Drive Genius 3 eDrive, which takes up 12GB, is writable, has an HFS+ File System, and the BSD name "disk1s3"
How would YOU guys set up this system for maximum flexibility and usefulness?
Thanks
Bart

Answer 1

Bartbrn wrote:
Please help a somewhat computer illiterate through some questions, if you would:
1."CCC clones a whole OS X boot drive to another drive. Which is hold option bootable."
I understand the first sentence, but not the second -- what is "hold option bootable?"
You've been the victim of a frequently unhelpful poster here.  My apologies for his exaggerations and condescension.  May be I can provide some clarity.
CCC can clone both OSX and data-only drives.  Under most circumstances, a cloned OSX drive is "bootable," meaning if you shut down, then start up while holding the Option key, you'll see the Startup Manger, showing all availalbe bootable drives/partitions, so you can select the one you want to start from.  See below for more detail.
2. "Use only one drive per CCC clone so you get the hardware redundancy protection as well.
I had planned to use only one drive, but do you mean I can't clone my "Macintosh HD" drive AND my "1TB" drive to the same volume (2TB)?but I don't understand "so you get the hardware redundancy protection as well." Could you please briefly explain that?
If you want to clone two drives to the same external HD, you must partition the external; one partition for each drive.  Post back if you aren't sure how to do that.  And you must do each clone separately, unlike Time Machine.  If this is something you want to do regularly, of course, you can schedule both of them. Try not to do them at the same  time if possible.
3. "TM is supposed to be computer illiterate resistant, so your going to have to make sure it's no longer a TimeMachine drive, OS X's "Mandatory Access Controls" may interfere with other methods."
What are "OS X's "Mandatory Access Controls?"
He's posted that several times.  He does not understand Time Machine.  I have no idea what he's talking about.
4. Is there a way I can get rid of Time Machine from the system entirely?
Once it's turned-off, and the backup disk erased, it's effectively gone.  Post back if you aren't sure how to do that.  You can prevent it from asking if you want to use external disks, via a Terminal command.   Post back if you want to do that.
5. The "Backups.backupdb" folder on the 2TB drive I want to put a system on (and it won't let me because of Time Machine, even though this drive is no longer listed in TM's preferences as the "backup drive), has 4 Time Machine backups on it right now:
Yes, that's just OSX trying to keep folks from accidentaly wiping out their backups.  Once you erase the drive, it will be gone and you can install OSX on it, or whatever you want to do. 
What becomes of these Time Machine backups, once Time Machine -- hopefully --goes away?
Once you erase the disk, they're gone.
How would YOU guys set up this system for maximum flexibility and usefulness?
I would not stop using Time Machine.
I would start making "secondary" backups with CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to a different external HD.  If you're not sure of the differences, see Time Machine vs. Clones and Archives for an explanation and some recommendations.