Carbon Copy Cloner: do you have to wipe the target drive

From reading the instructions that come with the download of CCC, it seems that when you clone your Applications drive to another drive (as backup), you are essentially reformatting that 2nd drive to be a copy of the first, right?
So when you use CCC, you must have a drive dedicated to becoming the clone? You would lose all data on the target drive? Correct?
If so, it seems to make sense to get a modest hard drive just to hold a clone of the cleanly reinstalled system.
I still am not clear on how to create a bootable clone on a drive, and how to restore that clone. Do you have to reinstall the operating system (and the various application files that also are installed at that time) and then somehow transfer the clone back to the original drive. Or somehow does the clone make it unnecessary to reinstall the operating system before moving the cloned copy of the os back to the Apps drive.
Whew, that's a tangled up understanding so if anyone can unravel this mess itd be great.
Also, is CCC better than making disk images with Disk Utility?

Jon:
Some of what I say will be repeating some of what has already been posted by way of giving a comprehensive response.
The two most popular and powerful utilities for backup/cloning are SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner. Both have their supporters. Both are effective and relatively easy to use. The latest version of CCC is more powerful, but, I think, SD is easier to use. One of these is the first element in making a clone.
SuperDuper will erase the Destination drive before cloning. CCC gives you an option. You really want it erased, unless you are doing cumulative (SmartUpdates in SD) updates, or you will end up with a jumble of stuff. Both will do cumulative updates. CCC allows you to drill down to a single folder. SD allows you to clone the entire HDD, or just the Users Folder. Both make bootable clones, diskimages, compressed read only disk images.
You need an external firewire Hard Disk Drive. Get the largest you can afford and partition it. Since PPC Macs will not boot from USB devices, firewire is important. There are a lot of HDDs out there, some are sexy looking, some have one touch backup etc. The most important feature in a firewire HDD is that it should have the more reliable Oxford 911+ chipset. This is the part that interfaces the Hard Disk Drive with the computer. When it goes, and it does go on many of these drives after the warranty has run out, the drive itself may still be functional but the computer can't see it. Here is a list of HDDs from OWC that have the Oxford 911+ chipset.
You need to format the new HDD Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and, if it is larger than you need for backup, partition it. Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery has excellent tips on backing up, and has a suggested scheme for partitioning your new external FW HDD. If you need step-by-step directions for partitioning and formatting, please post back and ask.
Finally, once you have chosen your partition scheme, adjusting or deleting partitions would destroy all data on the drive except you use third party software.
Cloning is an excellent way of backing up as it not only gives you a backup of your data and total installation, but it gives you an emergency boot drive as well as a drive from which you can boot to run diagnostics and repairs on your internal HDD.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

Similar Messages

External Hard Drive Unreadable After Carbon Copy Cloner Backup

I am using a Maxtor OneTouch III Media external drive. I had formatted it to be read/writeable from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and had been reading and writing files fine. Then I did a system backup to the external drive with Carbon Copy Cloner. Now when I plug the drive into the USB port, it says "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer." I am guessing that Carbon Copy Cloner may have messed with the file system format. I had some pretty important files on there and would like to retrieve them, so I'd prefer not to reformat.
Disk Utility shows this information for the drive:
Name : Maxtor OneTouch III Media
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : Maxtor OneTouch III Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
Connection Type : External
USB Serial Number : RA09E5XC
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 149.1 GB (160,041,885,696 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0
Also, Partition Scheme : Unformatted
I know that the drive had a name (besides the generic "Maxtor OneTouch III Media) before I did anything with Carbon Copy Cloner. Is my data already gone?
Message was edited by: theleez

Hi , and a warm welcome to the forums!
I think the problem is more the One-touch, they can't boot PPC Macs even via Firewire.
I think you'll have to Reformat it again... did you maybe use GUID Partition Scheme the first time?
See this, except for the GUID part...
http://carlbach.blogspot.com/2008/02/maxtor-one-touch-iii-and-formatting-on.html

Did I launch Carbon Copy Cloner right?

I have two accounts on my iMac: The admin account and my personal user account. I did my first backup this evening using Carbon Copy Cloner and was prompted to add the admin logon and password as whenever I download something. However, I launched the application from my personal account. Was I supposed to back up while logged on as Admin or does it macht nichts?

CCC requires root based powers to clone the entire OS X drive/partition of everything so one can hold the option key and boot from it.
So with the Admin name and password (in a General User account), CCC gains access to root user and can perform it's task.
If you ran CCC from a Admin account, it would only ask for the password.
So either way it doesn't matter it still works.
I run a General User account too and I use CCC.
BTW, CCC is installed into Applications which is a global folder, Admin can read and write, General can only read.

I have an iMac 2013 running OSX 10.9.4. I want to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup user files to an external hard drive. Then I want to remove iPhoto libraries from iMac. What will happen to the iPhoto libraries that I back up when I run backup in a

I have an iMac 2013 running OSX 10.9.4. I want to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup user files to an external hard drive to free up space on my iMack Hard drive.
So, say I make the backup today, delete iphoto libraries from my iMac, and then backup my iMac in a week. What happens to the iphoto libraries that are on the external backup drive now that I am backing up the iMac where they no longer exist?
I will have them backed up to a separate second external drive as well.
I'm just very cautious about removing them from the hard drive.
Thanks for helping and understanding my crazy caution!

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

Booting Carbon Copy clone on Retina Macbook

First time posting on the forums, I hope one of you guys can help me out :-).
I bought a Retina Macbook a couple of days ago, and rather than migrating with Setup/Migration Assistant from my old MBP (2.26GHz, running 10.7.4), I wanted to start fresh & manually migrate the stuff I want to keep for the new machine. My intention is to wipe the old MBP with a fresh Lion install for my wife. As a precaution (in case I forget something crucial) I made a Carbon Copy clone of the old HD, saved onto a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus external drive. The Seagate is USB3, with optional adapters for Firewire and Thunderbolt.
I formatted the drive & setup 2 partitions, both MAC OS Extended (Journaled), GUID partition, one for the clone, the second for general storage, and the clone process went smoothly. I checked that I was able to boot from the clone on the old MBP, with no problems. However, when I attempt to boot the clone on the Retina MBP, I get the grey screen & no entry sign. Same if I try through system prefs, startup disk.
Does anyone have any ideas why the clone will boot onto the old MBP, but not the Retina?
Your help is appreciated in advance.

Nope, I have just gone through all of this and I now got a brand new, pre loaded MBP retina and 3 geniuses all said that b/c the firmware is different that we can't boot from a cloned drive from a different computer.
This is weird, as I have cloned across iMac to Macbook and didn't get an issue.
I did the 10.8.1 update and still no joy so unless there is something we need to change in the boot files on our clone we are stuck with a drive that mounts yet doesn't boot.
If it were simply a software issue then the drive wouldn't mount or we couldn't access all of our files on the clone right?

Can I update an iMac from another iMac using Carbon Copy Cloner?

I change office locations every 6 months and move to a similar iMac setup. At each move, using external hard drives, I update the "older" iMac HD with the current Mail, Addressbook, work files, etc. Currently, I am using Snow Leopard; the machine I am transitioning to is behind, using Leopard.
This time something new is before me, I purchased (honestly) the Snow Leopard upgrade for the iMac that I am transitioning to. So I have an OS upgrade plus a file plus a lot of application additions/upgrades.
The question is, can I use *Carbon Copy Cloner* to make an image of my current iMac and upgrade the 2nd iMac with all my recent applications in one fell swoop? I would

Arthur Levy wrote:
I change office locations every 6 months and move to a similar iMac setup. At each move, using external hard drives, I update the "older" iMac HD with the current Mail, Addressbook, work files, etc. Currently, I am using Snow Leopard; the machine I am transitioning to is behind, using Leopard.
This time something new is before me, I purchased (honestly) the Snow Leopard upgrade for the iMac that I am transitioning to. So I have an OS upgrade plus a file plus a lot of application additions/upgrades.
The question is, can I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an image of my current iMac and upgrade the 2nd iMac with all my recent applications in one fell swoop?
Yes. Noondaywitch is correct. As long as the version of OSX is no older than the one the newest Mac came with, and the older Mac is compatible (enough RAM, etc), and the drives are formatted properly, you should be able to clone from one Mac to an external HD, then clone that back to the other one.
When you make the clone, boot up from it and run several apps, make sure your internet connection and browser work, etc.
Before cloning back to the other Mac, boot it up from the clone and do the same.
You may have to change a few settings for your internet connection, of course.

How can we disassociate an Apple ID from a set of computers formated from a single computer using Carbon Copy Cloner and a single image and then Migration Assistant to install their old profile? The original ID is the Apple ID for all the stores.

Here is a bit more detail.
We were replacing old teacher machines and wanted to do it as efficiently as possible. Therefore, we set up one computer, through the OS installation and ran all updates, and then made a disk image so that we can use Carbon Copy Cloner to image all the other computers without having to run all the other updates. Once they were set up to a base level and assigned to a teacher we used Migration Assistant to import all their old files and items. Everything has been fine until recently the computers became aware of needing an update for one or two apps. The machine asks for the original computer's Apple ID for all updates. We have logged out of the apple id and back in with another to test if running the updates will work with that Apple ID and even after a refresh it still asks for the other Apple ID. How can we disassociate the Apple ID from those other computers so that the individual who owns the original is not needed each time there is an update or has to give out their Apple ID password?

There are two parts to this:
1) It may be that you should have an Apple Education Support person helping you with this. If you have enough computers for this to be a problem, you may benefit from a Server, a site license, and an occasional visit from an Education Support Specialist.
2) The brief answer, if you want Individual Apple_IDs to control each computer, is to buy new copies of Mac OS X under those new Apple_IDs and re-download and re-Install. Mac OS X is customized to the Apple_ID before it is downloaded.

Can I Use Time Machine With Carbon Copy Cloner?

As of today, I upgraded my iMac (and eventually my Macbook) to Snow Leopard. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to create a clone of my drive to my external (I did a clean install) and now that Snow Leopard is installed, I only want to put back on to my computer just certain files, such as a select selection of my documents, some of my iTunes library, etc. Given that I couldn't find that option in Migration Assistant, I just manually copied over what I wanted from the clone on my external.
Still, I would like to keep a daily backup for my iMac's HD and that's where Time Machine comes in, but there's some questions I have before I do it:
Given that my iMac's HD now has significant free space (as I only brought back, say, 10% of the stuff to my iMac from my external when I cloned on CCC), if I enabled Time Machine to back up my iMac's HD stuff, it wouldn't overwrite the 90% of stuff on my external with the 10% that's on my iMac's HD, would it? For instance, I have about 20,000 songs on my external drive, but maybe have brought back only, say, 5,000 to my iMac (for now). Given that my iMac's iTunes Music folder shows 5,000 songs on it, when TM backs that up to my external drive, it won't overwrite the other iTunes Music folder which has the other 15,000, right? The same thing could be applied for documents, photos, etc. If not, how would TM deal with that? I would hope to avoid the other extreme, which are duplicate files/folders.
I guess I just want to be able to have the ability to get into that cloned drive on my external if I need to add more stuff to the iMac or if I need it one day to boot up the machine. But I also want to be able to have Time Machine at hand to back up daily the little that is on my iMac right now. So I suppose I'm wondering how can I achieve this without the two conflicting or screwing up?
Thanks!

MM1010 wrote:
when TM backs that up to my external drive, it won't overwrite the other iTunes Music folder which has the other 15,000, right?
Correct. Time Machine won't delete anything else on the same volume.
But as Barry says, it will use all the empty space available, before it starts deleting its oldest backups, so there will eventually be a conflict. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Also see #1 there, to be sure you have enough space for Time Machine to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups.
A better bet, however, would be to use a separate external HD. If you have the Time Machine backups on the same physical HD, when it fails (and they all do, sooner or later), you risk losing both.

On a Mac mini OS X server 10.8.5 TimeMchine cannot copy 2.5 TB to a 6 TB Thunderbolt disk, runs out of space, Carbon Copy Cloner works perfectly

On a Mac mini OS X server 10.8.5 TimeMachine cannot copy 2.5 TB (from a Lacie 2big Thunderbolt data disk) to another 6 TB Thunderbolt disk, runs out of space, Carbon Copy Cloner works perfectly: claiming just 2.5 TB after the copy. Thunderbolt disk is
LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series 6 TB

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showning, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

What exactly is a Carbon Copy Cloner and does it work on iMac Intel?

A friend of mine recommended to me that carbon copy cloner is the best way to back up data including applications and that it is a freeware downloadable via their website. Can anyone explain to me (using layman's language) what exactly it is and give me a step by step procedure on what I have to do to make it work? Also, does it work on iMac Intel and if so, would I have to set anything differently??
FYI, I do have a La Cie firewire drive.

Did you check out their website? It really has a lot of info, but here it is in a nutshell.
CCC is a cloning software tool. It will make an exact - and bootable - copy of every last bit and byte on your internal drive. You can then use that FireWire drive to boot up your Mac, or restore the data from it in case of an emergency, drive replacement or failure.
It is not universal yet, but it does run through Rosetta.
Download the program and there is a PDF file with all the step by step instructions, but it is really easy to use.
BTW, LaCie has a program that is very similar called SilverKeeper.

Mountain Lion's Privacy Works Great - Carbon Copy Cloner Wants Contact List Access

Mountain Lion Woke Me Up - Carbon Copy Cloner Wants to access my Contact list
I got a message when I launched Carbon Copy Cloner that it wanted to access my contacts list
BYE BYE CCC - UNINSTALLED IT
i have lots of apps, and this one was the only one that broke my trust. How many more will there be.

Wow, fast answers!
William Kucharski has it right, though: It's asking in order to pre-fill registration fields. This is related to 3rd party application "sandboxing" in 10.8. You can see which apps are using your contacts in Sys Prefs > Security & Privacy > Privacy
If it makes you feel uncomfortable (and it will come up again and again from here on in in OS X), the thing to do is say "No" in the dialogue and continue using CCC and other apps.

Upgrade of a hardrive with carbon copy cloner

I upgraded my daughter's macbook hardrive and used carbon copy cloner to transfer all the mac stuff over to the new drive. It worked great but the windows stuff did not move with it. she uses boot camp and has not upgraded to leopard yet but has the most recent version of tiger. Is there a way for me to move in total her windows in boot camp without reinstalling it from the beginning?

Hi,
two things you can try:
If the BootCamp Windows uses the FAT32 file system, try this: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=717201&start=0&tstart=0
if it uses the NTFS file system, have a look at WinClone: http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/
Good Luck
Stefan

Best External Hard Drive for Carbon Copy Cloner?

I'm about to do a clean install of Leopard on my *Mac Pro* but I want to back up/clone my current system (10.4.11) to an *external hard drive* first. Based on the recommendations of similar users (Logic Studio) -- a clean install is preferable to an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard. I plan to use *Carbon Copy Cloner* to clone my current system but am unclear as to whether I can use an *external USB drive* versus an external Firewire drive.
Some people claim that firewire is much faster and more reliable for transferring/backing up data, and more importantly, that it's the only type of external hard drive one can boot from -- but I'm not sure that's true for these Intel-based Macs.
Also, I currently use an *Apogee Ensemble* audio interface which does not like sharing the firewire bus with other peripherals. I've also heard references to a external hard drive chipset called 911+ as being important but I think this may only be in regard to firewire.
Bottom line, _can I use an external USB drive with Carbon Copy Cloner on an Intel-based Mac?_
I'm looking for something around 500 Gigs that can sit on my desk with a minimal footprint. I'd like to partition it into three volumes -- the first for the Tiger clone; the second for weekly Leopard back-up; and the third for sound library storage. I'll likely need to access the third volume in realtime from *Logic Pro 8* (audio application) so the HD should be pretty fast. Recommendations?

So Kappy & Hatter...
Allow me to spell this out in practical terms. I'm installing Logic Pro, an audio production application. The consensus is that best results are achieved by installing the application on the internal system drive in bay #1 on the Mac Pro.
Most professional users of Logic Pro recommend a second internal drive in bay #2 solely for audio recording even though the app runs on the drive in bay #1. The drive in bay #2 is often a Raptor because of the 10,000 rpm spin rate, beneficial for the recording process.
For sound libraries with large audio samples/loops, often streamed to the app -- a third drive is recommended to store the sound library. It can be internal or external. Many people use external drives for this function on a firewire 800 bus. The emphasis for this drive would be to read quickly and stream the samples quickly. I would assume that a 32MB buffer cache versus 16MB would be beneficial. I was looking for hi-speed if I went the external route -- hence my foray into the realm of eSATA buses, but perhaps I should just get an internal drive for this as I do have drive bays available in the Mac Pro.
Can you recommend drive spex for this task or a particular hard drive for this task of storing and streaming the sound library?

Good news about Carbon Copy Cloner

After reading a post from Mike Bombich at his Carbon Copy Cloner web site that he knew of no reason CCC wouldn't work under Rosetta on the new InteliMacs I decided to try cloning to an external FW400/USB2 Maxtor drive, and indeed he is correct!
Bombich warns that CCC hasn't been thoroughly wrung out on Intel hardware, and that you can NOT mix clones: an Intel clone will NOT boot a PowerPC Mac, nor vice versa.
The only real trick is to be certain to partition the clone drive in the new GUID Partition Scheme listed under Options in the Partition page of Disk Utility. From there CCC runs like it always has, and Bob's your Uncle.

I recommend checking CCC's Help and the stickies at CCC General Tips http://forums.bombich.com/viewforum.php?f=2. If you still have questions, post them to the CCC Troubleshooting forum at http://forums.bombich.com/viewforum.php?f=3—Bombich Forums Moderator.

HELP! Has Carbon Copy Cloner Killed This G5?

I've got myself into a right old pickle, and wondered if any of the Mac faithful would be able to share any bright ideas on how to proceed.
Essentially, here's how I spent my Bank Holiday;
Mission - To completely clone the 150GB System and 230GB 'Projects&Sounds' internal drives on a Dual 2GHz G5 - both drives over 99% full. OS=10.3.5
Began by downloading SuperDuper only to find Sys Reqs not met. (10.3.9 required).
Used Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate 230GB Internal to 240GB partition of 400GB Ext FW800 drive - all good.
Used CCC to move 56GB of files from 150GB Ext FW400 drive to 130GB partition of 400GB Ext FW800 drive - all good.
Used CCC to clone internal 150GB System drive to 150GB Ext FW 400 drive. 'Bootable clone' selected.
At end of cloning process, with roughly 1GB left to go, CCC hung up.
Force quit CCC yielded no result.
After 2 hours, whole system was frozen, including menu-bar clock & dock. Hard restart from power button.
Stalled at grey screen - Apple & spinning cursor
Disk utility verified all clones OK - backups intact. Initial side by side check reveals all files seem to be present.
Mission now to get G5 going again.
Hooked up 1st G5 by firewire Target Disk Mode to 2nd G5.
Ran Disk Utility on 1st G5's System drive from 2nd G5. Error reported; "The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)" Also reported "Keys out of place" Failed to verify/repair.
Installed Disk Warrior 3.02 on 2nd G5 & ran on 1st G5's System drive. Reported major differences between original and rebuilt directory in preview, chiefly in HD Library (App Support) & System Folder.
Made note of differences and rebuilt directory of 1st G5's System drive with Disk Warrior.
Rechecked with Disk Utility, 1st G5's System drive appeared fine this time.
Attempted to boot - stalled at grey screen - Apple & spinning cursor
Booted 1st G5 into Single User mode; fans screaming; reported
"Can't open Library: / System / Library / Frameworks / CoreFoundation.Framework / Versions / A / CoreFoundation (No such file or directory, Errno = 2)"
Ran fsck, all good.
Exited Single User mode, Finder failed to launch.
Relaunched Target Disk Mode, copied missing file from clone back to original.
Attempted to boot - stalled at grey screen - Apple & spinning cursor
Booted into Single User mode; reported huge screen of gobbledygook (see pic!)
Attempted to reinstall System 10.3.4 (Archive & Install) from Install disk - got first kernel panic
Would not boot from install disks
Ran Apple Hardware test - test would not run
Error - "Invalid Memory Access at %SRR0: 00000000.00000000 %SRR1: 10000000.00083030"
Apple PowerMac7,3.5.1.8f2
BootROM built on 05/21/04 @ 10:56:59"
Reinstalled system 10.3.4 over firewire Target Disk Mode from 2nd G5 using Install disks.
Attempted to boot - Kernel panic.
Ran Apple Hardware test again - test still would not run.
Error - "Invalid Memory Access at %SRR0: 00000000.00000000 %SRR1: 10000000.00083030"
Apple PowerMac7,3.5.1.8f2
BootROM built on 05/21/04 @ 10:56:59"
Unplugged all FW & USB peripherals
Removed all but 2 of RAM chips (8 x 1GB DIMMS installed in machine altogether)
Attempted to boot - Kernel panic.
Swapped RAM around in pairs
Attempted to boot - Kernel panic.
Ran Apple Hardware test again - test still would not run.
Error - "Invalid Memory Access at %SRR0: 00000000.00000000 %SRR1: 10000000.00083030"
Ran out of ideas, patience and hair to pull out. Went home to sob on the wife's shoulder and hug the cat.
Now what?
I have to get this computer working again fast!
cheers, and sorry for the long post
Dave
G5 2GHz Mac OS X (10.3.5)
G5 2GHz

Just an update on the situation;
First of all, many thanks you guys for all the replies and helpful suggestions - I was a few millimetres from the end of my tether when I first posted.
After I ran DiskWarrior on the System Drive, it appeared to be OK according to both DU and fsck, so I was able to do another backup copy of all the important stuff. I'd already used Target Disk Mode to create some space on it, prior to my Archive and Install of 10.3.4 over firewire. This still had no effect, however.
As luck would have it, yesterday morning a mate of ours who is an audio systems tech was in the building on another job, so he popped by to have a look. When I opened it up, it was like it had been found in the middle of an ancient pyramid, brown sandy dust all over the fans and the heatsink. We performed a PMU reset, swapped the ram around again, unplugged the HDs and attempted to boot from CD - still no joy. Quite a lot of swearing though.....
My techy mate confirmed my worst fears that it is most likely a blown processor or logic board. We're going to swap in another system drive today just to make sure, but it doesn't look good. Fortunately, he was able to loan my colleague another machine to use whilst the G5 goes away to sickbay for diagnosis and a no-doubt costly repair, but we still had to reinstall and reauthorize the mountain of plugins (over 250!), then copy over more than 100Gb of project and audio files from the backups, which took until 10pm last night to accomplish. We'll have to do the same thing again if and when the original machine comes back from repair.
I'm devastated, this is exactly the disaster I was trying to avoid in the first place. I didn't know you could clone from DU (thanks Tom) - if I did, I probably wouldn't be in this mess..... you live and learn, eh?
This morning though, everything seems to be running fine, the temporary G5 is performing well. Three days behind schedule, looking at a possible £1500 repair bill, but at least we can get some real work done now!
Thanks again to everyone
Dave
G5 2GHz

Carbon Copy Cloner: do you have to wipe the target drive

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