Complete Clone of External Disk?

Hi,
I have 2 iMacs, one PPC and one intel both running leopard. The PPC iMac is about to die, and will not switch on (cannot get past the grey screen with the apple logo). I've connected the 2 computers together via firewire and used the dying iMac as a Firewire disk to access the data stored on it. How can I make a complete clone of the dying iMac so I don't lose all the files on it? I could just drag all the files to my intel imac, but that would not copy some hidden files and settings right?
If I use something like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy cloner, that would not work right?, as it has to completely erase the target volume before it can make a copy. HELP!
Please help.
Thanks in advance
Message was edited by: Matt Lee

HELP!! It won't backup. The first step says : Failed to enable ownership on Macintosh HD. What can I do?
I tried again and this time, it says failed to mount "the name of the image file". When I view the log, it comes up with this message -
| 10:45:20 AM | Error | 2007-11-10 10:45:20.326 hdiutil[460:10b] Error loading /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/VirtualPCDiskImagePlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Vir tualPCDiskImagePlugin: dlopen(/Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/VirtualPCDiskImagePlugin.bundle/Contents/Ma cOS/VirtualPCDiskImagePlugin, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
| 10:45:20 AM | Error | /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/VirtualPCDiskImagePlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Vir tualPCDiskImagePlugin: mach-o, but wrong architecture
Message was edited by: Matt Lee

Similar Messages

How do I clone an external disk using CCC?

I have a MacBook Air and because it has only 256 GB and I need about three times that space for storing movies, document files etc., I use an external hard disk to keep these files on.
I formatted this disk using Mac Extended Journal but I did not put the Snow Leopard Operating System on it. I just move files from the computer's hard drive to the disk as required.
I had a scare once where the data on another external hard disk was wiped out because of a faulty USB cord. All the movies were lost and I could not recover the data. The disk also failed to mount. This problem kept happening several times. When I got rid of the faulty USB cord, the external disk mounted and I never lost data again. I am certain all the problems were due to the faulty USB cord. I have been using the same external disk ever since and it has been working fine with the non-faulty USB cord so I am sure it didn't have anything to do with the disk and it was the USB cord that was the problem. I used the same faulty USB cord with other external disks and the same problems arose - failure to mount etc.
This is the background for why I want to make a copy of this external drive. I don't want to lose the movies and other data on this disk if something goes wrong again and want everything on another disk just in case.
I usually use Carbon Copy Cloner to make backups. But that is with a external disk that has OS 10.6.8 on it.
I really don't want to put OS 10.6.8 on the external drive where I store movies and other over-spill data on it.
How do I go about making a copy of this external disk using CCC (or using another program if CCC won't work for this)?
I have two USB ports on my MBA. I prefer to use CCC over SuperDuper because I had a problem with SuperDuper in the past.

So as I understand it, CCC will clone any disk to any disk so long as it's formatted to Mac (extended Journal) and I don't have to put the Mac operating system on the disks that I am copying from and copying to?
Thanks for answering.

Complete clone of hard disk drive (windows and mac)

Hi,
I'd like to create a full clone of my current HDD because I'd like to backup everything.
Does anyone have an Ider how to clone both partitions in one?

Clone both the Mac and Windows partitions in one step? That may not be possible as you may need to use different software.
If you want to clone the Mac partition (to an external hard drive) then you can just boot from the install DVD that comes with your Mac and use Disk Utility.
If you want to clone the Windows partition you may use a software called Winclone. This software works if your Windows partition is in NTFS format.

Clone internal disk(ufsdump) which has metadevice on external disk(sol 5.6)

Dear IT Experts,
I just help my friend. we planned to clone an internal disk of SUN Ultra 1 which is run using Solaris 2.6 (old).
Actually, this system has one external disk which has created before using metadevice.
The external disk (*/dev/md/dsk/d100 --> concatenation*) is used to save application data and connected to ultra 1 using SCSI device.
Here is the vfstab content:
+#device     device     mount     FS     fsck     mount     mount+
+#to mount     to fsck     point     type     pass     at boot     options+
+#+
+#/dev/dsk/c1d0s2 /dev/rdsk/c1d0s2 /usr     ufs     1     yes     -+
fd     -     /dev/fd     fd     -     no     -
+/proc     -     /proc     proc     -     no     -+
swap     -     /tmp     tmpfs     -     yes     -
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1     -     -     swap     -     no     -+
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0     /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0     /     ufs     1     no     -+
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s6     /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s6     /usr     ufs     1     no     -+
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4     /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s4     /var     ufs     1     no     -+
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7     /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s7     /export/home     ufs     2     yes     -+
+/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5     /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s5     /opt     ufs     2     yes     -+
+/dev/md/dsk/d100     /dev/md/rdsk/d100     /export/home/oak     ufs     2     yes     +-
Running command "metastat" and "metadb -i" will give output :
+# metastat+
d100: Concat/Stripe    Size: 53031888 blocks    Stripe 0: (interlace: 64 blocks)        Device              Start Block Dbase        c0t2d0s7                   0     No        c0t3d0s7                   0     No        c0t4d0s7                   0     No
+#+
+# metadb -i+
flags           first blk       block count
a m pc luo        16              1034            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3
a    pc luo        1050            1034            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3
a    pc luo        2084            1034            /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3
Running command "format" will give output :
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 2733 2 (reserved cylinders)+
Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders        Size            Blocks
+0 root wm 0 - 134 100.20MB (135/0/0) 205200+
+1 swap wu 135 - 307 128.40MB (173/0/0) 262960+
+2 backup wm 0 - 2732 1.98GB (2733/0/0) 4154160+
+3 unassigned wm 308 - 310 2.23MB (3/0/0) 4560+
+4 var wm 311 - 580 200.39MB (270/0/0) 410400+
+5 unassigned wm 581 - 985 300.59MB (405/0/0) 615600+
+6 usr wm 986 - 2333 1000.47MB (1348/0/0) 2048960+
+7 home wm 2334 - 2732 296.13MB (399/0/0) 606480+
We try to clone disk using "ufsdump" command. The backup disk (cot1d0) capacity is like the capacity of original disk (c0t0d0) --> 2.1GB.
Here is all the command that we have run:
+# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 /clone-root+
+# cd /clone-root+
+# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0|ufsrestore -rf -+
+# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s3 /clone-s3+
+# cd ../clone-s3+
+# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s3|ufsrestore -rf - --> this command gave output "it is not ufsdump format"+
# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s4 /clone-var
# cd ../clone-var
# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s4|ufsrestore -rf -
+# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s5 /clone-opt+
+# cd ../clone-opt+
+# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s5|ufsrestore -rf -+
+# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s6 /clone-usr+
+# cd ../clone-usr+
+# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s6|ufsrestore -rf -+
+# mount /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7 /clone-export+
+# cd ../clone-export+
+# ufsdump 0cf - /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s7|ufsrestore -rf+ -
All dumping process were successfully done EXCEPT at /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s3. It said that this partition is not in ufsdump format. I think because this partition is used as metadevice database.
All dumping process were successfully done EXCEPT at /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s3. It said that this partition is not in ufsdump format. I think because this partition is used as metadevice database.
Afte install bootblk to c0t1d0s0, we tried to boot system using clone disk result (c0t1d0). We unplugged the original disk, and put the clone disk into target 0 slot (c0t0d0).
While booting, it said that the meta database was broken and need to be repaired. we delete the metadb and re-create again --> # metadb -a -c3 -f /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3.
then REBOOT.
But, after it, system won`t boot. the said that
*"/dev/md/rdsk/d100" = no such device or address*
*/dev/md/rdsk/d100 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7 = can`t check file system*
please run fsck manually"
we have run command "fsck". but the problem still there. System can`t boot. :-(
But, while we put the original disk back, the system can run normally.
Is there any steps that we are missing? Kindly need your help, please....we stuck. No idea...please response
Thank you for any help and suggestion
regarads,
ferianto

Sorry to hear.
Other possibilities...
Data Rescue...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
rccharles on file recovery...
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
    * been accidentally deleted.
    * become unreadable due to media faults.
    * been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1

What do I need to make a bootable external disk?

I got a response from Apple support that said I could make an external disk a bootable one, like a flash drive or ext hard disk, by using an OS X Installer app that was supposed to be available at the Mac App Store. I looked and couldn't find it. Since we no longer get a hard-copy of the system install disk, I was trying to figure out what to do to make a 500Gb external disk one I could boot using the MacBook Air with its limited GB storage.
So if anyone can give me the simple solution I'd appreciate it.

Get an external disk drive. Start by partitioning and formatting it:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Next, clone your existing system disk to the external one:
Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Test the new clone by:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
      "OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the external disk's icon.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

Best Practice??? Change from internal boot disk to external disk

I have a mini running 10.5.6 server and it currently boots off it's internal disk. I was hoping to get some feedback/input from others on a good process to convert the system from it's internal boot disk to an external boot disk (firewire).
I wanted minimum downtime during the conversion and I of course, want a complete snapshot on the new boot disk. Lastly, I do not have a local keyboard and console on the system although I could connect one if it seemed to be much easier that way.
In general, I am thinking of the following:
1) Boot into the Leopard Server CD.
2) Use diskutility to Restore from the internal boot disk to the new external boot disk.
3) Choose the new boot disk as the startup disk.
4) Reboot onto new disk.
Is diskutility the best bet?? Meaning will it work this way if the drives are different sizes??
Should I try to clone the disk from the internal boot disk (assuming I shutoff services first) using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner?? But I believe they do not copy over all logfiles, etc..
Or does anyone have a quick overview of a methodology which they have done in the past or just are suggesting might be a better process than the ones I described??
In Summary:
1) From the CD, clone using diskutil and change boot disk
2) From the running OS, clone using SuperDuper or CCC and than reboot onto new disk
3) Something else??
Thank you in advance.

For cloning the machine you have the approach fine. Disk Utility is fine and booting from the CD is the best method. Simply use the restore method.
But why on earth would you want to boot from an external Firewire drive? First, there is the issue of speed. You have a mini, let's assume it is a one generation back Intel. It has an internal SATA drive on a 1.5 Gbps connection. You want to move that to a 400 Mbps Firewire bus? Next, beyond the speed issues, you have a persistence issue. You are taking the boot volume and moving into to a transitory bus. One of Firewire's greatest strengths is easy connection/disconnection. Persistence is not a strong point.
Next, if your plan is to move the boot volume to some form of a Firewire RAID, then you are even penalizing yourself more. The mini has one FireWire port. If you are using two devices and creating a mirror RAID, then you need to daisy chain. Talk about points of failure, asynchronous startup time, bus blocking, etc. Not wise.
Plus, I can not count how many external firewire devices have burnt up in the effort to have small footprints. Lacie and the "let's put a drive in a metal case with no fan" approach = melted drive. Western Digital and Lacie with the "let's make a completely un-reusable external power brick that either breaks in a small breeze or falls out when the heavy guy walks by the server" approach.
If you are looking at a Firewire RAID enclosure, then you are missing the objective of speed as you are limited by the 400 bus. It is nice to say that you have a four drive SATA 2 RAID case running a RAID 5, but you are defeating the purpose of why you bought the raid. The RAID 5 can provide an exponential increase in I/O performance. But that goes out the window because of the slow bus.
If your argument is that "this is a server and my bottleneck is Ethernet," that too does not hold up. You are likely running on a gigabyte network.
For system details check out http://developer.apple.com/documentation/HardwareDrivers/Conceptual/Macmini_0602 /Articles/architecture.html.
Take this with a grain of salt. You caught me on a grumpy day as yesterday I dealt with a melted external firewire drive.
My advice is buy real server class hardware. What is you objective? Drive redundancy? Capacity? A mini is a great dev server. Not a production server. This is your data. Presumably the data that makes your business function. Don't trust it to a single platter. And don't trust it to a consumer level, disposable system. I am not trying to malign the mini. It is a fine machine for its role. Its role however is not to be a production file server. Now as a web server, we are talking a different situation.
Ok, I am rambling. Hope this helps in some way.

Just updated WD Drive Utilities - now all my WD external disks have vanished from desktop

I have just been using one of my 4TB My Book external disks on a MacBook AIR running 10.10.4All well and good. Only 1 installed at a time using the USB port. But the system told me there is a WD update so I installed it. Immediately after installing WD Drive Utilities and trying it out the WD disk on the desktop greyed out, then vanished completely. I pulled out the USB cable and put it back into the MacBook. The desktop icon for the WD drive reappeared, but greyed out, then vanished. So I thought it must be the new update so I uninstalled it using the WD Uninstall program. Same problem. I have an older (2014) WD Drive Utilities install-software on a MyPassport drive so I plugged in the USB for that drive, same problem, that is also greyed out and then vanishes from the desktop. So I tried the My Book again, using Disk Utilities in the MacBook. It sees the drive at first, but then it vanishes within 5 seconds. Disk Utilities says "Error: A disk with a mount point is required". I am very loathe to plug in my other 2 MyBook 3TB drives in case these also vanish or become unuseable for this same reason. I have a huge amount of data backed up on all of these disks. I think the disks are okay and maybe if I can get hold of older WD software from 2014 then I can backtrack and put it back the way it was. As a first step does anyone know where I can get hold of older WD software such as Drive Utilities (I think that was the one which did it). Or is there some files it has installed on the MacBook hidden away somewhere which I can delete?

July 2015 Solution for Multiple Problems with a New ‘My Passport for Mac’ (Note: I am posting this same message in response to several topics in this Forum, since the symptoms sounded similar to mine and I suspect WD software is causing them.) Like many other Users here, I recently bought a new external WD drive. The irony here is that I already own 3 other WD external drives, and they have been running fine for several years on our two Mac computers for photo and backup uses. Not so with this new drive. Following the WD installation steps, I first installed their software WD Drive Utilities and WD Security. And then my confusion started, because I now got the message ‘Error in RAID configuration’, even though I don’t use RAID and had done nothing except plug in the new drive. I ran the WD Drive Utility, Status Check, and my laptop actually crashed! I also saw the new drive mount at first, then spontaneously dismount after a minute or so. I even dismounted the new disk, mounted one of my older disks I have used for several years, and now it reported ‘Error in RAID configuration’, something it had never done before, and when I ran the WD Drive Utility, Status Check, on my older Passport drive my laptop again crashed. Like others here, I wasted a lot of time trying to resolve this, but let me skip all that and get right to what I did to get this new disk (and my old ones) to work correctly again. Solution which worked for me: I uninstalled the WD Drive Utilities software (the entire folder) completely. So far I have not uninstalled the WD Security software, although I have not dared to use it yet and likely never will. To uninstall WD Drive utilities, I used the free app AppCleaner from freemacsoft.net (NOT the app in the Mac App store similarly named App Cleaner; it may work just as well, but I have never used it.) Now that the WD Drive Utility is off my computer, I can use the new WD Passport and all my older Passport drives. I have run Apple’s Disk Utility, Verify, numerous times on the new drive, and using Carbon Copy Cloner I have cloned up to 340 GB to the new Passport drive, followed by Verifying it, without errors or any of the symptoms listed above. WD versions for me were: WD Drive Utilities 2.0.2.18, which folder contained WDDriveUtilityHelper 1.0.0.16. I hope this helps others on this Forum.

Suggestions for TM+CCC in a 160GB external disk

Hi,
I am new to macs and to this wonderful discussion foruns. Just to make sure I will have no surprises in the future, I wanted to run in a newly purchased 160GB USB external disk both Time Machine and a bootable clone of the system (size is about 52 GB) using Carbon Copy Cloner. Presently, the 160GB has two partitions: one with 140 GB, already used by TM, and the rest is FAT32 formatted being presently used for transfers between mac and windows.
I understand that in order to do what I am planning, I have to resize the partitions and maybe changing the formatting of the smaller one, so my questions are:
1- How can I resize the partitions using the Mac OSX?
2- A 50/50 resizing between the 2 partitions would be ok bearing i mind that my system should not be larger than 60 GB?
3 -Does this resizing may affect the TM backups already made?
4- Do I need to change the type of formating of the smaller partition?
Thank you.
ss

That disk is not suitable for TM if you had Windows on a partition. TM will try to initialize the entire drive because the drive must be partitioned and formatted properly. And, yes, formatting will result in losing all data previously stored on the drive. Rather than using TM you need to use Disk Utility as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Time Machine - I had to reformat its external disk - how do I start TM again?

MacBook Pro - 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
OS X 10.6.8
Time Machine backups to directly-connected external disk - La Cie 2 TB
I got Time Machine error messages saying it could not complete the backup. I followed advice at the Pondini TM website. I turned TM off. The problem was corruption on the external drive. Disk Utility could not fix it - invalid sibling link. I decided to abandon the existing backups and did disk erase, writing zeros to it. Took two attempts, the second attempt running for 15-odd hours. The disk has got one partition, GUID, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - this is stuff I don't really understand.
I can't see how to tell Time Machine to forget about the old backups and start up again from scratch on the newly reformatted disk. I can't find this task explicitly covered in the Pondini website.

When you erased the data that was reflected in System Preferences > Time Machine.
Glad your backup is working. You might want to consider adding a clone backup to your drive. Just like a seat belt and an air bag protect you in different ways when driving, you need both Time Machine and a clone for full protection.
Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.
SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

My os x is running in an external disk, how do i go back to using the internal disk

my os x is running on my external disk and I want to reverse and use my internal disk instead. I also cant seem to push through to internet recovery if i remove my external disk and would want to reinstall os x through internet recovery. im only seeing the globe/earth revolving but loading status seems freezing. pls help plssssssss

iwantchange wrote:
my os x is running on my external disk and I want to reverse and use my internal disk instead. I also cant seem to push through to internet recovery if i remove my external disk and would want to reinstall os x through internet recovery. im only seeing the globe/earth revolving but loading status seems freezing. pls help plssssssss
If you installed OS X Mountain Lion (per your signature) to your external drive, you should be able to restart your Mac Mini while pressing/holding the Option/Alt key and selecting the Recovery HD - 10.8.5 in the startup manager. This boots you into the external drive's Recovery System (different than Internet Recovery). From the OS X Utilities Menu, you can use Disk Utility to "clone" both your external Macintosh HD and its Recovery HD to your internal drive.
First, back up your internal drive unless you don't need anything on it.
Restart your Mac Mini into the Recovery System on the external drive using the Option/Alt key and selecting the external drive's Recovery HD.
Select Disk Utility and erase your internal drive's Macintosh HD.
Stay in Disk Utility and select your Macintosh HD on your external drive.
Click the Restore tab. Your external drive's Macintosh HD should be displayed in the Source field.
Click and drag your internal drive's Macintosh HD to the Destination field. Note: This partition needs to be the same size as or greater than the Source.
Click the Restore button. This will block-copy the external drive to your internal drive.
After the restore completes, both your internal and external drive will be labeled the same (e.g. Macintosh HD).
Quit Disk Utility and at the OS X Utilities menu, click on the Apple logo (upper left corner) and select Startup Disk. Select your internal drive and Restart. This will restart your Mac Mini using your internal drive.
Good luck

I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

How do I make a backup of an external disk?

I have an external disk that is formatted in Mac Extended Journal on which I keep movie files and photos.
I had some bad experiences in the past with my first MacBook Air (version 2.1) in which external drives kept getting erased without any good reason. I think it's due to the fact that I had to connect a USB cord to another computer when I had an external drive plugged into the MBA because the MBA could not power it on its own.
I thought it was due to a bad external drive and I took it to Samsung service center and complained that their drive was malfunctioning. I got a refund. But later on, I found that the same thing happened to another external drive and to a USB flash drive, so I realized that it had nothing to do with the external disks and something to do with the computer. I used the same drives that got erased on a newer MacBook Air (version 3.2) and I never had the sudden erasure problem.
Anyhow that's the background to why I want to make a clone of the external disks in my possession. If for some reason, the external disk gets suddenly erased, I would like a copy somewhere in safekeeping so that I do not lose all my movies.
How do I make a clone of an external disk?
I will be using a MacBook Air (3.2) for this task. It has two USB ports. Can I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do this? Just choose a source disk (external disk I want to clone) and a destination disk (the external disk where I want it to be cloned to)?

Many backup utilities like Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper can be used to clone drives. They can also clone boot drive to make bootable clones. They use "smart" backups in that they only update what has been changed from the previous backup. That is what you need too since you intend to use USB which is not that fast.
With CCC you can set up a task to start the backup automatically when you plug the backup in and it mounts.
FWIW I use CCC to make daily backups of my disks (scheduled backups can be done by these utilities).

Sizing Backup, Bootable and Storage partitions on an External Disk

I have iMac G5, 2 GB RAM, 1 TB HD with one partition currently holding about 140 GB, and a TB external disk. I want to use the external disk for three purposes: Bootable Partition, Time Machine Backup, Miscellaneous Storage.
Apple advises matching the capacity of the Time Machine backup to that of the volume being backed up. My inclination is to limit the Backup volume to 500 GB, see how that works out and re-evaluate as HD use increases.
Q1. As I understand, the bootable partition would be, at the minimum, a duplicate of all OS X (Leopard in the case of G5s) system and application software.
Q2. Should it also include 3rd party apps? (yes?)
Q3. Should it be a pristine installation that is independently kept up to date with all upgrades, but essentially unused unless an emergency arises? (yes?) Or is it okay to somehow sync it with my HD content? (this could copy a problem to just where you don't want it to be?)
Since I will be using Time Machine to backup my HD, it does not seem that all the data files (e.g. iTunes Library) need to be included in the bootable partition.
Q4. What are the correct choices for what goes into the bootable partition, including 3rd party apps and data?
Q5. What process should be used for updating this software? Independent, parallel updates? (yes?)
Q6. Are there any files that should be duplicated in this partition; for example, keychains are something you need - or would you get these from Time Machine too?
Q7. Since the Time Machine backup resides on the same disk, it is possible to restore needed files from there. When Time Machine restores the system, does it put everything into the boot partition? (yes?)
Q8. If so, since Disk Utility allows dynamic re-partitioning, I could use a limited space for the bootable partition and then re-allocate more space to it later if I wanted to run a fully restored version of the system off the external disk? (yes?)
Q9. Does it make sense to separate the Miscellaneous Storage into a separate partition? (yes?) Or should should I use just one partition to hold the bootable stuff and the miscellaneous stuff? (no?)

Mr. Cat wrote:
Mostly agreeing with Kappy here, but a few additions.
Apple advises matching the capacity of the Time Machine backup to that of the volume being backed up. My inclination is to limit the Backup volume to 500 GB, see how that works out and re-evaluate as HD use increases.
That should be plenty, depending on how the 140 GB will grow. Our "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Q1. As I understand, the bootable partition would be, at the minimum, a duplicate of all OS X (Leopard in the case of G5s) system and application software.
That depends on what you're trying to do, and how much space you have, but usually a bootable clone contains everything. Thus it's partition should be a minimum of 120% of the data on (or anticipated to be on) your internal HD.
Think for a moment about why you want two separate, independent backups. The safest route is to have them on separate disks, so you're protected against either disk failing (and they all do, sooner or later). For that reason, consider getting another disk for the clone. If you get a portable one, you can take it to a secure off-site location, so you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, and direct lightning strike on your power lines. Some folks get a pair of them; use one for a week or so, then take it off-site and swap with the other one.
The other reason to have two backups is to protect you against a problem with one app or drive; thus if your TM backups somehow get corrupted, you still have the clone, and vice-versa.
In both cases, your best bet is to let both apps back up nearly everything. Sometimes there's a good reason to omit some things; see #11 in the FAQ Tip for more detail. Also, if you're running Windoze via virtualization software, you likely do not want to back it up with Time Machine. See #9 in the FAQ Tip.
Q5. What process should be used for updating this software? Independent, parallel updates? (yes?)
I use CarbonCopyCloner, in addition to full Time Machine backups; SuperDuper is similar. Both are reliable. CCC is donationware, SD has a free version, but you'll need the paid one (about $30) to do automatic scheduling and updates (vs. a full replacement). Both are easily found via Google.
Q7. Since the Time Machine backup resides on the same disk, it is possible to restore needed files from there. When Time Machine restores the system, does it put everything into the boot partition? (yes?)
You select the destination disk/partition.
Q8. If so, since Disk Utility allows dynamic re-partitioning, I could use a limited space for the bootable partition and then re-allocate more space to it later if I wanted to run a fully restored version of the system off the external disk? (yes?)
Yes, but be careful. You can only resize a partition by dragging the bottom in the diagram up or down; you can't move the top. Thus to expand a partition, you have to delete the one below it.
Q9. Does it make sense to separate the Miscellaneous Storage into a separate partition? (yes?) Or should should I use just one partition to hold the bootable stuff and the miscellaneous stuff? (no?)
They should each be separate. See #3 in the FAQ about the TM partition; and you'll also want the clone to be on it's own partition.
Since you have a lot of room on the external, I'd recommend putting the TM partition first, and the most-easily replaced partition(s) last.
You might want to use the Restore option of Disk Utility to make a copy of your Install disc in a small partition on the external (towards the end). It's much faster and easier to boot from that instead of trying to find your Install disc, when you need to. I'd also recommend making a duplicate of that disk and keeping it in a secure off-site location.

Can I install Snow Leopard with an external disk drive?

I have been trying to update my software to Snow Leopard but I am using an external disk drive and when I try to install the software I get the message "The application 'Install Mac OS X' cannot be used from this volume". Is there any way to fix this problem?

Are you booting your computer from an external drive? If so please say why? How are you trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard? Do you have the 10.6.3 retail Snow Leopard DVD? On what drive are you trying to install Snow Leopard? Are you doing this?
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Install Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with installing OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. Then use Software Update to download and install any other needed updates for Snow Leopard.

Remove Mac OSX installation from external disk

Hello,
I installed an extra max osx installation on an external disk. So i can starup from my HD or my ext disk depending on my start up disk choice. Everything works fine. Unfortunately i installed it in a partition with a lot off backup files in it, instead of creating a new partition dedicated only to the OS. I was wondering if there is a clean way of removing this installation without completely formatting the ext.disk again, so that i don't loose my data.
Thanks

I hope you don't mind my jumping in. AFAIK, dumping the OS X files isn't a simple process because many of it's files and folders are hidden. It appears that the ext HD has more than one partition. If so, move your data to the other, then you can erase the partition, removing all of OS X's stuff. However, doing that looses your bootable backup. Details WRT to the HD, its size, number of partitions, how much used and free space, etc. should help to determine a strategy that saves the data and also provides for a bootable backup.

Complete Clone of External Disk?

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