Copying the system/boot disk to another disk ?

I am about to change my system disk on my 10.4/tiger Mac. I'll plug the
new disk in and copy the old disk to the new disk, then unplug the old disk.

On the old MacOs, once simply needed to drag one disk over the other
disk. No need to worry about permissions, locked files etc.

I tried to look at the apple web site for support/tech letters, but
didn't find anything obvious (tons of results, mostly about installing a
new version of OS-x).

Anyone have any quick tips on how to proceed with copying an existing
system disk (with user files on it) to a virgin disk ?

(or how should I have made queries to have found that information ?)

JF Mezei <> writes:

> I am about to change my system disk on my 10.4/tiger Mac. I'll plug the
> new disk in and copy the old disk to the new disk, then unplug the old disk.
>
> On the old MacOs, once simply needed to drag one disk over the other
> disk. No need to worry about permissions, locked files etc.

Actually, Apple Software Restore produced a better (more accurate, closer
to the original) copy.

It's still an excellect tool, but it no longer has a GUI. You can open
a terminal session and man asr for details.

If you want a GUI tool, get this -

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html

It's free when run in the full disk copy mode.

Why do I make these particular recommendations? Here's a report about
how various backup utilities handle various things, including ACLs -

http://inik.net/node/151

And, since it's almost a year old, here's a tool you can use to run
your own tests on whatever you'd like, today -

http://www.n8gray.org/blog/2007/04/2...ackup-bouncer/

Billy Y..

In article <fssg6e$qj3$>, <> wrote:

> > I am about to change my system disk on my 10.4/tiger Mac. I'll plug the
> > new disk in and copy the old disk to the new disk, then unplug the old disk.
> >
> > On the old MacOs, once simply needed to drag one disk over the other
> > disk. No need to worry about permissions, locked files etc.
>
> Actually, Apple Software Restore produced a better (more accurate, closer
> to the original) copy.

actually, he's referring to os 9 and earlier where a simple drag was
sufficient to copy the entire drive. apple software restore did not
exist.

> It's still an excellect tool, but it no longer has a GUI. You can open
> a terminal session and man asr for details.

it most certainly does have a gui. it can be found in disk utility in
the restore tab.

> If you want a GUI tool, get this -
>
> http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html

excellent suggestion.

nospam <> writes:

> actually, he's referring to os 9 and earlier where a simple drag was
> sufficient to copy the entire drive. apple software restore did not
> exist.

It did for OS 9, and I used it to backup then for two reasons. It is
lightning fast, and it correctly copied various anchored files some of
my apps used for authentication. It was also the only tool on the
planet in the beginning of OS X that backed everything up properly
when it was mixed in with OS 9 on the same disk partition. This is
because ASR, given similar disks, copies blocks instead of files.

Billy Y..

In article <47f1c1a6$0$23883$>,
JF Mezei <> wrote:

> I am about to change my system disk on my 10.4/tiger Mac. I'll plug the
> new disk in and copy the old disk to the new disk, then unplug the old disk.
>
> On the old MacOs, once simply needed to drag one disk over the other
> disk. No need to worry about permissions, locked files etc.
>
> I tried to look at the apple web site for support/tech letters, but
> didn't find anything obvious (tons of results, mostly about installing a
> new version of OS-x).
>
> Anyone have any quick tips on how to proceed with copying an existing
> system disk (with user files on it) to a virgin disk ?
>
> (or how should I have made queries to have found that information ?)

SuperDuper! The Free mode will do a full clone of your hard
drive. You only need to pay the shareware fee if you want to
added features. Such as incrementally updating the clone.

SuperDuper has a very easy to use interface.

Bob Harris

nospam wrote:

> it most certainly does have a gui. it can be found in disk utility in
> the restore tab.

Thanks. I had not wondered to that tab before. It does allow a disk to
be compied to another.

It *seems* to have worked, as I am now running on the new disk. Haven,t
spent time to make sure it preserved all filw ownership etc.


I asked it to "erase" the target disk. Is that the equivalent of a low
level format ? (the time it took to gopy a mere 15 gigs seemed quite long)

Also, out of curiosity, I haven't dabbed in IDE disks much. It is normal
that a disk advertised ast 160 gisg turns out as 127.9 gigs on OS-X ?

In article <47f2f5cd$0$23887$>, JF Mezei
<> wrote:

> I asked it to "erase" the target disk. Is that the equivalent of a low
> level format ? (the time it took to gopy a mere 15 gigs seemed quite long)

low level formatting is what is done at the factory. it can't be done
by end users. what people generally mean by 'low level format' is
write zeroes to every block. that takes a *long* time (and is rarely
needed). a normal format shouldn't take very long.

> Also, out of curiosity, I haven't dabbed in IDE disks much. It is normal
> that a disk advertised ast 160 gisg turns out as 127.9 gigs on OS-X ?

that sounds like the ata/ide bus on your computer does not support
lba48, otherwise known as large disk support. what mac is it?

if so, the solution is to get an ata6 ide card (if the computer has pci
slots) or an external firewire enclosure that supports large drives
(just about anything these days).

usb also works, but if the mac is old enough to lack lba48 support, it
is a powerpc mac and therefore can't boot off usb (not easily, anyway).
usb is also a lot slower.

nospam <> writes:

> low level formatting is what is done at the factory. it can't be done
> by end users. what people generally mean by 'low level format' is
> write zeroes to every block. that takes a *long* time (and is rarely
> needed).

There is an options button somewhere in the erase process which produces
a menu from which writing zeros can be selected. The default is no zeros.

Billy Y..

nospam wrote:

> low level formatting is what is done at the factory. it can't be done
> by end users. what people generally mean by 'low level format' is
> write zeroes to every block. that takes a *long* time (and is rarely
> needed). a normal format shouldn't take very long.

In the case of SCSI drives, low level format can be done by sending the
right SCSI command to the drive. The advantage of doing this is that it
odentifies and revectors bad blocks for older drives. Also ensures you
get a proper "empty" drive.

When you "format" a drive on a Mac to give it a name, you are merely
initialising it by writing HFS structures in the right blocks.



> that sounds like the ata/ide bus on your computer does not support
> lba48, otherwise known as large disk support. what mac is it?

Ahhh ! I hadn't thought of that. I guess I should have expected such
restrictions from IDE which dates back from PCs having only 640k pf
memory :-) :-)

This is a G3 computer circa 1999. If it only sees 128 gigs, does this
mean that I can safely use 128 gigs without having to worry about any
data overwriting other data ? Or is data integrity compromised once I
fill enough of the drive ?


> if so, the solution is to get an ata6 ide card

The solution is to get a more modern Mac. But this one will likely
remain in use as a sidekick for some time because I still have a lot of
old applications. Since the next Mac will be 8086 based, and since 10.5
has dropped support for Classic, this curent one will be my "legacy" box.

In article <47f302b2$0$6415$>, JF Mezei
<> wrote:

> In the case of SCSI drives, low level format can be done by sending the
> right SCSI command to the drive. The advantage of doing this is that it
> odentifies and revectors bad blocks for older drives. Also ensures you
> get a proper "empty" drive.

bad block remapping is done automatically on ide drives merely by
writing to the block. zeroing it will hit all blocks and remap any if
necessary, but so would writing to the block when it came time to write
a file.

> This is a G3 computer circa 1999. If it only sees 128 gigs, does this
> mean that I can safely use 128 gigs without having to worry about any
> data overwriting other data ? Or is data integrity compromised once I
> fill enough of the drive ?

you can use it as a 128 gig drive.

> > if so, the solution is to get an ata6 ide card
>
> The solution is to get a more modern Mac.

true, but a usb or firewire enclosure are not expensive.

> But this one will likely
> remain in use as a sidekick for some time because I still have a lot of
> old applications. Since the next Mac will be 8086 based, and since 10.5
> has dropped support for Classic, this curent one will be my "legacy" box.

8086? i heard apple is switching to the z80 instead.