Carbon Copy Cloner Question

Hello! I've never used the disk image myself because you'll have to get an OS booted up to the desktop before you could use the image to restore from. Stick with a known good bootable backup solution for the day you really need it. Tom

Bob:

I'm with Tom. You need a bootable volume to be able to access the .sparseimage. For archiving you can create a read only compressed .dmg on a bootable volume. It will take a lot less space. However, a sparseimage does not offer that advantage.

Cheers 🙂

cornelius

Hello Again! They were probably referring to booting from the install disc and restore the image from there. The problem with this advice is that sometimes a cd/dvd player fails to read a disc properly and if that happens when you're trying to restore you're sunk...and sunk for a reinstall too! They could have also used the firewire target disk mode method. Tom

Message was edited by: Thomas Bryant

Bob:

Is there an advantage to creating a read-only compressed .dmg on a bootable volume over my creating a clone of my external HD, and periodically syncing my HD to that clone?
No. I suggested the .dmg by way of archiving. Creating a bootable clone and doing regular sychronizations (CCC) or SmartUpdates (SD) is the way to go. The advantage of the compressed .dmg would come in when, for example, you are doing an emergency backup using FW-TDM on another Mac and you want to conserve space on the HDD. You can then archive your backup using a compressed read only .dmg without hogging all the available space. You could probably think of other applications as well. However, the way you do it is what I do myself and what I recommend, that is backing up/cloning to an external HDD making a bootable clone, and making regular cumulative updates.

Cheers 🙂

Bob:

One of the things I intended to say with regard to the .dmg procedure is that it works better when backing up to a drive on which there is already an OS installed and data present. A straight clone would either erase the volume and then clone, or in CCC is you chose to not erase in Preferences, everything will be there together on the same volume all intermingled. With a .dmg it does not erase, and does not interfere with anything on the volume, which comes in handy if you are just "borrowing" space on another computer. You can then delete the .dmg when you are done restoring your stuff. Incidentally, you can do the same with a sparseimage, but that takes up a lot more space on the HDD.

Cheers 🙂

cornelius

PS: Thanks for leaving feedback in Apple Discussions by marking the "helpful" and "solved" posts. You are very generous.

Bob:

I use a registered version of SuperDuper in which I have used the feature of a read only compressed .dmg. I knew that CCC offered the option of a disk image. I had only the latest version on my computer, downloaded the earlier version for Panther and found no mention of a compressed .dmg. I read through the documentation in the Help menu and found no mention there, either. I may have missed something in my quick read, but I don't think it is offered. As far as I can tell, the offer only an expandable sparseimage. Nor am I sure if the unregistered version of SD offers the feature of a compressed read only .dmg as the registered version does. I suggest that you download it and try. You may also want to post a question in CCC Discussions Forum and see what you find out. Sorry about that 😟

Please let me know what you find out, especially if you download SD and check the unregistered version.

Good luck.

cornelius

Bob:

I'll wait to hear from you.

Cheers 🙂

cornelius

PS: Alaska? Wow! I thought Wisconsin was cold; I am in Northern Ontario in Canada, and it's really winter here. Going back to Wisconsin will be going back south 🙂

Bob:

After two weeks in Sudbury, ON, being in Bermuda shorts weather will be more than welcome.

Cheers 🙂

cornelius