Warning! Using SuperDuper to clone from an HDD to an SSD might seriously da

Question

Level 2

340 points

Warning! Using SuperDuper to clone from an HDD to an SSD might seriously da

WARNING! USING SUPERDUPER TO CLONE FROM AN HDD TO AN SSD MIGHT SERIOUSLY DAMAGE THE HEALTH OF YOUR SSD!

This is the new thread which I referred to when replying to:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2274972&start=0&tstart=0

I used SuperDuper to clone from a VelociRaptor 300GB HDD to an OCZ Agility EX SLC SSD, with disastrous results.

To save me the time of rewriting all the events please refer to the following emails and online submissions:

******************************************************************************** *********************

(Biltan-Wales - 21 Dec 2009 - 11.02 GMT):-

After reading several very favourable product reviews of the above SSD, I have just purchased one from Aria Technology Ltd., to use as a boot drive for my (early 2009) 8-Core 2.93GHz Intel Xeon Nehalem desktop workstation.

Also, prior to purchase of an OCZ SSD, I posted a question on Apple's Discussions' Forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2263023&tstart=0

From the response to this, and from reading several other threads regarding SSDs, I found that several Mac Pro owners are using OCZ SSDs as boot drives, and in some cases employing up to 3 of them.

I received my Agility EX from Aria on 16th. December, and yesterday afternoon I decided to set up my boot drive and 4 drive RAID 0, as described in: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2263023&tstart=0

First of all I used SuperDuper to clone from my VelociRaptor 300GB drive in Bay 1, to my original Apple (WD) 640GB drive in Bay 2.

Then I removed the original Apple drive, and installed it in an ONNTO dataTale TQ-M12H external single enclosure, using a Firewire 800 interface connection. Next I selected this as my boot drive to check it would boot OK, restarted my system, and there was no problem.

So my next step was to install the Agility EX, and another 3 VelociRaptor 300GB drives, in the Mac pro workstation.

First, I reselected VelociRaptor 1 as my boot drive, so that I could use SuperDuper to clone to the Agility EX.

The Agility EX was installed in the lower of the 2 optical bays, and was connected to the pre-wired SATA and power cable, and the VelociRaptors were placed in hard drive bays 2, 3, and 4.

I then started up the Mac Pro, and there were 4 message boxes on the desktop, requesting that the drives should be initialised. So then I used Disk Utility to initialise the 4 drives. The SSD was named "Agility EX Boot", and the others "VelociRaptor 2", VelociRaptor 3, and VelociRaptor 4". The Mac system accepted all 4, and mounted desk top icons for each drive. I cannot remember the exact figure, but the Agility EX was listed as approx. 64GB in Disk Utility after its initialisation. All 4 VelociRaptors are shown as 300.07GB. All drives were formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

The next stage was to use SuperDuper to clone from VelociRaptor 1 to the Agility EX Boot drive.

Everything was fine until 28.00GB had been copied, and then nothing more would copy. The total to be cloned was just under 30GB, which should not have been a problem with a SSD disk capacity of approx. 64GB, but everything was frozen at that point - exactly 28.00GB!

Eventually, my only option was to stop the process, and quit Super Duper.

Then I restarted the system to try again, but this is where there is a real problem now!

My system does not recognise the Agility EX at all now! Also, it is no longer listed in Disk Utility!

The system does not even acknowledge its existence! It is not even shown on the desktop at start-up, whereas I thought that perhaps there might have been another message box requesting that it should be reinitialised.

I tried disconnecting and reconnecting everything - all drives, interface connections, power cables etc., but to no avail!

This morning I tried this again, but still I cannot get my system to even acknowledge the Agility EX, let alone list it!

So at the moment I am still using VelociRaptor 1 as my boot drive, and, in fact, as my main drive, because I am reluctant to use it with the 3 other VelociRaptors as a 4 drive RAID 0 set up until I get this problem with the Agility EX resolved.

******************************************************************************** *********************

(OCZ - 22 Dec 2009 - 18.29 GMT):-

Cloning from a HDD to an SSD is very problematic. I strongly recommend against doing this. Instead you will want to just install normally onto the SSD. You can clone from SSD to SSD, or from HDD to HDD, but going from one to the other can cause issues.

Try disconnecting the drive from the computer for an hour or so. This will allow all power in the drive to fully discharge. This is a way of resetting the drive that can usually recover the drive. Then plug the drive back in. Does the drive show up again?

If so, delete the partition on the drive, then create a new partition and then install the OS onto it clean rather than clone the OS onto the drive. That should resolve the issues you are having.

******************************************************************************** *********************

(Biltan-Wales - 23 Dec 2009 - 16.19 GMT):-

Thank you for your advice.

I have now disconnected the Agility EX SSD, and removed it from my Mac Pro's lower optical bay.

As Christmas is imminent, and I will not be using my system very much over the next few days, I will leave the drive for 4 to 5 days to allow ample time for all the power to discharge.

Then I will reconnect it, and I will let you know whether or not the drive is recognised by my system.

I was not aware that cloning from a HDD to an SSD could be problematic. Several threads on the Apple Support Discussion Forum have recommended using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner for this purpose. SuperDuper is the preferred option of most Forum members, whereas Lloyd Chambers (diglloyd.com), author of "macperformanceguide.com", uses Carbon Copy Cloner to clone his HDD boot drives to his Intel and Crucial SSDs.

After the Agility EX had been set up as my system boot drive, my intention was to use SuperDuper to clone from it to my original Apple (WD) HDD, now in an external enclosure with Firewire 800 interface, and then use SuperDuper's Smart Update for regular backups, so that I always had an up to date spare boot drive for the OS and applications.

The current VelociRaptor 1 boot drive would then be erased, and I would then use the Mac OS Disk Utility to create a 4 drive software RAID ) with the other 3 VelociRaptors, and this would be backed up using Time Machine to my existing WD My Book Studio Edition II 2TB External Hard Drive.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood your advice, but are you saying that I should only use another SSD, and not my original Apple (WD) HDD, as my back-up external boot drive? I don't know of any other Mac users who are using SSDs for that purpose, possibly because of the prohibitive cost of doing so.

I am more than happy to follow your advice to reinstall the Mac OS and my applications cleanly onto the Agility EX, and, in fact, I did exactly that with my first VelociRaptor HDD, before I had SuperDuper. However, that would still leave me with the problem of how to set up and maintain an external back-up system boot drive, without incurring the expense of another SSD. Any suggestions please?

Anyway the most important matter is the existing problem, and I am hoping that following your advice will resolve this.

I will contact you again early next week. In the meantime have a very enjoyable Christmas!

******************************************************************************** *********************

(OCZ - 24 Dec 2009 - 00.25 GMT):-

If the image is of an HDD and that image is then cloned onto an SSD that does tend to be problematic. I do not recommend doing this, as an image of the HDD somewhat regularly does fail to copy onto an SSD and still remain functional or fast.

You can store the image file on any sort of drive. Storing the image file is fine, as that is just a digital file, so the storage medium doesn't matter. Its actually applying that image to a drive is where the problems often occur.

You can image from a HDD to a HDD just fine, or an SSD to an SSD just fine, but going from one to the other is problematic enough that I recommend not doing this. Sometimes it works just fine, but other times it can fail catastrophically to the point of even bricking the drive. To error on the side of caution I recommend just going a clean install on the new SSD.

Once you have that clean install done you can then take an image of that SSD and image on to other SSD's, or store the image on a HDD for backup purposes.

******************************************************************************** *********************

(Biltan-Wales - 29 Dec 2009 - 13.16 GMT)

Thank you for your last email.

Further to your previous email, and my reply of 23/12/2009. this morning I reconnected the Agility EX SSD.

However, unfortunately, the drive has not showed up again on my system. There is no icon for it on the desktop, nor is it listed in Disk utility.

When I checked Serial-ATAS in my Mac Pro's System Profiler, all 6 Intel ICH10 AHCI are listed in the Serial-ATA Device Tree, but, whereas all my other drives are sub-listed, there is nothing underneath the ICH10 AHCI for the lower optical bay.

As the drive has had 6 days to discharge and reset, it would appear that it has not recovered.

Where do I go from here?

******************************************************************************** *********************

I am still awaiting a reply from OCZ, but that is not surprising, because of the different time zones and the Christmas?New Year holiday period.

In the meantime does anybody else have any ideas, please?

8-Core 2.93Ghz Nehalem Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), 16GB/VR300/HD4870/SE II 2TB/NEC3090WQXi/Epson V750/Epson 3880

Posted on Dec 29, 2009 7:14 AM

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Answer 1

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 29, 2009 8:53 AM in response to Biltan-Wales

Hi Biltan,

I'm sorry for your experience. Especially so because I recommended Superduper to you. But there has got to be more here than meets the eye. I've used Superduper almost weekly and the few times it stopped copying a message came up telling me what the problem was. Once I fixed the problem, it worked fine. But are you saying that no message came up at all?
I owe no particular allegiance to Superduper other than it's worked perfectly for me since I've had it, but since it's effectively a program that only copies files from one place to another, wouldn't the same thing occur if you only dragged a very large file to another drive?
You initialized the drive, correct, and partitioned it to GUID first? I can't imagine what's going on, I've never heard of this happening before.
Luckily on the Superduper side of things the maker is a really nice guy who doesn't hesitate to answer questions. He answered one of mine on Christmas day itself. By all means contact him and see what he says. Maybe it's SD's fault, maybe not. I simply can't tell and as I've said I've seen no precedent for what's happened to you, but in this insane computer world of ours, who knows?

I'm sorry, did you say the disk doesn't even show in Disk Utility either? There's absolutely no sign that it's in your Mac? You've tried connecting to another port? I've heard of that happening before but I can't remember the explanations given for it, or even if the explanations would apply in your case.

Again, I'm sorry, this morning has been madness and I wasn't able to give much more than a brief scan of everything you wrote. I'll try again later when things die down. But at the risk of repeating what you've done already, have you tried resetting your PRAM, and if that doesn't do it, your SMC? (SMU? I forget now).

Well, this is truly bizarre and I'm sorry that a time of great joy you should be going through this. Well, in contacting the maker of SuperDuper and OCZ (which I hear has excellent customer service) I hope between the two you'll find a solution. Be prepared for a little finger pointing to the other, but right now, I would tend to believe that the SSD may be most to blame. I've gone back and forth on this for a long time, but the general consensus I've found is that software can't damage hardware.

Good luck my friend. If it does in fact turn out to be Superduper as the cause of this, you have my sincerest apologies in recommending it so highly to you. Please post back once you get this figured out.

One last thing, and I think you've answered it already. The system you were copying, that wasn't from a G5, right? It was the system you had already set up in your MP. That's a slim concern anyway I think.

Geez, one is flying along doing everything right, and something like this happens...

Edit: Ok, Sorry I brought up DU again, that I should have seen.

Message was edited by: Samsara

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Answer 2

thanon

Level 1

79 points

Dec 29, 2009 12:28 PM in response to Biltan-Wales

That's quite confusing indeed.

I've been using SuperDuper for many years, cloning back and forth between many different computers and harddrives, not a single hickup, let alone an issue.

Questions/suggestions ::

- OCZ stating SSDs can't/shouldn't be cloned to HDDs and vice versa . If that is true, SSDs simply can't be used as a boot drive. Unless one wants to spend the money to fit all his backup drives with SSD, which is nonsense.

- You did update SuperDuper to the latest version prior to using it under 10.6.x ?

- You did partition your SSD as GUID ?

- Maybe try the clone on your original 640GB to clone to the SSD.

- Did you try the SSD in a regular drive bay ? I know it's not plug&play ...

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Answer 3

fxdxt

Level 1

0 points

Dec 29, 2009 1:47 PM in response to Biltan-Wales

I use SD to clone back and forth on my Intel SSD and VelociRaptor 300GB.
SSD is my main boot drive and the VelociRaptor is my clone Boot 2 drive.
Never had a problem. Could be a OCZ issue.

Tom

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Answer 4

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 29, 2009 2:22 PM in response to thanon

Thanks, I didn't catch that before. Nonsense is the word for it

it can fail catastrophically to the point of even bricking the drive

How could that possibly be? Did I miss an explanation for why that might happen in their posts?
And this?

as an image of the HDD somewhat regularly does fail to copy onto an SSD and still remain functional or fast.

Regularly? And it hasn't happened to me once in all the months I've been doing it? Speed loss? I keep a close eye on that and I haven't noticed a thing. In fact the opposite, when my disk speeds start to lower re-cloning my drive over with SD gets my speeds back up to normal again.

And I guess this means that firewire drives aren't suitable for cloning from either? Or is he saying that cloning itself shouldn't be done?

I don't buy it. Perhaps had he given some reasoning to back him up I would.
"Bricking the drive", I can't get over that one... Anyone know of any other software that has or could do that? Is data somehow changed when it comes from a standard HD?

Nah, sounds very fishy. I'd exchange it or get my money back. It sounds like he's trying to point the finger away from his product instead of considering his product may be at fault.
Strike one on OCZ. Strike two if they don't make their Mac firmware updaters actually usable without having Windows, or a separate PC.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Dec 29, 2009 3:02 PM in response to Samsara

Cloning and imaging on Windows? or on Mac? very different animals.

And then you have which OS, which controller or motherboard and chipset, and a lot of other things I would list as "variables."

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Answer 6

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 29, 2009 3:22 PM in response to The hatter

Really, copying or duplicating files in Windows ends up with a different result than for Macs?
I can't tell if you think that what the Rep said is true, or if it's true only using Windows. Macs aren't OCZs specialty, that's for sure.

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Answer 7

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 29, 2009 3:29 PM in response to The hatter

Sorry to be ToT, but this came to me just now. I know I for one need a break and this makes me feel better for some reason. Hope it's not out of line to post this like this. Forgive me if is, Beltan.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704039704574616401913653862.html?m od=rssopinionmain

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Dec 29, 2009 4:45 PM in response to Samsara

There are some good discussions over on Mac Pro section of MacRumors like this one on "Secure Erase SSD"

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?&t=841182

I don't let SD erase before cloning, but I think there could be an option to do so... no? Maybe look at options and settings. The thread link mentions differences in methods for erasing that might matter.

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Answer 9

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 29, 2009 5:42 PM in response to The hatter

There are some good discussions over on Mac Pro section of MacRumors

Hard to believe, but then it doesn't seem long until the Discussions become yelp versus help too.

What are you trying to say in regard to Biltan's issues?

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Answer 10

Biltan-Wales Author

Level 2

340 points

Dec 30, 2009 2:42 AM in response to Samsara

Hi Samsara, thanon, fxdxt(Tom), and The Hatter

Wow! What a lot of posts since I logged out yesterday. The 8 hours time difference, and other circumstances, mean that I am rarely online at the same time as most of you guys.

I have already been to Swansea and back (40 miles round trip) early this morning, and I have to go out again shortly, and I won't be back for several hours. So I hope to log in again in about 7 to 8 hours time.

No reply from OCZ yet, but perhaps their Help Desk wasn't manned yesterday.

These are brief replies to points raised in your posts (apologies if I have missed any):

(1) I had no pre-warning message from SuperDuper. Everything just froze at this point:

1. PREPARE TO COPY FILES
Prepared VelociRaptor 1
Erased Agility EX Boot
Prepared Agility EX Boot
Preserved Spotlight state on Agility EX Boot
2. COPY FILES
Copying files from VelociRaptor 1 to Agility EX Boot
488,055 of 522,741 files evaluated, 478,457 files copied. Effective copy speed 28.37 MB/s
28.30 GB evaluated, 0.00 MB already up to date, 28.00 GB copied

I did not get as far as this point:

3. AFTER SUCCESSFUL COPY
Make Agility EX Boot bootable
Update prebinding on Agility EX Boot
Restore Spotlight state on Agility EX Boot

Eventually, and we are talking a long time after everything froze, I had no option but to force quit
SuperDuper. A warning message did flash up then. I cannot remember exactly what it said, but it
was in the vein that the drives might be affected if the program was quit. However, under the
circumstances I had no alternative!

(2) Before I attempted the clone, there was an Agility EX Boot icon on the desktop, and it was listed
in Disk Utility.

Since I had to force quit the cloning process, I have been unable to get my system to even
acknowledge the Agility EX SSD's existence.

(3) The cloning was from a VelociRaptor in bay 1 to the Agility EX in the lower optical drive bay of
my 8-Core 2.93Ghz Nehalem Mac Pro - Mac OS X (10.6.2)

(4) I purchased the latest edition of SuperDuper on 3rd. December 2009 from Shirt Pocket, so that I
could clone to a new system boot drive.

Prior to then, I had done a clean install of the Mac OS and my applications onto the VelociRaptor,
and the original Mac (WD) drive was left as it was until I cloned to it from the VelociRaptor with
SuperDuper.

(5) The Agility EX and the 3 new VelociRaptors were all formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) at
the same time (well, consecutively anyway).

(6) I cannot "try the clone on my original 640GB to clone to the SSD", because my system has not
even acknowledged the Agility EX SSD's existence since the failed attempt at cloning from the
VelociRaptor.

(7) The SSD was installed in the lower optical drive bay, which has a pre-wired connection.

(8) Being a "Mac diehard" of 20 years standing, I do not use Windows at all. All my applications are
for Apple Macs. So there are no inter-platform issues.

(9) Although the VelociRaptor drive was not affected by my forced quit from SuperDuper, I did have
problems several days later when I cloned from it to the original Mac (WD) drive. See:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2274972&start=15&tstart=0

Anyway, I must log off now, because I am running late!

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Answer 11

thanon

Level 1

79 points

Dec 30, 2009 3:29 AM in response to Biltan-Wales

So the SSD is not visible, not even in disk utility, even after a restart ?

A non-expert's suggestions:

Check the log of SuperDuper (Window-Show Log); warnings are in red, I think.

Maybe turn the MP off, pull the power cord and disconnect all external devices but keyboard and mouse, disconnct the SSD, reconnect and start MP.

If you get back the SSD in disk utility, make sure you partition it using GUID !
Then reformat as usual .

Repair permissions on both the target (SSD) and source (Veloc. 1) drives, run the updater within SuperDuper, just to be safe, and clone again from your Velociraptor, same settings in SD as used before.

Cloning 30GB internally should take about max. 30-40 minutes, just a guess.
It's normal for the cloning to slow down at some point.

Also, make sure no programs are running during cloning, and leave the computer alone.

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Answer 12

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 30, 2009 7:49 AM in response to Biltan-Wales

So you made it as far as, "After Successful Copy". That stage only lasts a very short time, less than a minute I think, and then everything turns Green. At which point you wait a few seconds more, hit the "Done" button, and quit the program. I guess it never turned green?

The only thing I haven't heard that you did was when you first installed the drive, under the Partition tab in DU you didn't select one partition as your choice (for example), which would have enabled the "Options" button at the bottom where you should have checked GUID.
If you didn't do so, that could be the problem right there.
Post back whether you did that or not.

As for getting your Mac to see the drive again... I seem to recall this being talked about but I can't find anything about it now. One thing I can think of is to put it into another machine and see if it shows up there.
I thought I heard that if a disks directory is so messed up it may not be seen by the Mac, but I'm not sure about that.
Do you have DiskWarrior? That would be something good to try now. Not only does it fix directories, but it lists what drives are in your Mac as well.

Another thing you could do is start up from your OS DVD and use Disk Utility from there, or even to see if it's listed there then.

Next, page 89 of this document is the only thing left I can think of. It's about using the Hardware Test.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Mac_Pro_Early2009_4707UG.pdf

I think it's possible something went wrong somewhere in the process that casts the blame away from both SD and OCZ.
I still think the OCZ Tech Rep isn't sure what he's talking about. He may think SD is acting like some de-fragging app and that they do definitely advise not to use. I have to wonder though what he would think about having Time Machine on a standard disk as a back up for an SSD. If he advises against that too, then Thanon is absolutely right, who would want an SSD as a boot disk if you couldn't protect the data on it. Unlike Thanon though, and I may have missed it (probably did), I didn't hear the Rep say you could even clone to an SSD either.

I'mm going to write to the maker of Superduper today and see what he has to say about all this. SSDs aren't so new that he wouldn't have heard of any trouble.

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Answer 13

Biltan-Wales Author

Level 2

340 points

Dec 30, 2009 8:47 AM in response to thanon

Reply

Answer 14

Biltan-Wales Author

Level 2

340 points

Dec 30, 2009 9:35 AM in response to Samsara

Hi Samsara,

"So you made it as far as, "After Successful Copy". ":-

No:-

"2. COPY FILES
Copying files from VelociRaptor 1 to Agility EX Boot
488,055 of 522,741 files evaluated, 478,457 files copied. Effective copy speed 28.37 MB/s
28.30 GB evaluated, 0.00 MB already up to date, 28.00 GB copied"

(1) Only 488,055 of 522,741 files were evaluated

(2) Only 478,457 of those 488,055 files were copied

(3) Only 28.30 GB was evaluated

(4) Only 28.00 GB of that 28.30 GB was copied

AT THAT POINT EVERYTHING STOPPED!

******************************************************************************** *********************

"The only thing I haven't heard that you did was when you first installed the drive, under the Partition tab in DU you didn't select one partition as your choice (for example), which would have enabled the "Options" button at the bottom where you should have checked GUID.
If you didn't do so, that could be the problem right there.
Post back whether you did that or not.":-

Obviously I cannot check the Agility EX in Disk Utility, because my system will not acknowledge its existence now, but it was formatted at the same time as the 3 new VelociRaptors, and they are all formatted correctly.

******************************************************************************** *********************

"Do you have DiskWarrior? That would be something good to try now. Not only does it fix directories, but it lists what drives are in your Mac as well.":-

No.

However, I have TechTool Pro 5, and it was not listed in there. It probably was before the failed cloning attempt, because it was listed in Disk Utility at that time, but I had no cause to check it in TechTool Pro 5 then. All my other drives are.

I removed the Agility EX SSD from the lower optical drive bay yesterday, after my system refused to acknowledge it, and I won't reconnect it until after I hear what OCZ's Help Desk has to say about the matter.

******************************************************************************** *********************

Apart from the failure to clone to the Agility EX, there is also the side issue of the problems I encountered after I used Smart Update last thing before I shut down my Mac Pro on Christmas Day:-

"The reason that I have not joined this thread sooner was that I was unable either to download emails or to access the internet on 26th. & 27th. December.

Everything was hunky dory on Christmas Day, when I spent a lot of time browsing websites for upcoming sales bargains.

The very last thing I did on Christmas Day was to use SuperDuper Smart Update to clone from my VelociRaptor 1 to my original Mac (WD) HDD, which is now in an external enclosure.

Up bright and early next day (well before 7.00am anyway) I then found that I was completely without internet access and emails. Top sites would just display blank pages when clicked, and google searches did likewise. Emails would start to download, and then "give up the ghost'! Although I did succeed in downloading just one yesterday morning!

Having spent several hours on telephone discussions with British Telecom's Technical Support, and trying a different router, even though the connections had tested OK, (I use ethernet by the way - not wireless), the situation remained the same.

In addition every operation was much slower, and I had lots of silly little problems which I don't normally experience - such as applications being slow or reluctant to launch, and having to force quit iPhoto and some others. The results were the same with both drives, which is hardly unsurprising, because one was an up to date clone of the other!

Prior to that Smart Update on 25th. December, I had encountered no problems with either drive.

Perhaps I would have been better off with Carbon Copy Cloner? That is what Lloyd Chambers, author of Mac Performance Guide, uses and recommends.

So yesterday I used TechTool Pro 5 (possibly my most indispensable and reliable purchase) to check the whole system, and I left to do its magic overnight.

Hey presto!

At 6.00am this morning everything was back to normal.

Thank heavens for TechTool Pro 5!

All I need now to make my day, is for my OCZ Agility EX SSD to have reset and recovered!

Full details of whether or not my day is made to follow on a new thread!"

******************************************************************************** ********************

Today I received my subscriber's copy of MacFormat's February 2010 issue, and it includes a Group Test of 8 Solid State Drives.

Bearing in mind OCZ's comments, I found the following extracts very interesting:-

(1) "You can swap the hard disk from a MacBook or MacBook Pro for a solid-state drive, so if you
decide to buy one, YOU CAN CLONE YOUR DISK TO THE NEW SSD AND POP IT IN."

(2) "Sadly, while many of the drives here include software to help you clone your hard disk to your
new SSD, none work on the Mac. It's no great loss, however; savvy Mac users will already be
familiar with excellent tools such as SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner - on your cover disc -
that will do the job easily. Both are free too, though you can pay to unlock more features or
make a donation, respectively."

I will email MacFormat tomorrow morning with details of my problem, and see what they have to say about OCZ's comments, which are contrary to their recommendations>

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Answer 15

Samsara

Level 4

1,321 points

Dec 30, 2009 11:03 AM in response to Biltan-Wales

"So you made it as far as, "After Successful Copy". ":-
No:-

Oh, ok, you said, "I did not get as far as this point:".
You saw this on the bottom of the window then?

3. AFTER SUCCESSFUL COPY
Make Agility EX Boot bootable
Update prebinding on Agility EX Boot
Restore Spotlight state on Agility EX Boot

Wait, where does this fit in then?

After I had checked that the Mac HDD had been cloned successfully

This is puzzling from the log.

11:44:53 AM | Info | Copy complete.

So, I'm sorry for being dense, but does that mean then that Superduper worked at least once. And it was then doing a smart update that screwed things up?
Or no, even when saying it was complete, that's when it hung and your drive disappeared?
I'm getting lost in the length of your posts.

Obviously I cannot check the Agility EX in Disk Utility, because my system will not acknowledge its existence now, but it was formatted at the same time as the 3 new VelociRaptors, and they are all formatted correctly

Obviously... so lets stop playing around. Do you remember partitioning the drive GUID or not?

TTP5 is a good tool and can repair directories, so that hasn't worked either. Well, I listed other options, the Apple Hardware Test for one. You're not going to try any of those?

I just received a reply from Dave Nanian, the maker of Superduper, and I would say that the consensus here is that we agree with him.

Hi, Steve. That OCZ guy has no idea what s/he's talking about. SuperDuper! simply copies files to the drive. There is NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that SD's actions could be the actual reason the drive failed.
Rather, the drive itself failed because it's defective, and it failed under load. Frankly, it's good it failed now as opposed to when he started using it.
The OCZ guy is clearly thinking of a low-level, sector-by-sector 'cloning tool', which is not what we are. We copy at a high level, file by file. Reading and writing files with standard OS X calls is all we do. If the drive can't handle that, it's a bad/defective drive!
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Dave Nanian
Shirt Pocket

Biltan, you've put Superdupers name up in a bad light in several posts. You're going to have to go back and amend those now. It's only fair.

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