GUID for backup?

Thanks Kappy,

Clear answer tells me what I need to know.

I foolishly never checked one of the backups I set up ages ago for the MBP - it may very well be on an APM and so it won't be bootable as you say. I will redo it ASAP.

Mrs H

Király, thanks for this info,

My iBook runs 10.4.11 so I should be able to access the data I put on the GUID HD.

Mrs H

Kappy,

Just to be clear - since suddenly, as I rethink this, I'm muddled.

About a year ago I asked a slightly similar question but for different computers (my G4 and the Intel MBP). At that time I was told by others on the forum to use APM and the drive could be bootable for both the G4 and the MBP.

My situation has changed since the G4 is out of the picture.

But, what about the old info I was given - it's wrong? APM won't boot the Intel Macs is what I understand you to be saying, right?

Mrs H

PS I found this in another answer to another poster's question - it is basically what I was told elsewhere, I just can't find it quickly and my 15 min edit time is almost gone...

“Note that you can boot an Intel Mac from a drive using the Apple Partition Map. What you can't do is install onto it, for which GUID is needed”

Király wrote:

Intel Macs can actually boot from APM partitioned drives. But the trick is getting a bootable Intel system onto an APM partitioned drive. The Intel OS X installer checks to see that a drive is GUID partitioned, and if it isn't, it will refuse to install OS X on that drive.

What you can do is install an Intel OS X onto a GUID partitioned drive, and then use a cloning utility (SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner, Disk Utility et al) to clone the entire volume from the GUID drive to a volume on an APM partitioned drive. The Intel Mac can then boot from that.

OK - I'm back to being very confused 😕 😕 after I thought I understood what I did in the past was right.

I am not installing OS X onto the HD - just making a SuperDuper copy of an existing install on my MBP.

Trying to find what I remember reading in the past and searching for other similar replies elsewhere, I found this from Kappy:

"You can clone an existing Intel installation of OS X to an APM partitioned drive, and it will boot an Intel Mac. However, you cannot install the Intel version of OS X onto an APM partitioned drive."

So - am I correct in thinking that what I did will be bootable? - one of my external HDs is partitioned using APM onto one partition I made a SuperDuper copy of my MackBook Pro (Intel) and saw that "make copy bootable" is checked off at the end of the SmartUpdate sequence.

Is this procedure giving me a bootable copy for my Intel MBP?

Otherwise, I'll redo the backup and put the backup of the iBook on a different drive - more work, but necessary if what I have is no good.

Thanks, and sorry for being so dense here,

Mrs H

noondaywitch wrote:

Ideally, use GUID. But if you've already made a clone, connect it to the MBP and restart with the alt (option or ⌥) key held down until the startup manager appears. It should show both drives.

Select the external, click the arrow to continue, and see if it boots. If it doesn't show or doesn't boot you'll need to repartition as GUID....

Now, why didn't I figure out on my own that I should just test the thing???

How do I get out of the test once I see (fingers crossed) it works?

Hopefully it will boot. I can't get to the MBP to do the test till tomorrow when I can pry the MBP away from Mr H.

I am about to do a new iteration of backups for our various Macs since the new iMac is now in the mix and I'm just hoping this old APM backup of the MBP won't have to be redone. I have a new HD to share with the MBP and iMac and need to partition it depending on what I decide to do with Tiger...

Thanks for suggesting what I should have tried all along! 🙂

Mrs H

Easy test - it shows up in the list of Startup Disks.

I should have thought of this - I've used this method to test bootables before.

Thanks for all your help,

Mrs H

PS A related curiosity: Do you reformat your USB thumb drives as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or just leave them as they are if they work? I've done it both ways.

Thanks for the speedy reply.

I never used to bother with this, but I think before we start reusing the drives on our next trip, I'll reformat them as you say. A big problem now is getting them connected to our new iMac https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3259045

I have one Sandisk drive that all of a sudden wouldn't mount when we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere in India. Good thing we had 2 others with us and kept dup copies of all writing.

I can see it in system profiler and in disk utility but not on desktop nor in finder on any of 3 Macs. In DU I was able to select it and verify and repair. But still nothing.

I'm going to try to reformat it and see what happens - whatever data is on it was duped on the other 2 anyway. I wonder if Mr H didn't eject it properly but he swears he did do it right. Can it be it just died?

Thanks,

Mrs H

noondaywitch wrote:

Macs can be a bit finicky with thumb drives, but I've had no problems with Sandisk... I'd expect to see the warning dialogue when reconnecting it, but it depends what Finder was doing when it was removed.

No warning, it just doesn't show up.

I have several newer Sandisk thumb drives with the annoying U3 app on them useful only for windows I think.

When you've reformated your Sandisks with DU, does U3 go away if you repartition and zero-out the drive? I saw that Sandisk offers a removal of U3 utility for Macs but it got very mixed reviews.

Thanks,

Mrs H

And trouble now is I can't get the drives to connect to the iMac - have to call AppleCare about that.