Hi Everybody

I'm after some help if possible - please.

I've been working my way through the DAM Book and the dpBestflow.org website which is extremely useful - especially the videos. I'm sure you'll agree, it's alot to take on board !

I'm now attempting to implement some of those procedures and getting 'bogged down' where settings within ChronoSync v.4.3.4 are concerned.

As you will no doubt appreciate, I really want to get this right, otherwise I might just mess things up completely, which isn't what I want to do.

I want to use ChronoSync as outlined in the book and on the web for:

Daily Backups / Archiving / Transfer to Work Station etc

Vol to Vol > Folder
Vol to Vol
Folder > Vol to Vol
Folder to Folder
.... that type of thing - verified of course.

However, some of the terminologies within CS settings are truly beyond me and that's where I need some help !
If anybody can help with the following it would be greatly appreciated. I hope I've supplied enough information regarding this request.


What settings should I use in:
SETUP:
'Target > Connect to':
Local Volumes or Local Volumes (Admin access)



What settings should I 'check or uncheck' in:
OPTIONS:

'Reporting & Error Handling':
Automatic retry before handling errors
Display summary after syncronization completes
Post more detailed information to the log
Ignore extended attribute and access control list errors


'Special File / Folder Handling':
Verify copied data      
Ignore invisibles
Don't create empty folders

Dissect packages
Disable safe-copy
Resolve aliases

Preserve comments
Preserve access control lists
Preserve extended attributes


It's all very baffling, more so when you start reading CS help. Give me shutter speeds and f/stops any day !

Many thanks for your help and time.

Paul

Hi Bob

Many thanks for your help.

Sorry for the time delay here - I thought I'd thanked you around the time of my question.

All the best

Paul

Dear All

I would be interested to hear your views and experiences about the testing out of Bootable Backups / Clones that have been made of a computers main internal hard drive.

I was interested to read on the Chronosync website regarding 'Creating a Bootable Backup' that they say to boot up from the Bootable Backup to test it out but not to run any applications.

http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_tips14.html

Quote:
"5. Give it the boot
After the backup runs, test it out. Restart the Mac and hold down the Option key. When a list of drives appears, choose the new bootable. Your system may run slightly slower since it is not running directly off the internal drive. Check it out but don't actually run any applications. When finished switch back to the internal drive. You can also switch drives in System Preferences under "Startup Disk"."

Clearly this allows you to see if your Mac will start up or not from the Bootable Backup just made which is fine.
However, if you wanted to check that applications were working alright or not how would you find out without opening them ?

Does this same apply to Bootable Backups made by SuperDuper or CCC ?

If anybody can shed any light on this I would be interested to hear from you.

Many thanks

Paul

Peter

Once again thanks for your thoughts on that Peter.

As it happens, I have over the last couple of months made bootable clones of my other older Macs: G3 iBook, G4 APG Tower and my MacBook Pro. From memory all of those also had a ' Root creation date ' problem too !

Have you ever had this ' Root creation date ' alert  show up ?

If you happen to hear anything else ' on the grape vine ' about this it would be good to hear from you.

Anyhow, thanks again Peter for all your help.

If anybody else has experienced this problem it would be good to hear from you too.

Many thanks

Paul

Peter

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, let me apologize for the appalling English !

I could hardly comprehend the ' On my Mac .... ' section myself !

Anyhow, lets see if I can do a better job at explaining things this time.


The bottom line with DW is that it comes up with just the one alert currently after a bootable clone is made or updated when using SD! or CCC. The following shows DW reports, 1 and 2 - before repair and 3 - after repair, for the clone.

1. DW Report (General Full View) before repair:

DiskWarrior has successfully built a new optimized directory for the disk named "G5 HD B." The new directory is ready
to replace the original directory.

All file and folder data was easily located.

Comparison of the original and replacement directories indicates that there will be changes to the number, the
contents and/or the attributes of the files and folders. It is recommended that you preview the replacement
directory and examine the items listed below. All files and folders were compared and a total of 11,850,784
comparison tests were performed.

• Errors, if any, in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node
links, indexes and more have been repaired.

• The Root creation date was repaired.

Disk Information:

Files: 442,497
Folders: 106,865
Free Space: 117.19 GB
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Block Size: 4 K
Disk Sectors: 273,089,936
Media: WiebeTech

Time: 1/7/09 18:16:16
DiskWarrior Version: 4.1.1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. DW Report (Detailed Edited View) before repair:

• Errors, if any, in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node
links, indexes and more have been repaired.

Disk: "G5 HD B"
Repaired the Root creation date
Location: "Desktop"

Explanations:

Root: This is the top level of a disk hierarchy. The root has increased significance for Mac OS X disks.

Disk Information:

Files: 442,497
Folders: 106,865
Free Space: 117.19 GB
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Block Size: 4 K
Disk Sectors: 273,089,936
Media: WiebeTech

Time: 1/7/09 18:17:12
DiskWarrior Version: 4.1.1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. DW Report (General Edited View) after repair:

• Errors, if any, in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node
links, indexes and more have been repaired.

• The Root creation date was repaired.

Disk Information:

Files: 442,497
Folders: 106,865
Free Space: 117.19 GB
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Block Size: 4 K
Disk Sectors: 273,089,936
Media: WiebeTech

Time: 1/7/09 18:17:41
DiskWarrior Version: 4.1.1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will see an alert in report No. 2: ' Repaired the Root creation date ' and ' Location: Desktop '.
Below that is: ' Explanations ' highlights the following: ' Root: This is the top level of a disk hierarchy. The root has increased significance for Mac OS X disks.'
I don't fully understand the meaning of this and whether it relates to any specific files or programs as such. Unfortunately, I don't know DW well enough at this moment in time to be sure. Perhaps with your great knowledge you can identify the problem here.

Have you ever had the ' Repaired the Root creation date ' show up in DW  after having made a clone ?
It may be a completely normal and expected thing to happen when cloning. I just don't know at this point in time.
I have read alot about this problem on a variety of forums and there is plenty of good information out there, but as yet I haven't managed to find a real definitive answer. Also, some of the support replies I had back, didn't give me the assurances that I was really hoping for. If you can shed any light on this that would be great.

As for the clone, yes I can startup from it without any problems and apps seem to open alright as well. Generally running fine.

Onto the ' Get Info, Created and Modified ' dates I mentioned. I found that the new ' Source ' - ' G5 HD ' - contained in my PPC G5 had a ' Created ' date of 06-16-09, which is when the OS was installed from the Mac DVD and a ' Modified ' date of 06-22-09 which is when I updated OSX from v. 10.5.6 to 10.5.7. Am I right in thinking that modification dates will only change when ' System ' updates happen, as opposed to files being added to that HD ?
When DW was run over the ' Source ', no problems were found.

However, the clone - ' G5 HD B ' had the following: ' Created ' date, 06-16-09, ' Modified ' date 06-22-09 - exactly the same as the ' Source ', before any DW repair took place. This I guess is where the problems with the ' Root creation date ' is occurring.
Once DW had repaired the clone it had the following: ' Created ' date, 06-30-09 - the actual date the clone was created. The ' Modified ' date 06-22-09 remained the same until I booted from it. Then the ' Modified ' date changed to the correct date - in this case 07-01-09.
Does that sound about right ?

By the way earlier in the year my PowerMac G5 had to have the Logic Board replaced. Before it went off I inserted an additional HD in the G5s second HD bay, formatted and partitioned it and then cloned it with SD! and now looking back at that having run DW over it, it also had the same problem with ' Root creation date '. However, on another partition I made a duplicate clone - via the ' Restore ' tab in Apple Disk Utility. I ran DW over it and absolutely no problems were found relating to ' Root creation date ' - all dates are exactly as they should be !

You'll no doubt be glad to hear that I think that's about it.

Many thanks for all your time, help and patience, it's very much appreciated.

Paul

Just to update on my trials and tribulations of ' bootable clones '.

I've given CCC a go, run DW over the resultant clone and to my frustration it is also coming up with the same ' RCD ' problem, as well as:
' 4 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired '

This can be fixed by DW, however, once the clone is updated the exact same problem returns - every time !

On my Mac, if I go to ' Get Info ' on the ' Clone ' after fixing it the ' Created ' date is that of clone just made or updated, whilst the ' Modified ' date is that of the last time the ' Source ' HD was modified. Is that right ?

I've tried this now with two external HD setups, Wiebetech enclosure containing the 750GB HD with FW800 and a Lacie Rugged 320GB with FW400 & 800.

One of the other things I meant to point out regarding my Leopard setup, is that I have it configured with two Admin user accounts if that makes any difference to anything.

I think it would be right to say that neither SuperDuper! or CCC can be to blame for any of this - so I wonder what is !?!?

If anyone has any ideas it would be good to hear from you.

Once again many thanks in advance.

Paul

Peter

Thanks for your quick reply - much appreciated.

Yes, I too am concerned about being 'bitten' later !

I've had a look at CCC and read through the documentation. I'm interested to know what system you use for your bootable backups - Block-Level or File-Level ?

I think I'd probably like to go with the BL way, but it seems that it can only be done from a third HD that has a bootable volume on it with CCC installed. It appears that a bootable backup cannot be performed from the boot drive that you're working from.

I must say, that's were SD! is good as it's possible to back up from your working boot drive.

This may sound like a really silly question and maybe the answer is staring me in the face, but how do I go about making my first CCC bootable clone - Block-Level, if the above applies ?

I realize that a bootable clone can be made in File-Level - is it possible to do that whilst booted into your working HD ? I think that's what CCC suggests but I'm not too sure.

To recap my setup is: Mac PPC G5 2.3 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 750 GB HD containing three partitions. This will be used in conjunction with in a Wiebetech RTX 100 single enclosure containing another 750 GB HD, also with three partitions using Firewire 800. I will also have an additional 750 GB HD available as a 'swapper'.

I would be interested to hear back from you and others about this.

Once again many thanks to you and all.

Paul

I would be interested to see if anybody has experienced the following and what thoughts and possible solutions they might have.

I have a Mac PC G5 2.3GHz, 4 GB RAM and a brand new 750GB SATA HD, zeroed and formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Leopard 10.5.7, SuperDuper! and DiskWarrior are the only things loaded onto this HD named ' G5 HD '. I haven't even gone about setting up any part of Leopard or carried out any transfers or migration from any other Macs that I have. The idea is literally to start afresh on the new HD.

I have another 750GB SATA HD, also zeroed and formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with three partitions in a Wiebetech RTX 100 enclosure using Firewire 800.
Partition 1: ' G5 HD B ' to be used for bootable clone of ' G5 HD ' (on Mac)
Partition 2 & 3: These are empty at the moment.

I installed Leopard v.10.5.6 from Mac DVD without issue and then installed SD! and DW v.4.1.1 and made the initial bootable clone of ' G5 HD ' to ' G5 HD B '.
I launched and ran DW - from ' G5 HD ', over the three partitions on the external 750GB HD.
On Partition 1: ' G5 HD B ' DW showed the following alert: 'A Root Creation Date was repaired'. I went ahead and fixed it and ran DW again - problem solved, or so it seems.
Partitions 2 & 3: These contain free space at the moment and are free from any problems when DW is run over them.

After that I updated Leopard to v.10.5.7 and repeated the above from ' G5 HD ' ( Mac ). The very same problems prevailed !


It should also be mentioned that before running DW from my ' G5 HD ' ( Mac ) as as described above, I started up from the DW CD and ran it over ' G5 HD B '. I was presented with the following alert:

' 94578 link files had a creation date that was repaired.
The Root Creation Date was repaired.
1 folder had a Creation Date that changed '.

 ... and then everything froze ! Reset time !

This then prompted me to run DW over ' G5 HD B ' from ' G5 HD ' ( Mac ).

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I've been in contact with support for both SD! and DW and they came back with the following comments:

SD!: ' Basically, ignore that diagnostic '.

DW: ' The need to repair the "Root Creation Date" occurs from many situations, not simply when a clone is created by SuperDuper.

In any of these situations, the process is the same - allow DiskWarrior to Replace the directory.

There is no "recipe for disaster" here.  However, an incorrect Root Creation Date can cause applications not to run, files to re-index and other changes to the data on a hard drive.
While these can all be fixed by rebuilding the directory with DiskWarrior, it is a problem that really should not occur in the first place '.

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In fairness this issue is covered to some extent on the SD! forum and it seems that both SD! and DW / Alsoft have been talking with each other about this.
However, I'm not overly reassured by DWs support comment ' ...... it is a problem that really should not occur in the first place ' I went about emailing them again expressing my concern and worry about that comment. I asked if they had any idea what might make this occur in the first place. Their response is as follows:

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DW: ' DiskWarrior repairs the directory according to the Apple specification for the directory.

You'll need to ask the folks who make SuperDuper why the Root Creation Date is modified in the manner that it is when a clone is created.

There are a number of threads about such, in their discussion forums that will probably answer your question.

All in all, I wouldn't worry about this situation.  Simply repair the directory with DiskWarrior '.

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So, all in all I'm still somewhat confused by all of this !
Is this Root Creation Date issue a problem or not ?
Once the problem is fixed by DW will the continual fixing of this problem create other problems in turn ?

It would be very interesting to hear what you use Peter for bootable back ups - CCC, SD! or Chronosync and if you have experienced this problem at all.
Would you know if this Root Creation Date problem exists with CCC and / or CS ?

Essentially, all I want is reassurance that everything is going to be fine regarding future performance and reliability if I go ahead fixing the problem with DW each and every time after backing up with SD! or indeed CCC and / or CS.

All your thoughts would be welcome and apologies for the length of this post.

Many thanks.

Paul