Thread: Installations
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Old 04-14-2004, 08:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete_Bull
I am sorry to insist, but I want to be sure I understood you completely.

You boot from the Safety Clone.
Thus, the base drive does not change. The Safety Clone does.
You roll back, install new tested apps.
Then, you refresh the Safety Clone setting it to a state combining clean base drive original untouched state + mentionned new installs.

In other words, do you mean that you refresh the Safety Clone so that it does not diverge from the untouched original base, not the contrary.
I'm happy to try to clarify things further, Pete. Insisting is not a problem: the lack of clarity in my posts is. Sorry about that: I'll try again.

You never copy the Safety Clone back to the original drive. I try to emphasize this over and over again in the documentation, but let me do it again here: using SuperDuper to copy the Safety Clone back to the base drive, in a misguided attempt to synchronize the two, will likely result in data loss. Never do it that way! (I'm not saying that's your plan, I just wanted to take a moment to re-emphasize this important point.)

OK, let's move on.

When you're booted from the Safety Clone, isolated in the "Sandbox", nothing you do to the system affects the original drive (as opposed to your user files, which are shared). As such, once you're confident about the changes made to the Sandbox, you need to apply those changes to the original drive if you want to keep them for the future.

For example, let's say you're running Panther 10.3.2 on the main drive and the Safety Clone/Sandbox. You're booted from the Sandbox, and Software Update says that a new System Update -- 10.3.3 -- has arrived.

When you apply this update -- again, booted from the Sandbox/Safety Clone -- it will only affect the Sandbox. The original drive still has OS X 10.3.2 on it. If you have a problem with 10.3.3, you can simply boot back to the original drive: all your user files are up to date there, and it's still running 10.3.2.

You can "roll back" your Sandbox by re-Safety Cloning: at that point, it'll be running 10.3.2 again.

However, if 10.3.3 works out fine, you may want to update the base drive. To do so, you'd also boot back to it (it's still running 10.3.2), and then you'd run Software Update. Software Update would present the same 10.3.3 update to you, and you'd apply it -- this time, it's being applied to the original drive. At this point, the original drive has 10.3.3 on it (as does the Sandbox/Safety Clone). To ensure you're running from as close a clone as possible on the Sandbox, you can re-Safety Clone, using Smart Update, and the Sandbox will then accurately represent the state of the original drive, including its new 10.3.3 OS update.

A similar thing happens with Applications. Let's say you want to install DVD Studio Pro on your Sandbox, and work with it for a while to make sure it doesn't interfere with your other applications, or your system. You'd install it while booted from the Sandbox/Safety Clone (of course), and work with it for a while.

Once you're convinced things are fine with it, it's time to install it on the "real" original drive. To do so, you'd boot back to the original drive, install it, and then re-Safety Clone back to the Sandbox. Then, boot back to the Sandbox -- at that point, the two drives are in sync.

The same thing happens with any application you want to try: install on the Sandbox, test, determine if it's OK or not. If it's OK, boot to the original drive when you have a chance, install the apps you've determined to be OK, re-Safety Clone and then reboot from the Sandbox.

I hope that's clearer! Let me know.
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