Is 'disk Image' really necessary?

[MMM]

Two quick questions:

1.) We noticed a feature called "After copy, create a disk image of backup". Ordinarily we just do a smart backup to another partition. Should we also be making a disk image, or is the smart backup all we need and a disk image would be redundant?

2.) Also, we have two partitions, the main OS X partition (which is what we normally use everyday) and our 'Backup' partition (this is where SuperDuper stores its backup at). Let's say that one day our Mac crashes and we can't use the normal OS X partition anymore. How would we copy our 'back up' partition over to our OS X partition? My guess is to format the OS X partition and then copy all of the back up files into the OS X partition, but not having ever restored a backup we're not sure if that's correct

Thanks

[dnanian]

Hi, MMM.

No, don't make an image of your image. That's intended for lab situations where you're intending to make a whole lot of identical machines.

As far as the 2nd part goes, take a peek at the "Recovering from a disaster" chapter of the User's Guide. Lots of detail there on what to do...

[MMM]

Originally Posted by dnanian

take a peek at the "Recovering from a disaster" chapter

We tried this but the 'Restore' button stayed grayed out

Does that mean that the backup is not usable?

[dnanian]

Which restore button?

[MMM]

The user guide talks about using Disk Utility so we went there and it said to drag the backup partition to where we wanted to restore it. When we did it labeled it an 'image' so we thought we were doing it right, but upon further inspection under "Restoring from a bootable backup" it appears that basically to restore we just make a backup of the backup only in reverse (choose the 'backup' partition as the source, and the OS X partition as the destination).

[dnanian]

If you're using SuperDuper!, absolutely. Just copy it all back, performing the copy in the other direction.

[MMM]

OK thanks dnanian

We're still relatively new to Macs and were expecting the process to be a bit more complicated. Hopefully we'll get out of that bad PC habit soon

[dnanian]

We can make it more complex if you'd like. I'm open to suggestions...

[MMM]

Originally Posted by dnanian

I'm open to suggestions...

It would be great if you could find some way for us to use OS X on our PCs