Please HELP my Brain w/ Plain English and "...files will be replaced..."

[zeeb]

hey Dave

...uh okay - thinking about this today, it seems a bit clearer.

its good that none of the files outside the image are touched -- logical really - and I guess I dont have to 'add to the old files/rubbish' on the image anyway.

If i dump the whole MacHD to an image - call it 'A' - i could continue work on the Powerbook as normal, making newer 'save as' versions of projects. Next time I backup, I Erase/Replace the 'A' save on the external HDD with the additional newer versions next time around giving an 'A + the new save as' versions. this is obviously how the process is supposed to work, right?

hope so.

but maybe would this be better? and I'd like your advice really - i'd like to unload the P.B. of most of the project 'save as' files and not keep as much stuff on the laptop. Am i right in thinking that i can make mulitple images on the Ext. HDD? i.e. make a master Disk Image of the Powerbook in its current state (image 'A'), then delete/trash/erase most of the old files from the PB, and create another/new Disk Image (image 'B') to continue to save the newer state P.B. and 'save as' project files. you with me?

i think i can -- and if so, which would be your recommended settings for this? i just want to run it by you before i started save processes that were not too smart. hope thats ok. if there's a better way to be doing this please let me know!

thnx again for you help in adv.

cheers,

John.

[dnanian]

Yes, if you have a bunch of new files on the drive, and the old files are still there, both the new ("Save As..."ed) and old files would be copied. You'd typically use Smart Update for this purpose, not Erase, then copy.

You can make as many images as will fit on your external disk. But do you really need all these versions?

[zeeb]

Hi Dave ---

thnx for the replies -- slowly its becoming clearer....!

- could you answer one other thing? once i've cloned the MacHD to the Ext. HDD there will be the Disk Image save and the 'old saves' file on the HDD.

when the P.B. returns from repair w/ a basic version of 10.3.9 on it, what is the process to copy back from the Disk Image? I'm guessing I cant just drag and drop the system & library folders (w/ my prefs, fonts, cookies, etc) over as they'll be in use...?

thnx ---

J.

[dnanian]

No, you can't do that. You'll have to follow the steps in the User's Guide under "Recovering from a disaster".

Note: it's significantly more challenging to restore from an image than it is to restore from a bootable backup. Since you seem a bit unsure, I'd really suggest spending the additional $100 to get a drive you can back up directly to. It'll save you time, will let you test your backup before you send away the Mac, etc...

[rithban]

Originally Posted by zeeb

... i'd like to unload the P.B. of most of the project 'save as' files and not keep as much stuff on the laptop. ...

This is what revision control is for. Unfortunately, it's not trivial to set up. Once it's set up, it's slick... but there's that set up problem again.

SD is awesome because it takes an essential set of operations and makes it a "no brainer". Yeah you could do it yourself and save a couple of bucks... buy why on earth (or any other location) would you want to?

If you want to do something else, SD's not your tool. Right job, wrong tool.

[zeeb]

hey rithban & dnanian-

so it looks like i've painted myself into a corner --- i've loads of space on the Ext. Drive to copy my P.BookHD, but not enough room to copy the Old Saved files (40Gig) back to the P.Book and zero/format/partition the Ext. HDD. (to start from scratch) argh.

unless its too dangerous to risk losing everything, I'm going to go for the 'Disk Image' copy option and 'Recovering from a Disaster' process..... i.e. using 'Restore' from within Disk Utility as described in the manual. this seems my only option until i can get another HD - I'm about 200 miles from anything as useful as that.....

What do you think?

thnx for the help guys --

J.

[dnanian]

Yeah, it's a difficult challenge. You could get software like iPartition to partition the drive "live", without copying the files around...