Cannot boot from external drive where superduper smart copies

[aplnub]

Hey, just purchased SuperDuper last night to try it out.

After doing a backup all files and then a few smart copies (to make sure it was deleting files on my external drive that were removed from my main HD) I decided to try and reboot into my external drive.

It brings up the little progress bar and then it dissappears and than just sits there on a giant blue screen. I have yet to reach the login window.

Any thing I am over looking? My external drive has to be a bootable backup or it is no good to me.

TIA

[dnanian]

aplnub:

If you could send the system log from the failed boot drive into support, I'll take a look.

To get to it, reboot from your regular drive. Then, using Finder's "Go to folder" command, navigate to:

/Volumes/the-backup-drive/private/var/log

In there, you'll find system.log. Attach that to a mail message and bop it to support.

Thanks!

[aplnub]

Originally Posted by dnanian

aplnub:

If you could send the system log from the failed boot drive into support, I'll take a look.

To get to it, reboot from your regular drive. Then, using Finder's "Go to folder" command, navigate to:

/Volumes/the-backup-drive/private/var/log

In there, you'll find system.log. Attach that to a mail message and bop it to support.

Thanks!

Will do. Thanks!

[Bagelturf]

This happened to me.

My guess is that "Ignore permissions on this volume" is not checked. See Command-I for the volume in the finder.

Check that box. Then go into Disk Utility and repair permissions on the volume. That will make it bootable. Next time you do a back up do a fresh one and your permissions will be OK.

[aplnub]

I don't have that option in my information bar on the source volume.

On the target volume I have an "Ignore owernership on this volume" and that's it.

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by Bagelturf

This happened to me.

My guess is that "Ignore permissions on this volume" is not checked. See Command-I for the volume in the finder.

Check that box. Then go into Disk Utility and repair permissions on the volume. That will make it bootable. Next time you do a back up do a fresh one and your permissions will be OK.

[dnanian]

Actually, please do *not* do this. That's not the problem in this case: the problem, based on our initial work in email, is that the Netinfo database on the source volume is corrupt.

Do NOT check "ignore permissions", as it will mess things up, OK?

Bagleturf: really, that's not a good idea. A cloned boot volume should never have its permissions/ownership turned off, as doing so will cause the OS to do some very unusual and not-very-helpful things, like start floating files... I don't know why it worked in your case, but it shouldn't have done anything useful.

It's likely that re-doing your backup is what really repaired things, but in this case that won't help because we're copying incorrect data.

Hope that helps. I'll put more on this thread when we've resolved the problem.

[aplnub]

Problem is solved thanks to Dave! Thanks!

It turns out I had a corrupt Netinfo database file and it was causing me a lot of grief. Dave was nice enough to figure the problem out and help me fix it even though it wasn't SuperDupers problem.

That was really nice and made a loyal customer.

Regards and many thanks!!

[dnanian]

Thanks for the follow-up post: glad we got you up and working!

[dgarbis]

Test Response - Please Ignore

[MSny]

Hi - I did the same thing - bought a new external Seagate Drive, only to read in the manual that not all drives are bootable. I thought I was out of luck until I ran across this thread.

I made my initial backup and it seemed successful, but at the end, when I told it to boot from backup, I got the gray screen and nothing else.

When I was finally able to restart from the original HD, and went to change back the startup disk, it showed the OS on the backup as if it wanted to work, but it just doesn't.

Might I have the same problem? Should I get that log file and send it?

I also wanted to do the same thing as the guy in another thread (Sliderule53 - 2/11/05) who wants to get rid of several partitions in his original HD, then recombine info. I hoped to upgrade to Tiger at the same time.

Do I even need to worry about whether the backup is bootable for this? I could just use the boot disk if I have to, and I've already done the backup for both partitions - should I just not worry about it, or is it something relatively easy to fix? It sure would be nice if it was working correctly, but there's the time thing...

Thanks in advance for your help!

[dnanian]

If you'll drop me a line to support, I'll take a look, MSny.

In terms of combining partitions, it certainly depends on what files are there. But, if you need to do that, you'd use "Copy Newer" or "Copy Different" to copy from the other partitions to the backup single one, then copy the whole thing back. But, let's get your backup booting first... see you in "support"!

[george]

"... It turns out I had a corrupt Netinfo database file and it was causing me a lot of grief. Dave was nice enough to figure the problem out and help me fix it..."

dave

if the fix was not too specific, would it be too much to ask that you post it here for future reference? tks.

george

[dnanian]

I'd rather not, George -- it's a complicated set of steps, and I'd rather guide a user through it than post it up here.

[george]

dave, fair enough. tks. george