Strange Dock Behavior on Clone

[BudSimrin]

Thanks, Dave. I don't quite have it yet, and if this is too tiresome, please don't reply. Please tell me one more time the best sequence of events to accomplish the following. I want to clone Macintosh HD to BKUP. I don't mind having them both called Macintosh HD during the cloning process, but afterwards I want the target to regain its name BKUP. Then I continue to boot as usual from Macintosh HD but one day Macintosh HD is corrupted to the point where I wish to boot from BKUP. At that time can I rename the orginal Macintosh HD temporarily to something like "Original Mac HD", then rename BKUP to Macintosh HD, and then boot from the backup? I know you told me I couldn't just rename the 2 drives any old time I wish, and I proved that by messing up the original hard drive and having to repair it with DiskWarrior. So, when CAN I safely rename either drive? Do I need to sometimes boot from something else in order to rename?

I think the sequence starts like this. Having booted from Macintosh HD I rename BKUP to Macintosh HD. I then clone from boot disk to target disk. This preserves the correct paths for all aliases. Were I to now reboot from the target drive, it would do just fine, right? But, I don't wish to boot from it right now, I just want it to be called BKUP. Just exactly when and how can I rename it? And, when it's time that I must boot from it, must I rename it before booting from it, or can I boot from it (after all, it may be my only bootable disk at this point), rename it to Macintosh HD, and then reboot?