tips: Carbon Copy Cloning Leopard?

bumble bee · #1 April 21st, 2009, 02:29 PM

Hello.

I've tried using the Leopard-appropriate version of CCC twice now for making a mirror of my MacBook Pro. The data is saved, yet the drive it's saved to is not bootable.

I'm working with a friend who's used CCC with Tiger successfully in past.

Are there any special tricks for getting CCC to make a bootable copy from a Leopard computer?

The external drive I'm using is a LaCie d2 quadra, btw.

Thanks.

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 April 21st, 2009, 03:48 PM

I've made several CCCs of Leopard installations, both on Intel-based Macs as well as PowerPC-based Macs. Each were fine with one niggling little distraction: the permissions on the root level of the hard drive were a little screwy, preventing me from doing a "copy-paste" operation to replace the standard hard drive icon in a "Get Info" window. I verified that before I had the clone, it worked -- and after cloning, it no longer worked. Permissions were slightly different. Other than that, the CCC clone works beautifully.

How are you trying to boot from the external drive? I'm assuming it's not selectable in "Startup Disk" pane of the System Preferences, or perhaps doesn't show at all? What about booting with the 'option' key held down -- are you presented with a list of icons for bootable systems, and does the LaCie drive show up? How is the external drive formatted? What is the partition scheme on the external drive -- GUID, Apple Partition Map, or MBR (Master Boot Record)?

dirtbag · #3 April 21st, 2009, 03:49 PM

I use CCC to clone my startup disc to a Firewire HD all the time. Never an problem with bootability. The drive's an older Accomdata. I recently got a newer, larger Accomdata drive that 'matches' the shape and appearance of my Mac Mini. It will clone the disc, but its is not bootable. My experience and what I've read on the web indicates that your problem may be your drive not CCC. Some HDs are bootable, some are not (apparently)

ElDiabloConCaca · #4 April 21st, 2009, 03:55 PM

Yep, some hard drives are just not bootable. A very important thing to check, though, as I mentioned, is the partition scheme of the drive. A lot of external hard drives come formatted for Windows out-of-the-box use, meaning they're either formatted as FAT32 (the most common) or NTFS (not as common but still prevalent).

While it's easy enough to plug these drives into a Mac and reformat them to HFS+ or a more Mac-friendly format, that doesn't change the partition scheme, which is MBR (Master Boot Record). You cannot use an MBR-partition schemed drive to boot any kind of Mac, even if you've reformatted the drive to HFS+.

If the drive was previously used on another Mac, and that other Mac was a PowerPC Mac, then the hard drive likely has an APM partition scheme and cannot be used to boot an Intel-based Mac until the partition scheme is changed.

The breakdown is as follows:

MBR (Master Boot Record): cannot boot Intel nor PowerPC Macs (MAY be able to boot PowerPC Macs... probably not, but maybe... but definitely won't boot an Intel Mac)
GUID: can boot Intel Macs, cannot boot PowerPC Macs.
APM (Apple Partition Map): can boot PowerPC Macs, cannot boot Intel Macs.

You've got a MacBook Pro, so your only option is the GUID partition scheme to yield a bootable drive.

bumble bee · #5 April 21st, 2009, 04:18 PM

DB & EDCC --

Thanks for your ideas... I think this external drive is bootable, per Amazon: "...is even bootable in FireWire for Mac..." It is new.

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-301825U-.../dp/B0012INC1S

Further thoughts most welcome ~

ElDiabloConCaca · #6 April 21st, 2009, 04:19 PM

What's the partition scheme on it?

bumble bee · #7 April 22nd, 2009, 09:36 AM

EDCC:

we did wipe the drive, and formatted with GUILD partition and rights for security ~

Thank you for your interest in this matter, I appreciate hearing your ideas.

Any more thoughts, EDCC or anyone?

ElDiabloConCaca · #8 April 22nd, 2009, 09:48 AM

It seems you must use either FireWire or eSATA to boot from the LaCie d2 Quadra:

http://www.lacie.com/jpen/products/p....htm?pid=10894

Quote:

**** Bootable on PC or Mac (using FireWire or eSATA). To take advantage of the bootable feature, the LaCie d2 Quadra must be formatted as a bootable drive in accordance with the operating system being used. The computer must include a BIOS or an interface card that supports bootable functionality with an external hard drive.

If you've been trying to use USB, perhaps this is why it won't boot for you.