Can someone help me with Super Duper?

Hi guys I'm mainly PC user but I have a Macbook Pro (Lion) fresh off of a clean install and I want to create a disk image for backup. I have the trial version of Super Duper 2.6.4 but I'm willing to pay for the full one if need be.

Basically on PC I use Acronis True Image 2011 and I have images backed up on an External hard drive that I can restore to at any time to bring my computer to exactly how it was when that image was taken.

I want to do the exact same thing with Super Duper, and again I'll be wanting to save the image to an External hard drive. I've read through the manual but I'm still kind of confused with all the different back up options and image options like sparse image, read only or whatever.

I just want to create an image of my Mac that I can restore to at any time to bring my computer back to that exact state, just like I do with Acronis on my PC.

Hope someone can help, thanks all.

Don't use SuperDuper for that. Carbon Copy Cloner is easier to use and is donation ware. Fully functional whether or not you donate. It's what I use with both my Macs. I also use Acronis True Image on my PCs. CCC will create a bootable image to an external drive. The drive must be formatted to the Mac OS Extended Journaled format and GUID partition scheme.

Also, CCC will copy the hidden Recovery partition and put it on the external drive as part of its imaging process. I'm not sure if SuperDuper does likewise.

Thanks for that info Chas. was getting ready to clone my Lion install this morning and remembered reading about this. I was sure SuperDuper handled things correctly till I read an earlier post about this in another thread. You saved me a ton of grief.

chscag said:

Don't use SuperDuper for that. Carbon Copy Cloner is easier to use and is donation ware. Fully functional whether or not you donate. It's what I use with both my Macs. I also use Acronis True Image on my PCs. CCC will create a bootable image to an external drive. The drive must be formatted to the Mac OS Extended Journaled format and GUID partition scheme.

Also, CCC will copy the hidden Recovery partition and put it on the external drive as part of its imaging process. I'm not sure if SuperDuper does likewise.

Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the help. I downloaded CCC and am using that now. I took a disk image and stored it on my External for backups. But now that I want to restore the image just to test things out, I get a popup that says

"You have selected your computer's startup disk as the destination for this backup task. To avoid system instability, CCC has applied a filter that will exclude system files from the backup task. If you would like to restore your Mac OS X system files, restart your computer from the backup volume and try the backup task again"

What does this mean exactly? This is confusing me lol what exactly should I have set in My Custom Settings?

I just want to be able to restore to an Image and have my computer back to EXACTLY how it was when I took that Image, just like with Acronis True Image. This is leading me to believe that this won't be the case if I make this Image Restore.

Yeah, the terminology is a bit confusing. Here's how to restore from CCC. First and foremost you should have made a clone of your internal hard drive to an external hard drive. As noted... CCC will render the external drive bootable provided you formatted it per their instructions.

To restore from that external hard drive, attach it to your Mac either by USB or FW (whichever you used to make the clone). Now reboot the Mac holding down the option key. Select the external hard drive to boot from. Once the system boots correctly from the external hard drive, you can start CCC from the external hard drive and clone the contents of the external back to the internal drive.

That's basically how to restore using CCC. It works in a similar way to Acronis True Image. My suggestion is to use both Time Machine and CCC for your backup regimen. It's what I do and it has saved me from disaster numerous times. Of course that means using two separate external hard drives as TM and CCC can not use the same drive.

Hey my External is partitioned 300 gb for Time Machine, and 200 gb for CCC. Is that acceptable?

I believe I made the clone of my internal hard drive to my external hard drive correctly.
I followed these "Backing up to a disk image" instructions on their site for this.

To back up to a new disk image:

1. Choose your source volume from the Source menu
2. Choose "New disk image..." from the Destination menu.
3. Provide a name and choose a location to save your disk image.
4. If you plan to back up to this disk image again in the future, set the image format to one of the read/write formats. If you want a read-only disk image for archival purposes, set the image format to one of the read-only formats.

So the .dmg file is now on my CCC partition of my external. I guess now I just need to know if it's okay that I have my external with CCC partitioned and I can just follow through with the instructions you posted.

Edit: and if I can't use my backup drive partitioned for this, then is it okay if the other external drive I use for CCC has other files on it? I have and play my iTunes songs off said drive (the one I would use for CCC if I can't use my TM + CCC partition one.

What you did is OK. But let me give you some reasons for not using CCC to create a backup .dmg rather than a full clone.

1. It's easier to restore single files and folders from a full backup cloned drive than a .dmg file which has to be expanded first. (Just drag and drop.)

2. If your internal hard drive crashes, it's very easy to attach the cloned drive to the machine via USB or FW, boot from it, and continue working until you can replace the defective drive. No data loss.

You can not use an external drive for other files and the CCC clone backup without first partitioning the drive. If you don't partition the drive, CCC will overwrite what's ever on the drive.

If the external drive is large enough, you can partition it for both TM and CCC usage, however, the whole idea of using both CCC and TM is redundancy. If that external drive crashes, you've lost both your CCC clone and TM backup. Bad news....

Hey can't thank you enough for your help. So I followed your advice and made a full clone of my OS Drive.

Especially since I am using TM for backups already, I want CCC of course to be a secondary back up but mainly I want to use it in the same fashion as I use Acronis for PC.

I am working with intensive Audio Software and will be installing a lot of plug-ins that will very likely somewhere along the line lead to troubleshooting of my Audio Software (Pro Tools).

So for instance if I install *insert plug-in name here* and suddenly my software starts running slow or even crashing, I simply want to restore my Computer to the exact form it was prior to that installation. I don't know what may have been tampered with in the registry and would like my computer restored to the pristine form it was in prior, for peace of mind among other reasons.

So my questions are:

1 - would full Clone's still be the best option for this use?

2 - Before doing anything, I partitioned my drive as 727gb for iTunes music, and 275 gb for CCC. I should mention when I play music off of itunes from my other Macbook it will be directly off of this external hard drive..if that matters. Can I have both Full Clone's and Disk Images saved on my CCC partition?

3 - I have a 2nd internal drive in my Macbook Pro. Can I take Clones and Disk Images of this drive and store them on that same CCC partition as well? Or do I need a separate partition on my external for this?

4 - If I want to restore from a .Dmg instead of a full clone, do the same instructions you posted in post #5 still apply?

Sorry for all the questions I just want to be extra careful before loading up my Macbook Pro. Thanks again and hope you can help.

Personally go the opposite way and use SuperDuper registered version. You can then create a fully bootable clone of your hard drive, and the use the Smart Backup feature say once weekly. This simply updates the cloned copy to your current hard drive, making changes as necessary, and takes about 2-3 minutes.

^ CCC does more or less the same thing though, no? I remember reading in the instructions where it touched on updating a clone.

gigsandgigs said:

^ CCC does more or less the same thing though, no? I remember reading in the instructions where it touched on updating a clone.

Click to expand...

ccc does the same thing. you can clone your entire hard drive to your external one, every week or day( if you want), in a disaster just take out the internal drive and replace it, then you are in business. nothing simpler than this. Even better get hold of 2 external drives, use ccc to back up al, then keep one at your safety vault.

Hey thanks for the reply. I pretty much have this down now. I've done a clone as well as an Image. I've also practice restoring from both.

But what if I want to take a new clone of my hard driver. What will happen to the old clone? On the external when you clone your drive it doesn't contain subfolders, it simply has all the folders from the clone there loose on the drive.

I want multiple clones of my internal drive at different points of time in my Computer's life.

i.e:

Clone 1 - my OSx off of a clean install

Clone 2 - Pro Tools (Audio Software) is installed

Clone 3 - Pro Tools + various 3rd party plug-ins are installed.

etc...

I want to have multiple clones and have the ability to go back to different clones if need be. Like in 5 months for example I might just need a fresh install, thus just restore to Clone 1 and my computer is now exactly like it was at the time the clone was taken. Or maybe I want to restore my computer back to Clone 2, and have my macbook fresh with just Pro Tools on it.

This is really all I need to know how to do now.

gigsandgigs said:

Hey thanks for the reply. I pretty much have this down now. I've done a clone as well as an Image. I've also practice restoring from both.

But what if I want to take a new clone of my hard driver. What will happen to the old clone? On the external when you clone your drive it doesn't contain subfolders, it simply has all the folders from the clone there loose on the drive.

I want multiple clones of my internal drive at different points of time in my Computer's life.

i.e:

Clone 1 - my OSx off of a clean install

Clone 2 - Pro Tools (Audio Software) is installed

Clone 3 - Pro Tools + various 3rd party plug-ins are installed.

etc...

I want to have multiple clones and have the ability to go back to different clones if need be. Like in 5 months for example I might just need a fresh install, thus just restore to Clone 1 and my computer is now exactly like it was at the time the clone was taken. Or maybe I want to restore my computer back to Clone 2, and have my macbook fresh with just Pro Tools on it.

This is really all I need to know how to do now.

Click to expand...

there are 2 methods you can approach this.
method #1 is time machine will be lot easier, make a note of what you have done to clone on dates so and so, for clone 2 , clone 3 and restore from there,
method #2 is use disk utility partition to note down which partition number has clone 2 and clone 3 and so on. you have to invest in more than 1 hard drive to keep your work upto date.
the rule of thumb is your osx (i know lion) should be on a media such as sd card, usb thumb drive and dvd, so get hold of a media, and from application chose utilities to disk utility and make a copy of osx. that way you always get a fresh osx copy.
I know it is a lot of work, if you want it so complicated.

That's what I meant in my 1st posts when I said I was looking for something like Acronis True Image for Mac... Acronis can do what I just explained with ease. This seems a lot more tedious, but I guess I'll just have to restore with Time Machine by dates like you said for that purpose..