Tiger installation troubles

FWIW, I dumped the Retrospect Express that came with the Maxtor One-Touch and downloaded the really simple and FAST s/w called SuperDuper! by Shirt-Pocket.com for $19.95:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I found it to be very easy and it does several other things besides a backup clone, like repairing the privileges/permissions, etc. Anyway, this was the best buy I've made lately, next to PodWorks. I found that the longest time it took to clone was about 1/2 hour, the Smart Update to the clone takes 3 to 7 minutes depending on how much new stuff needs to be updated to the clone.

The only thing you can't do with the Maxtor is use the one-touch button that only works with the $195 Retrospective.

Per Joe Kissell's recommendation I did an erase and install (after backup!) on my mini. It appears iTunes authorization information for a computer is stored in a hidden folder in the /Users/Shared folder (it's named SC Info, you can see it from Terminal but not Finder).

I restored this file (and the database in the ~/Music/iTunes folder) after installing Tiger and my iTunes works just fine, it did not prompt me for a password to re-authorize my computer (i didn't deauthorize it before upgrading, although that's probably a good idea.)

Note that this is a per computer file. I copied the folder off my PowerBook when I first got my mini and still needed to authorize this computer.

Kevin

My Tiger upgrade went something like this:

1. Complete backup of internal laptop HD (80GB) to external firewire drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. (1.75 hours)

2. Clean Tiger install to internal HD (30 minutes)

3. Copy accounts/files/applications from external FW HD using OS X installer. (1.5 hours)

4. Debug PGP related Mail problem (45 minutes)

5. Happy as a clam!

Don't count of Carbon Copy Cloner now, without visiting the CCC (Mike
Bombich) web site. I've switched to SuperDuper! (the bang is part of the
name, not an indication of excitement here).

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

  --John

On 5/6/05 at3:44 PM, charlieinresonance.com (charlie323) wrote:
>My Tiger upgrade went something like this:
>
>1. Complete backup of internal laptop HD (80GB) to external firewire
>drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. (1.75 hours)
>
>2. Clean Tiger install to internal HD (30 minutes)
>
>3. Copy accounts/files/applications from external FW HD using OS X
>installer. (1.5 hours)

That's the strategy I used to do some test runs: CCC backup to an
external drive, clean-install Tiger on a G4 Cube and a mini I have
access to for testing, use Migration Assistant to copy my data over, do
testing.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, this method wasn't foolproof; when I
did the actual install to the AlBook that's my main machine, it worked
fine for a short while, then started having problems with the Input menu
(I use SpellCatcher X 1.2, which is Tiger-compatible according to the
developer), and after that started having problems with punctuation
marks double-typing in Cocoa applications. Tried everything I could
think of to fix the problem, including cache cleaning, uninstalling
every system modification utility I use (and I don't use many, and even
those I use *should* have been copied onto the test system same as on
the AlBook. This is where I'm guessing the problem happened.)

Finally wiped clean, reinstalled, used Migration Assistant again, tried
to keep close track of what I was doing in case the problem reocurred.
It did, but I wasn't able to pin down where this time, either. So I
wiped the drive again, CCC'ed 10.3.9 back over, and will be doing a more
thorough job of trying to track down possible incompatibilities before
doing another shot at an install; this time, I think I'll try Archive
and Install, since I've heard it copys over less than Migration
Assistant does.


Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

On 5/9/05 6:31 PM, "John W. Baxter" <jwblistolympus.net> wrote:

> Don't count of Carbon Copy Cloner now, without visiting the CCC (Mike
> Bombich) web site. I've switched to SuperDuper! (the bang is part of the
> name, not an indication of excitement here).
>
> http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

And now there are reports of problems with sparse disk images, including
those made by Super Duper! and Disk Utility. That's not how I use Super
Duper! so I'm likely OK.

The problems seem to run like
  1. create new sparse image (empty or not)
  2. add one or more JPEG files to it
  3. try to open one of the new JPEG files
all JPEG files on the image are now unusable. And the workaround may be to
unmount the image and mount it again before adding anything to it. This is
fairly new, and could easily be some third party addon the reporting people
use but don't report using.

  --John

I ran into an interesting problem during my upgrade:

I CCC'd my internal drive to an external Maxtor One-Touch drive. I did a quick visual inspect of the file list on the external drive after the cloning (but did not actually boot with it). I left the drive mounted when I did a clean install of Tiger on my internal drive (should have unmounted and turned off the drive). When I got to the migration assistant, it told me it couldn't find a system X drive to migrate from. I unplugged the Maxtor drive and hooked it up to my Powerbook and found that every System X component had been erased from the drive - no applications or documents, just the system files.

I know that the Maxtor could be used as a boot disk and had used the cloning proceedure and the external drive as my boot drive numerous times before while trying to fix and ultimately replacing a failing internal hard drive - so I don't think the problem was due to the drive...

I spent over 2 hours trying to talk to Apple tech support with no luck (I hung up after waiting for over 1 hour, spent listening to office background noise, for the support person to return to her phone line to tell me what she 'found out'.)

I am now doing manual re-installs of all of my software since I'm not knowledgable enough or comfortable enough using Terminal to find and move all of the auxiliary files from their various hiding places on the cloned drive to the internal. The difficult part is tracking down all of the registration numbers from various downloaded applications.

I don't really know for certain if my problem was some failure of CCC to duplicate the system files (although it worked fine in the past...) or of the Tiger installer that somehow decided to erase the files on the non-install disk.

Just thought I would pass along my experience for general awareness.

David R.

As a photographer I'm sending huge numbers of files via FTP/e-mail.
When I send via e-mail I usually highlight the filenames to copy over
as a list so that the recipient will have a list to copy and check.
With Panther that's all you did - highlight and copy. With Tiger this
doesn't work at all. It copies the whole damn list as files not
filenames. Anyone know what's wrong. Other than running a script I
don't see a way round it.
---------------
Bye for now.

Go fast! Take risks! You'll see more of life!

Nigel Andrews,
Photojournalist.

YEOVIL, Somerset, England, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1935 478360
Fax: +44 (0)1935 414766

[And with this answer, let's please return to the subject of the thread. Any further answers can be made privately. -Adam]


On May 11, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Nigel Andrews wrote:
> As a photographer I'm sending huge numbers of files via FTP/e-mail.
> When I send via e-mail I usually highlight the filenames to copy over
> as a list so that the recipient will have a list to copy and check.
> With Panther that's all you did - highlight and copy. With Tiger this
> doesn't work at all. It copies the whole damn list as files not
> filenames. Anyone know what's wrong. Other than running a script I
> don't see a way round it.

Instead of pasting directly into Mail, paste into TextEdit, copy the
text, and paste into the message.

Cap'n Hector