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Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47464 01/09/18 02:31 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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artie & joemikeb:

All that's now totally moot.

I couldn't find anything that resembled my 'successful' clone — and CCC is a cool little app which allows for idiots like me to easily clone the HD — on my external HD; nothing which had a name that might indicate that it was something other than my TM backups.

When I tried to use Backup as my startup disk — and indeed assumed that if Backup showed up that such would indicate that identified a bootable volume therein — it refused to boot. So something odd was going on. I quit the process.

When I then rebooted from my main HD, the backup HD was toast. Disk Utility could recognize that it was there but could not mount the volume or repair it.

(Six-plus years is pretty good life for a little portable USB drive [WD My Passport], so I can't really bitch; I only wish it could've waited to crash until after all my planned upgrading and updating. But maybe it's all for the best that I had to start backups from scratch at this point.)

So ... I had to replace the backup drive. And now the oldest backup is today's.

It never rains, but it pours. mad

I haven't yet made another clone (it takes about an hour), so any suggestions as to how it can be tracked when it lands in my destination HD would be gratefully received.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47465 01/09/18 02:52 AM
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I'm out of my element dealing with Time Machine, itself, but just thinking, I wonder if your clone needs to be on a separate partition on your backup drive?

So, even without an answer to that question, I'll suggest that you partition your new drive into (at least) two partitions and use one for Time Machine backups and the other for your clone; it should work for you, and it most assuredly won't hurt. (Partition a Drive with OS X El Capitan's Disk Utility)

More: I believe you can partition your drive even after having backed up to it without losing any data, but that'll have to be confirmed by someone else.

Last edited by artie505; 01/09/18 12:00 PM. Reason: Cleanup

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
joemikeb #47467 01/09/18 09:00 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: artie505
I'll question "It is possible to create a Volume inside a file....", though. Didn't you mean "folder"?

No I mean file. When an image file "mounts" it is assigned a "mount point" in the system and has its own volume and directory structure. A folder on the other hand is dependent on the volume and file structure of the volume it is on. (In APFS you would not be too far off the mark to think of the drive volume as an image file, but that is a different can of worms I am still trying to get my head around and would rather not open here.)

Thanks for clarifying.

When you said "file", I thought .rtf, .xls, ad infinitum. I've never seen the word used as in your explanation..."image file", but I guess I get the concept.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47471 01/09/18 02:48 PM
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RE:
Originally Posted By: artie505
I'm out of my element dealing with Time Machine, itself, but just thinking, I wonder if your clone needs to be on a separate partition on your backup drive?…

Normally you would never place a clone in the same VOLUME with a Time Machine backup set. Note that I said volume not drive, so another volume (partition) on the same drive could be used but there are factors to consider.
  • Recent versions of Disk Utility do support non-destructive partitioning of a drive but I am not sure when that ability was added to Disk Utility
  • There is a finite risk of data loss when partitioning a drive that has data on it and it is strongly recommended to back up the drive before partitioning
  • Partitioning a Time Machine drive increases the risk of losing files off the back end of th backup data set.
  • All the existing data on the drive will be placed in the first partition. and some versions of OS X/MacOS are not bootable unless they are on the first partition of a drive. Unfortunately I don't know which versions those are 🤷‍♂️
As a possible alternative either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper will clone a drive to a sparse image file/Volume which could be placed on the time Machine drive without partitioning and later removed simply be deleting the file, and although that image can be cloned back to a bootable drive Volume the image file itself is not bootable and cloning back would still require a bootable drive to run the clone utility. ☠️

I am not saying Artie is incorrect or his suggestion is bad, I am just pointing out the potential risks. There are other alternatives that I could suggest, but all of them require broadband connectivity and/or additional hardware that Grelber does not have and so are "off the table".


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: Downloading Mac OS
joemikeb #47476 01/09/18 05:27 PM
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I mentioned non-destructive partitioning only because I know grelber's initial El Cap(?) Time Machine backup is the only data on his new drive, so even if it goes bad, he won't lose much, but knowing his attitude towards such things, I shouldn't have even mentioned it.

Originally Posted By: joemike
All the existing data on the drive will be placed in the first partition. and some versions of OS X/MacOS are not bootable unless they are on the first partition of a drive.

Wow! I haven't heard that caveat since the very early days of OS X, and I wasn't even aware that it was still "live".

I can say, however, that I've booted (at the least) Snowy, Yosemite, El Cap, and Sierra from the third partition of my internal HD/SSD and High Sierra (at the least) from the fourth partition of my external SSD, so I doubt that grelber will have a problem if he puts TM on partition 1 and his clone on partition 2.

The important thing, though, is that the two should, probably even must, be on separate partitions.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47480 01/09/18 06:58 PM
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After yesterday's annoyances/hassles I am finally running El Capitan 10.11.6. It took 60+ min to install, then ca 1/2 hour to run the Combo Update and Security Update. Now it's time to update all my other bits and pieces which need such.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47484 01/09/18 09:06 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
I am finally running El Capitan 10.11.6.
Awesome that you succeeded. Please keep track of compatibility things you find in the coming days/weeks, to let us know what we didn’t foresee.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47486 01/09/18 09:37 PM
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👍



If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47492 01/10/18 12:01 AM
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Yaaay!

I still strongly suggest that you check in at the App Store to ensure that you DON'T want anything it's offering.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47500 01/10/18 04:42 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
After yesterday's annoyances/hassles I am finally running El Capitan 10.11.6. It took 60+ min to install, then ca 1/2 hour to run the Combo Update and Security Update. Now it's time to update all my other bits and pieces which need such.

It turns out that the 'failure' of my backup HD was not hardware but software. While Disk Utility couldn't deal with it in the state it was in, by reformatting the HD via a PC running Windows, then reformatting that via the Mac, I got a functional HD back. It now has 3 partitions for various backups, including bootable clones, Recovery HD, and other stuff.
What's kinda cool is that when I attach the HD to my iMac, the 3 partitions show up as separate HDs on the Desktop. No need to go searching for the partition desired.

As for compatibility problems: So far none. All applications brought over from Lion work as before and attached hardware (eg, printer) likewise functions properly.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47501 01/10/18 04:47 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
I still strongly suggest that you check in at the App Store to ensure that you DON'T want anything it's offering.

That's pretty much a non-starter, given the way the App Store functions. It's impossible to download a free-standing app (such as the latest update to Safari 11.0.2). The App Store wants to download to my machine directly — which in the case of the previous example would take a couple weeks.

If I could actually locate the site of downloads (such as Urquhart provided previously) which would have URLs like https://support.apple.com/kb/DL****, life would be good.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47504 01/10/18 05:08 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
It turns out that the 'failure' of my backup HD was not hardware but software.

Good news! The failure was so coincidental that I was wondering.

Originally Posted By: grelber
It now has 3 partitions for various backups, including bootable clones, Recovery HD, and other stuff.

As written, that doesn't sound correct.

You need one partition for Time Machine and another for your bootable clone. You don't need a partition for Recovery HD, because when you clone your HD to the external, CCC will ask if you want it to create a Recovery HD, and if you go for it, it will carve a new, invisible partition out of the one on which the clone lives. (You should also have a Recovery HD on your internal as a result of your El Cap installation; I think you can confirm it with an option-boot.)

Your third partition can be used for data storage.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47505 01/10/18 05:21 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
Originally Posted By: artie505
I still strongly suggest that you check in at the App Store to ensure that you DON'T want anything it's offering.

That's pretty much a non-starter, given the way the App Store functions. It's impossible to download a free-standing app (such as the latest update to Safari 11.0.2). The App Store wants to download to my machine directly — which in the case of the previous example would take a couple weeks.

You keep throwing out that "couple of weeks", and it just doesn't compute.

Before there was DSL, we all used 64k modems to d/l ~1 GB OS X Combos: 1,000,000,000/64,000/60/60=4.34 hours, and 4-5 hours is what a d/l always took.

The Safari update isn't near that large, so how do you figure weeks?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47507 01/10/18 06:18 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: artie505
You keep throwing out that "couple of weeks", and it just doesn't compute.

Just exaggerating facetiously.

Originally Posted By: artie505
The Safari update isn't near that large, so how do you figure weeks?

Based on the size of ca 60MB for Safari 9 and using an average of 3 KB/s download/transfer rate, that comes to 60K seconds = 333 min = 5 h 33 min. That's a long time to tie up my phone. (And given previous experience, I suspect even that time allotment would expand for any number of reasons.)

Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47508 01/10/18 06:29 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: artie505
Originally Posted By: grelber
It now has 3 partitions for various backups, including bootable clones, Recovery HD, and other stuff.

As written, that doesn't sound correct.
You need one partition for Time Machine and another for your bootable clone. You don't need a partition for Recovery HD, because when you clone your HD to the external, CCC will ask if you want it to create a Recovery HD, and if you go for it, it will carve a new, invisible partition out of the one on which the clone lives.

I'm using the resuscitated HD for CCC clones only (and maybe some other sort of data storage, since the free space is there). TM backup is now relegated to the replacement HD I got the minute [another exaggeration] the original tanked.
My computer guru assures me that the 3-way configuration leaves nothing to chance and is the way he's been doing HD-cloning with CCC for years. You are probably also right, but I'm going with his recommendations, if for no other reasons than he was able to resuscitate the backup HD and help me restore my Lion in 2013 when I had to have the iMac's internal HD replaced.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
artie505 #47511 01/10/18 09:37 PM
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Quote:
Before there was DSL, we all used 64k modems to d/l ~1 GB OS X Combos: 1,000,000,000/64,000/60/60=4.34 hours, and 4-5 hours is what a d/l always took.

I seem to remember the standard modem speed topping out at 56k. More importantly, that's kilobits, whereas a 1 GB download is gigabytes. My math says 1,000,000,000/7,000/60/60=39.68 hours.

Before there was DSL, OS X Combos were more on the order of 100 MB (the OS X 10.3.5 Combo weighed in at ~88 MB, for instance), which probably explains why your remembered downloads took 4-5 hours.



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Re: Downloading Mac OS
dkmarsh #47520 01/11/18 08:45 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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Just to clarify:
My USRobotics modem is a 56K USB modem (V.92).
This session and most sessions it communicates initially at 44000 to 45333 bps (according to Console).
Getting to this reply page Activity Monitor reported data transfer on the order of 2-3 kilobytes/s, although since accessing this page background transfer is running at 20 to 600 bytes/s.

And still no suggestions as to my queries under the thread in this forum "El Capitan issues"?

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47522 01/11/18 01:50 PM
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Patience, mon ami.....our Netherlands connection appears to have done you a major service in said thread. cool


Freedom is never free....thank a Service member today.
Re: Downloading Mac OS
MacManiac #47525 01/11/18 03:48 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: MacManiac
Patience, mon ami.....our Netherlands connection appears to have done you a major service in said thread. cool

Indeed he has, and I'm most appreciative.

Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47537 01/12/18 08:18 AM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
Based on the size of ca 60MB for Safari 9 and using an average of 3 KB/s download/transfer rate, that comes to 60K seconds = 333 min = 5 h 33 min. That's a long time to tie up my phone. (And given previous experience, I suspect even that time allotment would expand for any number of reasons.)

True about tying up the phone, which is why, in my 56kbps (Thanks, dk!) modem days, I always d/l'ed either while I was asleep, or in the dead of night when my phone doesn't ring and there's less traffic slowing down the Internet.

But this just occurred to me: I wonder if you're aware that updating from the App Store is NOT a one and done deal.

If you quit the App Store in the middle of a download it will pick up where it left off the next time you launch it, and while I won't suggest an incremental technique for d/l'ing macOS upgrades, it may be a viable, perhaps even more palatable, way for you to acquire smaller, i.e. Safari 11.0.2...maybe even Delta, updates that you may want to install.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47539 01/12/18 08:52 AM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
I'm using the resuscitated HD for CCC clones only (and maybe some other sort of data storage, since the free space is there). TM backup is now relegated to the replacement HD I got the minute [another exaggeration] the original tanked.
My computer guru assures me that the 3-way configuration leaves nothing to chance and is the way he's been doing HD-cloning with CCC for years. You are probably also right, but I'm going with his recommendations, if for no other reasons than he was able to resuscitate the backup HD and help me restore my Lion in 2013 when I had to have the iMac's internal HD replaced.

Your configuration is better than the one I suggested, because it keeps your backups on separate physical devices that aren't likely to tank simultaneously. (I thought you had only one external drive.)

Since you mentioned it, a note about Recovery HD... CCC lists all your mounted volumes, including connected externals, at the bottom of its sidebar, and selecting a volume shows you if it's got an operating system installed and if it's got an associated Recovery HD; it also allows you to install a Recovery HD for any volume that hasn't got one.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
dkmarsh #47540 01/12/18 08:57 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
Before there was DSL, we all used 64k modems to d/l ~1 GB OS X Combos: 1,000,000,000/64,000/60/60=4.34 hours, and 4-5 hours is what a d/l always took.

I seem to remember the standard modem speed topping out at 56k. More importantly, that's kilobits, whereas a 1 GB download is gigabytes. My math says 1,000,000,000/7,000/60/60=39.68 hours.

Before there was DSL, OS X Combos were more on the order of 100 MB (the OS X 10.3.5 Combo weighed in at ~88 MB, for instance), which probably explains why your remembered downloads took 4-5 hours.

That's probably right in line with the sneakers in my freezer (although the scoop of chocolate ice cream in the heel of each shoe may never be explained). tongue

Thanks for correcting me! smile


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Downloading Mac OS
grelber #47550 01/12/18 04:18 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
It turns out that the 'failure' of my backup HD was not hardware but software. While Disk Utility couldn't deal with it in the state it was in, by reformatting the HD via a PC running Windows, then reformatting that via the Mac, I got a functional HD back. It now has 3 partitions for various backups, including bootable clones, Recovery HD, and other stuff..

It's somewhat sad that I've noticed an increasing number of "problem child" drives that I've had to resort to alternative methods to format because Disk Utility was being stubborn.

I can count maybe four times in the last year I've had to drop into terminal and (caaaaarefully) use DD to drop some zeros on the starting few MB of a device to get Disk Utility to finally see it as "unformatted" and allow me to (re)format it.


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