I'm thinking a virtual Lion could make a nice sandbox for testing, and if I screw something up I can just delete the virtual machine and set up a new one.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Erkens Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:23 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Questionabout Super Doopper and external drives Hi Bill Holton, Both sandboxing and running Lion inside vm fusion requires some system maintanance. Why would you want to run lion as a virtual machine by the way? Why not just natively? Paul. On Sep 14, 2011, at 8:07 PM, Bill Holton wrote: > Thanks for these great instructions. It looks like the new version of VM > Fusion will allow me to run Lion as a virtual machine, which sounds like it > will be easier than sandboxing. But I do need to partition and format my > coming USB HD so the instructions are no less appreciated. > Thanks. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Erkens > Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:13 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Questionabout Super Doopper and external drives > > Hi Bill Holton, > You can repartition an external drive, and create both a fat32 windows > partition and a mac os 10 extended journaled one with mac disk utility. You > can then use the fat32 partition to share data between windows and the mac, > and you can use the os10 partition to maintain a backup of everything on > your mac. Let's begin by looking at how to resize your macintosh hd > partition and have a sandbox beside it. > It involves a few steps which I'll describe below. Not key by key though. > I'll assume that you have some mac knowledge, but just don't know where to > go yet, and in what order. Here you go. > > First open disk utility, to carefully inspect your current configuration so > that you know what you will be changing.. > To do this, Go into the finder, say, your desktop, and press command shift u > from there. This will open your utilities folder. Here, find disk utility > dot app, and open it. > In the disk table on the left, interact, and look at your current disk > configuration. You need to know a few things before you go do something > here. A disk is just a disk, and you cannot use it directly. It needs to > have a partition to hold the file system, inside of which you can store > files. There are many file systems, one of them is fat32, and another is mac > os10 extended journaled. A filesystem lives inside a partition, so the > partition is the container for the file system on the disk. From the disk > perspective, you first have an empty disk. Then you create a partition on > the disk, spanning all or only part of the disk size. As you are creating > the new partition, you must choose which file system is going to live inside > it, because The partition must be formatted for use with the type of file > system that you want to use. In other words, the way you format your > partition, becomes a property of the partition. So, on your external usb > drive, you can have a fat32 partition, and a mac os10 partition, and you can > have 2 separate mac os 10 extended journaled partitions on your internal mac > hard drive. In both cases, You then just allocate one bit to the first > partition, and the rest of the disk space to the other. You do this by > setting the size text fields inside disk utility. See below. > > Once inside disk utility on the mac, you will see your hard disk as the > brand of physical disk inside the machine, for example Hitachi 500gb. This > item in the disk table is usually expanded, meaning there can be something > inside it. And indeed, there is. It's your macintosh hd partition, formatted > as mac os10 extended journaled, with a size of your entire disk. > > What you want to have, is not 1 big partition of 500 or 320 gb, what have > you, but you would like to shrink the os10 partition and make it 20 gb > smaller. You will use these 20 gigabytes for the sandbox partition. This can > be done, but it can't be done non-destructively. In other words: resizing > your partitions with disk utility is indeed destructive, because it will > destroy all data on the disk. In all partitions. > > What you can do is back up everything, then recreate your macintosh hd > partition 20 gb smaller, create a sandbocx partition beside it, and then > restore your data. This is painless, as I experienced yesterday and today. > > You can use super duper. If you have one, take an external usb hard disk > with as much space as you have on your internal hard drive in your mac. Your > external disk can of course be larger, but you will need at most the size of > your mac drive, if you have it filled up. Super duper can create a backup of > your entire system, all apps, system files, preferences and all that. Even > the unregistered version of super duper does it without restriction and will > make the usb backup disk bootable too. Once everything is backed up, you can > restart your mac and boot off of the external disk. > > Note: If you have no other usb disks connected other than your external > backup hard disk, and as long as you only have 1 partition on the mac drive, > you can boot from the usb disk by turning on your mac, and during the > startup sound, hold down the option key for some 10 seconds or so. Release > it, and you will be in a menu. The cursor is on macintosh hd, to boot from. > Arrow left once, hit enter, and you will instead boot from the usb drive. It > takes longer but it works. End of note. > > When booted from the external drive, you have your entire system as usual. > Voice over as well. Because everything was backed up, both disk utility and > super duper are on this external drive too. So now, start disk utility and > look at what you have in the disk table. You will see your mac hard drive > and its macintosh hd partition, you will see your external usb disk that you > are now working from with its partitions, and you may see something called a > super drive. That is simply your mac's internal cd dvd drive. > Now, You want to repartition your internal mac hard drive into 2 new > partitions: macintosh hd 20 gb smaller, and the sandbox partition being 20 > gb in size. > > Put the cursor on the mac hard drive itself. Not on macintosh hd which is > the partition inside it. If you now look at the rest of this disk utility > screen, you will find a number of tabs. One of them is the partition tab. > Push it with vo space. The screen changes to show partitioning options. > > This screen is self-explanatory, except for one thing. There can be a scroll > area. First, you need to choose how many partitions you are going to have in > the new layout. You will find a pop button for this. After you select to > have 2 partitions, a scroll area will appear. It consists of 3 items: the > first partition, a separator and the second partition. Focus on your first > partition inside the scrool area and stop interacting. Now, look left and > right of the scroll area, and you will find places to give the partition its > size, name, and file system. Then go back to the scrool area again, focus on > the second partition which is your sandbox, and fill in the details again > for this partition. Then hit apply, let disk utility do its thing, and then > exit disk utility. Now you have a macintosh hd partition 20 gb smaller, and > you have your 20 gb sand box partition. Both partitions are in place but > they are empty. > > Now, use super duper to restore from your external drive back to macintosh > hd, so that your system is back normal again. > > In super duper, choose your external drive in the source pop up button, > choose macintosh hd as the destination in the second pop up button, use the > backup all files item in the next pop up button, and let it do its thing. > Now, you can boot as usual and nothing should be different. All data is back > on your drive, inside macintosh hd. > > Now for the sand box. Having booted normally, start super duper. Tell it to > back up from macintosh hd, to the new 20 gb sandbox partition, using the > choice named sandbox shared users as your backup method. Don't use smart > update this time yet. You want to be sure that everything is backed up from > macintosh hd to the sandbox partition. When done, close super duper. Now > you have your sandbox in place. Forget about it, until you want to test a > new device driver or piece of software. > > When that time has come, you will first need to boot from the new sandbox > partition. To do that, either do it using the option key at startup, or go > into system preferences, the item startup disk, and set it to boot from > sandbox. This will hold for all subsequent boot ups, until you change it > back. > > Once booted into your sandbox, install the software or drivers and try them > out. Reboot when you want or need to. Sandbox will automatically be the > booted partition because you did that in system preferences. If you are > satisfied with the new software, you will have to install it a second time, > but now on to your real macintosh hd partition. Go to system preferences, > change the startup disk back to macintosh hd, reboot, and install your > driver or software. > > Note: from time to time, it is a good idea to update your sandbox to reflect > the state of your ever changing macintosh hd. To do this, use super duper. > Backup from macintosh hd, to sandbox, backup all files, and use smart update > to bring down the backup time. To turn on smart update, find the options > button on the super duper screen, hit it and select smart update from a pop > up button. Hit ok to close options and hit copy now. Your sand box is now up > to date again, ready for the next unknown bit of software you would like to > have a go at. > Lastly, repartitioning your external drive should now be a snap. If you have > further questions let me know. > Hth, > Paul. > On Sep 14, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Bill Holton wrote: > >> Thanks. The sandbox seems like it would also be a more convenient way to >> get into the Mac if your main system gets messed up. How hard is it to >> repartition your ddrive on the fly? >> Also, any suggestions on what I should do with my coming USB drive so I > can >> use it both to use SuperDuper and have space to swap it to my Windows PC > to >> back it up with a PC backup program? >> Thanks. >> Bill >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Erkens >> Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 9:04 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: Questionabout Super Doopper and external drives >> >> Hi Bill, James and others, >> >> Super duper is equal in its functionality as far as backing up and > bootable >> backups go. CCC is free. Super duper costs 30 dollars or so. Super duper > has >> an extra bit of functionality though, that I really love, now that I > messed >> up my system installing the wrong drivers and so on in the past. Super > duper >> allows you to create a sand box. A sand box is an entire copy of your mac > os >> 10 system installation residing on another partition of your hard drive, >> that you can use to play around with software updates, system drivers you >> install such as mac fuse and others, and you can mess with applications, >> before you go ahead and actually install them for real into your main >> macintosh hd. If you want to test a new hardware device driver, and you > are >> not sure of the outcome, whether or not it is going to disturb you or >> something in your system, you can install the new driver inside the > sandbox. >> if you find out that everything works just fine inside your second os, the >> sandbox, then you can safely install the new drivers into your real > system. >> What super duper does, is that it requires you to repartition your drive >> into 2 pieces. One for your normal system, and a 20 gb partition for the >> sandbox. >> But then, Once that is done, you have the great advantage of testing new >> drivers and software inside your sandbox, before taking the plunge to >> install them into the daily operating system. If, on the other hand, you >> find that the driver is not working for you, is too intrucive or what ever >> reason you may have to discard it, then all you need to do is copy your >> clean macintosh hd system files over to the sandbox, replacing the mess > you >> created there. Now, you also got rid of the faulty driver in the sandbox. >> No matter if you boot from your macintosh hd or from the sandbox > partition, >> you always have your documents etc at hand. This is because if you boot > from >> macintosh hd, then the documents are accessible as usual. But from the >> sandbox, they are reference using symbolic links, so that, even though the >> sandbox is just a copy of the real os, you can access all your private > stuff >> from there too. That is wonderful in super duper. You should very > carefully >> read the manual though, before you begin sandboxing, so that you are aware >> of what's happening. For example, you should never copy the sandbox back > to >> macintosh hd. That makes you loose all your private stuff. >> >> CCC can backup and make the backup bootable, so if you don't need the sand >> box functionality, then ccc is perfect too. >> >> On Sep 13, 2011, at 6:31 PM, Bill Holton wrote: >> >>> Hi. >>> I have a 2 tarabyte drive on its way, and I have a few questions about > Mac >>> backups. >>> First, as I seem to recall, with Superdooper you can create a backup in a >>> format you can actually boot from, if the system becomes trashed? Is > this >>> correct? Is SuperDooper the only package that allows this,or does time >>> Machine, also? >>> Second question: How would I configure the drive so I can use it to back >> up >>> my Mac, but also swap it out to my PC to back it up? Guessing I'll need >> to >>> create two partitions? If so, how do I create the correct two using >> Tiger? >>> Thanks. >>> Bill >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >>> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
