[bader660av]

I want to clone my dell mini 10v with Carbon copy cloner. I think if I can clone to a usb drive, then I can test updates, and if I have issues I can revert. Carbon Copy cloner can clone a live system. I formatted my drive GUID, I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my drive ( i did not select all my files, I excluded my media directory, why clone 40 GB of movies). I then set the machine to legacy support usb and selected USB drive to be primary boot, but it would not boot. I did some investigating and came across some posts about DELLefi and a boot loader which does not get cloned. I ran netbook installer 0.8.4 RC on my external USB drive, and it won't boot, I got a boot error.

Any ideas? Anyone able to clone their drive live to an external USB drive and then boot off of it using carbon cloner? and then for extra points, and one ever cloned back from an external drive to the internal to back out an update?



*** Note I have used Carbon copy cloner to clone a booted live Mac drive to an external USB drive on a MAC and it worked. I could boot off the USB drive. Carbon Copy cloner rocks.


Thanks
Bob

[Fishrrman]

"I did some investigating and came across some posts about DELLefi and a boot loader which does not get cloned."

I read your post with interest because I, too, was considering using CCC to clone the contents of the Mini10v hard drive to a USB external drive. I'm sure I would run into the same problems that you have.

I'm thinking the best course of action might be to contact the author of CarbonCopyCloner and bring up this issue with him. My understanding is that he's responsive to user problems. He might be able to modify CCC in future versions so that it would not "ignore" the necessary files when cloning a "hackintosh" to an external drive...

[Mini10v4Me]

I used the free version of Super Duper, backed up to USB flash drive, then ran Netbookmaker and installed ONLy Chameleon on the USB drive, and it is now a fully bootable USB that runs my OS 10.6.3, and I even used it to make a clone disk for a second Mini 10v. Easy and free.

[soho100]

Just cloning my internal drive with Super Duper and I now have a bootable external USB drive. Gonna try cloning it to a new Dell Mini this evening. Thanks guys.

[soho100]

Well that was easy. I removed the HD from my new 10v and placed it in a USB caddy, hooked it up to my other 10v and cloned the internal HD to it using SuperDuper. Installed Chameleon, put the HD back in the new 10v...and it boots up and works perfectly. Saved me hours of installs and updates and possible mess-ups. Thanks Mini10v4Me.

[bader660av]

Any one got step by step instructions on how to make a clone?

I formatted my usb drive to GUID, I then copied it with Super duper (the whole drive) to the external usb, then ran netbookinstaller and only installed chameleon.

then I rebooted went into setup and turned on usb legacy support and set the usb drive to boot first. I saved config and restarted. I got a boot 0 error.

Now the usb drive is toast 9I can reformat and start over), when I boot up back to internal drive, the os wants to initialize the usb drive.

I got the same results with carbon copy cloner.


Any ideas? My extenal usb drive is firewire and USB, but I don't see how that makes a difference. For those who got it to work, what did you do to set the machine to boot from the external drive? Did you enable legacy support & bluetooth ? etc.... How did you format the drive? Is GUID correct?

anyone see what I am missing?
Thanks
Bob

---------- Post added at 03:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 AM ----------

also one more pieice of info, i can not format my external drive via USB from the dell mini 10v, I get an error n disk utility. I also tried from a 10.5 and get the same error. I can reformat it via firewire from a 10.5 machine. Could THis drive just be incapaable to be cloned to boot a dell mini10v? I googled and saw that this issue may be common with 10.5 & 10.6 and usb drives. Anyway I am stuck trying to clone the drive.


On a personal note. I LOVE this machine. It has not crashed once, one report said a hackintosh mini 10v runs like a G4. that is wrong!!!!!, this thing runs fast, I can stream netflix to it and it is watchable. I could not do that on my 900 mhz celeron ASUS eee pc. If you have not got one of these, run out and find one, they rock. I wish dell had a desktop version of this to turn into a desktop mac.

[soho100]

Looking at your post you've done everything correctly so I guess it could be the USB port on the drive or the Dell or simply the cable. Try another cable...if not another drive. My USB external drive is partitioned in 2, so when I boot up I hit F12 and get a list of the drives connected to boot from. You only ned to enable USB Legacy.

Good luck.

[bader660av]

soho100,

Thanks. What partition formats did you use? GUID or master boot record.

I will have to see if I have another drive.

[soho100]

Select GUID and 1 partition from the drop down menu. I created 2 so I could have a clean install system on one and my data on the other.

[bader660av]

Success!!!!!

I hooked up an internal drive, via ide/serial to usb cable to the USB port . Now I could actually format the drive from 10.5 & 10.6.

I renamed drive "Mac OSX Install DVD" **** doubt this mattered, but was not sure if the exact name was needed with Netbookmaker.

I used Carbon copy cloner to clone my drive **** I excluded my 40 GB media directory, My external drive was only 40 GB


I ran Netbookmaker and just selected Chameleon to install on the external drive.


I shut down and disconnected drive

I rebooted and enabled legacy USB and shut down machine

I plugged in drive and on boot hit F12 and slected USB drive *** I had plugged into another port, but I doubt that was the issue


MY machine booted from external USB.

When I looked in about this mac, the internal drive was still listed in the upper right (where the boot drive usually goes) but "about this mac" showed it was starting up front the external usb drive.


So I think my issue was with my external USB enclosure (it had both USB and firewire and I could not format it via usb in 10.5 or 10.6.


Anyway, Now I can try updates and programs etc.... and now have a way to revert back to a good working state, just in case.