does apple ship mini's with 10.7.2 already on?

[KScottMyers]

Here is what I was going to do later on today, please let me know if this is fine and covers all your steps

1) Create two partitions on the backup/destination drive.
2) Use CCC to create a (bootable ?) clone of MacMini into partition 1
3) use CCC to create a non bootable disk Image of MacMini and store it in partition 2

cheers

cooa99

You can do this, but you don't have to partition the drive. Just store the image somewhere on the MacBook first (it will only be about 8GBs), clone the external drive, copy the image to the external drive. Done.

You may want to keep a second copy of the image for safe keeping - like on a DVD or USB Thumb drive.

 

[cooa99]

You can do this, but you don't have to partition the drive. Just store the image somewhere on the MacBook first (it will only be about 8GBs), clone the external drive, copy the image to the external drive. Done.

You may want to keep a second copy of the image for safe keeping - like on a DVD or USB Thumb drive.

phew! I have done as you said. i.e.

1) created the disk image of the two drives (in mac mini) in Target Disk Mode. The main drive in disk utility reported 8.5Gb size but CCC clone only reported or cloned 5.2Gb? . could that be a hidden utility partition that CCC cant handle or file(s) that cant be copied?(e.g swap/paging files like in windows)

2) I cloned the drives to an external usb drive. in CCC, I used the option “Maintain a backup (Archive modified & deleted files)" which seem to create extra empty folder.. hope that does not cause issues.

I am hopping that all is fine.
The chassis of the mac mini did get a bit hot!

I now have to painfully wait for another 2 hrs before I get home so I can actually boot into the mac mini to set it up 1st time round with all internet access and potential OS update …

Just 1 additional question on CCC to clear up this bootable/non-bootable stuff
Could the so called non-bootable disk image I created restore to a brand new drive to make it bootable (provided I am booting into mac OS on an external drive) ?
OR
will I 1st have to use disk utility to create a bootable partition on the "a brand new drive" and then restore the disk image to that partition to make it a bootable drive?



Thanks very much KScottMyers you have been a life saver!

css_jay99

 

[KScottMyers]

phew! I have done as you said. i.e.

1) created the disk image of the two drives (in mac mini) in Target Disk Mode. The main drive in disk utility reported 8.5Gb size but CCC clone only reported or cloned 5.2Gb? . could that be a hidden utility partition that CCC cant handle or file(s) that cant be copied?(e.g swap/paging files like in windows)

2) I cloned the drives to an external usb drive. in CCC, I used the option “Maintain a backup (Archive modified & deleted files)" which seem to create extra empty folder.. hope that does not cause issues.

I am hopping that all is fine.
The chassis of the mac mini did get a bit hot!

I now have to painfully wait for another 2 hrs before I get home so I can actually boot into the mac mini to set it up 1st time round with all internet access and potential OS update …

Just 1 additional question on CCC to clear up this bootable/non-bootable stuff
Could the so called non-bootable disk image I created restore to a brand new drive to make it bootable (provided I am booting into mac OS on an external drive) ?
OR
will I 1st have to use disk utility to create a bootable partition on the "a brand new drive" and then restore the disk image to that partition to make it a bootable drive?



Thanks very much KScottMyers you have been a life saver!
css_jay99

1. Not sure - unless its compressing the disk image.

2. On the mini server, only the first drive has the OS installed and the second drive is empty - so you don't have to clone the empty drive.

Using the option “Maintain a backup (Archive modified & deleted files) to clone to the external drive is fine.
Also - you should select to clone the mini OS drive as a disk image for safe keeping. This saves the drive image as a single file.

CCC. Cloning as a disk image is for portability - the drive image is self contained as a single file. Its easy to move it around to other media types - DVD, Thumbdrive, Hard Drive, Network Share, etc.

If you clone this image back to the mini's hard drive, it will then be bootable. Real easy.

 

[cooa99]

1. Not sure - unless its compressing the disk image.

Both the disk image and clone were similar size even though disk utility reported a larger size ..... so they must be ok touch wood

thanks very much




cooa99