Backup Mac Partition?

[light_vader]

Good morning fellow hackintosh lovers...

Unfortunately I completed my build some weeks ago, then installed Windows and Linux on my other drive and forgot about Lion (because I got a KP after trying to install sound drivers)...
Prior the sound KP I had used "Paragon Backup and Recovery" to make a copy of my Lion partition (compressed because I won't waste 500 GBs worth of 9) inside Win7.
Now I recovered the backup last night and to my surprise when booting, not only I have to use iBoot DVD now (seems like the backup of the EFI whatever loader partition was a disaster, although I don't even know why I backed up that anyway hehe) but Lion won't start at all, so it means the hour of creating the backup, the 16 hours of recovering the backup and the probably 4 hours to get Lion running were straight to the trash.

Now I have to open my PC once again, remove the RAM stick, unplug the second HD and all else and start over (thankfully I created a guide which will be useful)!!!!!

So anyway, I'm trying to act cool because otherwise Imma take my case and kill someone with it...

In the meantime, what have you guys used with success to backup your partitions in case you need to try some new kexts and mess with the system?
Because otherwise how would one act in a situation like this... I mean, what If I have a system running for some time with a bunch of applications and user data and require to upgrade something system-related? The solution can't be "install the OS all over again"!!!

Thanks for your time

 

[hardmantosh]

Carbon Copy Cloner makes bootable partitions every day every time ====google..
try and download ccc 3.3.7 version...takes my system 1 minute per GB of information.this version will suit your particular abilities and has a little green dot on R/H side of page that states this volume will be bootable::::::but if you loose the plot and trash ya pc send us a video...RELAX and HAVE FUN...
but im suggesting you do not upgrade it to latest version until you fully know this version,,
a few things have been deleted in new version.

 

[light_vader]

Hahaha.

Ok dude, thanks a lot for the info. Will grab the 3.3.7 then, seems like a nice application, just what I need...

I'm off to reinstall it all now, you gave me a little hope

 

[georgeba]

SuperDuper! does a similarly good job. You'll have to use MultiBeast on the backup drive the FIRST TIME only, from then on it's bootable.

 

[tremmelin92]

^ SuperDuper! is fantastic

 

[powerpcg5]

SuperDuper! does a similarly good job. You'll have to use MultiBeast on the backup drive the FIRST TIME only, from then on it's bootable.

That's not my experience with SuperDuper, using it since OSX 10.4
The cloned drive will be bootable even without Multibeast.

I'm noticing this advice a lot on this board.... "use MB or chimera with your cloned superduper drive." WTH. Why???? It's not necessary.

 

[hardmantosh]

SuperDuper! does a similarly good job. You'll have to use MultiBeast on the backup drive the FIRST TIME only, from then on it's bootable.

That's not my experience with SuperDuper, using it since OSX 10.4
The cloned drive will be bootable even without Multibeast.

I'm noticing this advice a lot on this board.... "use MB or chimera with your cloned superduper drive." WTH. Why???? It's not necessary.

i will agree with you on that and so does ccc;
both programs copy your multibeast entries over and your dsdt.aml if you have etc etc.

 

[cliffom]

That's not my experience with SuperDuper, using it since OSX 10.4
The cloned drive will be bootable even without Multibeast.

This is my experience as well. Installed Lion, ran Multibeast, and then cloned the drive with SuperDuper!. The Clone was bootable without running Multibeast on it.

 

[light_vader]

Ok guys a bit late but appreciate the help.
Will definitely try SuperDuper once I get my thing going (that is, Lion and then installed apps).

But for the time being (building the hackintosh) I found the perfect tool: Clonezilla. It's a Linux-based Live-CD with cloning capabilities, just tested it yesterday (wiped my hackintosh partition on windows, then cloned and restored) and it works wonderful!!!

Like I said, Clonezilla is great for building, at least while I learn more about the new OS, because I know not what intricacies I'd have to go through if I were to use SuperDuper!

But then after a while of having a stable OS and then user documents and apps, then I think the "incremental backup" software approach is obviously best (I think of it as windows restore points, although I always disable that because obviously I never had an issue of installing something to see windows fall into pieces), and as far as I understood, SuperDuper does that.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the replies.

 

[ffk]

I have to agree with all of the posts reguarding CCC and SuperDuper. I can't speak for hackintosh backups as I don't have a hackintosh yet but in my many years of Mac OS (I've been using macs since system 6) CCC and SuperDuper are two of the best cloning apps for Mac OS X and they're free!

For other backups I would recommend Tribackup. This one isn't free but has some great features...

• Multiple modes: copy, backup, synchronization, deletion, compression, comparison, etc..
• Multiple backup modes: Evolutive (which keeps multiple versions of each document), Mirror (identical copy), Incremental partial Disc Copy, etc..
• "Programmed Actions" running in the background, with automatic execution.
• Management of various contexts (office, home, nomad) to adapt the execution of certain actions (so that they are activated only in a particular context).
• "Immediate Actions" to check and control precisely what needs to be copied, deleted or modified.
• Ability to make encrypted backup (password protected).
• Create an unlimited number of programmed actions.
• Opening of immediate actions containing the settings stored in your programmed actions.
• Restoration with search of the location where the most recent backup of a particular folder was done.
• Restore Time Machine backups.
• History of executed actions, of copied files, etc..
• Posts information on the progress of actions.
• Automatically mount remote volumes.