Problem making a bootable clone.

[TC100]

How do I make a bootable clone?


In 2010 I built a tower primarily to run FAH (Folding at Home) and to use as a media/general server with the following components:-


CORE I7 860 2.8GHz (mildly overclocked to 3.4GHz)
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4 P55
ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/P/512MB
2Gx2 CORSAIR CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 R
SEAGATE 1TB HDD


OS X (retail) now 10.6.8
DSDT-GA-P55M-UD4-F8.aml


It has been successfully running 24/7 but the time has come to increase the storage capacity. I want to replace the existing HDD (Snow Leopard) with a 3 TB. I read somewhere, on this site I think, that it is not advisable to have the bootable volume more than 1TB so I created two partitions on the new drive, the first less than 1TB (Cowboy). Using Carbon Copy Cloner I copied the contents of Snow Leopard to Cowboy. In System Preferences > Startup Disk, Cowboy shows as a bootable volume.


Having selected Cowboy as the Startup Disk, I changed the BIOS to have the new HDD as the primary boot option. Restarted and it booted into Snow Leopard. Scratches head.


Restarted again but this time used the 'any key' option to select from Snow Leopard or Cowboy, selected Cowboy and it booted from the Cowboy partition. Cowboy was the first HDD icon on the desktop and confirmed as boot drive with About this Mac.


With the system booted from Cowboy I ran MultiBeast 3.10.1 and checked install the Chimera v1.7.0 r1394 bootloader as I had also read that Carbon Copy Cloned doesn't copy the bootloader. This should have installed the bootloader on the new HDD.


Restarted and it booted from Snow Leopard, WTF. I disconnected the Snow Leopard HDD leaving only the new HDD and rebooted only to get an error message and no friendly Chameleon. I don't think the hardware is seeing the Chimera bootloader so at this stage I thought I'd ask for suggestions. I have a feeling I'm missing something obvious …




Thanks.

 

[Going Bald]

Cloning with CCC or SD does not clone the boot loader. You need to install Chimera, either with MultiBeast or the stand alone installer. Since you say you have done this, I suspect Boot0 Error is cause.
See http://www.tonymacx86.com/25-boot0-error-official-guide.html
Question - if all you need ismore storage space, why not keep the existing drive and just use the 3Tb for storage instead of trying to boot with it?

 

[TC100]

Cloning with CCC or SD does not clone the boot loader. You need to install Chimera, either with MultiBeast or the stand alone installer. Since you say you have done this, I suspect Boot0 Error is cause.
See http://www.tonymacx86.com/25-boot0-error-official-guide.html
Question - if all you need ismore storage space, why not keep the existing drive and just use the 3Tb for storage instead of trying to boot with it?

Thanks for the prompt reply and helpful link. Having read a lot of that thread I'm sure you're correct. I chose option 2 to try and correct the problem. I removed the new drive and mounted it via USB on my MacPro (10.6.8) but when I run MultiBeast 3.10.1 I can't select Cowboy as the installer jumps from License to Installation Type bypassing Destination Select. Any ideas?

Regarding your question, the existing HDD is 3 years old and has been running 24/7 since installation. Its not a question of if but when it will fail so I thought I would retire it to use as a bootable backup of the new drive.

 

[TC100]

Doh! All I needed was to install the bootloader so I downloaded the latest version of Chimera to my MacPro. The installer allowed me to select the installation destination and Cowboy booted up as soon as I installed it in my server.

I am back folding and have plenty of free space again.

Thanks.