[Macpartners] Apple Software Restore/Carbon Copy Cloner problems on cloning Beige G3s...

[Kerem B Limon]

I am having a heck of a time (not) getting a model Mac OS 9.2.2/X 10.2.8 
combination setup cloned across to Power Macintosh G3 ("Beige"/"Platinum") 
models.

I have tried (details later) all of Disk Copy 6.5b13 cloning, Apple 
Software Restore 2.2.5, Carbon Copy Cloner 2.3, all to no avail. I can 
either not get the restore/clone from my image to actually take place, or 
when it (allegedly) does, to get the Mac to actually boot past the flashing 
question mark/floppy icon (searching for a bootable device, that is). When 
are we going to get a decent, *fast* cloning solution for the Mac, a la 
DriveImage or Ghost?!


Here are the verbose details:

o All of the hard disk drives concerned are in good shape. I have 
individually verified this by taking them out and installing them in a PC, 
running the manufacturer's diagnostics, even zero-filling them (IDE drives; 
and additionally low-level formatting SCSI drives) and re-verifying. The 
drives are *not* broken, nor do they have bad sectors.

o I have set up my model configuration, dual boot Mac OS 9.2.2/X 10.2.8 + 
updates and desired software set up; it works fine, checks out in Disk 
First Aid under 9, X, as well as DiskWarrior and Norton (not implemented 
any Norton fixes, so Norton has looked at but not "touched" the drive, and 
that was after I had already tried cloning unsuccessfully several times). 
It is a single, under-8GB partition, Mac OS Extended, on an IDE drive, and 
boots fine on the Power Mac G3 it has  been set up to both OSs.

o I have created an image of this using Disk Copy 6.5b13, via "Create Image 
from Device". I have then converted the image to ASR format using the "Scan 
9+X image for ASR" AppleScript from the Scripts menu. This completed 
successfully, and created a 4 segment (700 MB CD-R size) .dmg image, which 
mounts, checksums, and verifies correctly.

o If I try to use ASR 2.2.5 to restore this image to an IDE disk in the 
system (image stored on and system booted from an external SCSI drive), ASR 
will begin, and then after about a minute, simply state "restore has 
failed". I have tried different target hard disks and several times, no go.

o If I mount the model .dmg image, use Disk Copy 6.5b13 and "Clone" option 
from the menus, I am able to clone the image fine. I then have to go into 
Drive Setup and remove a write-protect bit that has been set under the 
Volume Settings for the recently cloned target volume (why?). I then try to 
reboot the system, get stuck at the flashing question mark/floppy icon...no go.

o After this failure, the disk can not be initialized again from Drive 
Setup, no matter what I do. Booting to OS X, I can use Disk Utility, 
however, to erase/zero-fill the drive and try again; or remove the drive 
and zero-fill on the PC using the manufacturer's diagnostic tools, and try 
again. Same results follow.

o If I try to do this from Mac OS X 10.2.8, using

sudo asr -source /path/to/Macintosh_asr.dmg -target 
/Volumes/InternalDriveName -erase

(substituting file names and paths as necessary, of course)

at the Terminal, I am able to successfully "restore" the image. The disk is 
mounted and visible, accessible under Mac OS X; Startup Disk can be 
selected to the OS 9 or X system on the newly restored disk, however upon 
reboot, again, I get the flashing question mark...no go.

o If I boot from my model setup, run Disk Utility and erase/zero the target 
drive, then run Carbon Copy Cloner 2.3 and "clone", with the "make 
bootable" option checked, and "Bless OldWorld disk" from the menu, as 
suggested, again, I get a clone that mounts and is readable in Mac OS X. 
However, upon reboot, no luck getting past the flashing question mark.

o I cannot use Mac OS X 10.3 Disk Utility on this machine, since it is a 
Beige G3. I *might* be able to take both model and target disks to a Blue & 
White and try the new restore/clone functionality of 10.3 over there, but 
something tells me there's more going on here.

I am at my wits' end. Any suggestions welcome.

Kerem