Frequently Asked Questions

Q(22): Can I use CCC to create a bootable CD or DVD?
A: NO. Creating a bootable disk on read-only media is not an easy task (see http://ww.bombich.com/mactips/bootx.html) and is well beyond the scope of CCC. I recommend trying "BootCD" created by Charles Srstka to undertake this task.

Q(21): CCC told me I need to install the BSD subsystem, what's that and how do I do it?
A: The BSD subsystem is the set of utilities that typically only Unix geeks use. The concept of CCC, though, is that it places an easy to use interface on many of those utilities. The end result is that you can create a full, bootable backup of your drive using only the utilities installed on the machine. If you chose to do a custom install without that package, though, you will need to install it before CCC will work. To do so:

  1. Insert the Mac OS 10.2 Installer CD
  2. Navigate to /Mac OS X Installer CD/System/Installation/Packages
  3. Double-click on BSD.pkg and follow the installation instructions

Q(20): Why are the Scheduler and Clone buttons disabled?
A: You need to click on the padlock to authenticate CCC. These functions require administrative privileges.

Q(19): How can I clone to a folder?
A: Select "Clone to Folder..." from the File menu. Note that this is not a supported option, I provide it due to demand alone. I recommend the "Create Disk Image" option in the preferences instead if you want to consolidate your backup to one file.

Q(18): Can I schedule a backup to a disk image?
A: No. However, if the spirit moves you, you can edit the shell script created by CCC to manually mount a disk image, then dismount it when finished. Type "man hdiutil" in the Terminal for more information.

Q(17): I've booted from the clone, but it presents me with a login screen and won't accept my password. What do I do?
A: Occasionally (but rarely), the NetInfo database does not copy properly. Often this is because the target disk was not formatted before cloning. The fix is fairly easy:

Reboot into single-user mode (hold down command+s during boot). When prompted, type:

fsck -y
[repeat until it no longer says that the Filesystem was modified]
mount -uw /
cd /var/db/
rm .AppleSetupDone
cd netinfo
mv local.nidb local.nidb.bak
exit

As the system boots, you will get the Apple Setup Assistant. Enter your name, password, etc (be sure to use the same short name). You should be able to get in just fine now.

Q(16): How do I manually remove all CCC scheduled tasks?
A: You should always attempt to remove tasks from the Scheduler window before attempting to manually remove tasks. If for some reason CCC fails to remove a task, you can manually remove the items that CCC installs for scheduling. In the Terminal, type "sudo rm /etc/ccc.*", then type "sudo pico /etc/crontab". This will open a text editor. Remove the bottom lines that are annotated with "## CCC task: " (hint: use Control + K to delete a whole line). When finished, use Control + X, press "Y", hit return to save the changes. If you think you made a mistake, you can press "N" to not save changes when prompted.

Q(15): Do I have to have psync installed in order to use CCC?
A: No. You only have to install psync if you want to use the synchronization features of CCC. You can use all other features of CCC without psync.

Q(14): Can I use CCC to backup to a network volume?
A: No. There are many difficulties in getting the proper set of privileges to make this possible. You can connect two Macs with a firewire cable, though, and boot one into target disk mode. A firewire connection is 4-40 times faster anyway.

Q(13): Can I use CCC to backup my drive to CDs?
A: Not directly. You can create a disk image, clone to the disk image, then burn the disk image to a CD. You will have to work out the details of 1) splitting the disk image to fit on CDs and 2) restoring the CDs to a volume. Check out http://mactips/bombich.com/asrx.html for a related suggestion. Note that inserting a blank disk in Mac OS X will create a blank disk image that will work with CCC.

Q(12): CCC reported an error on a file that I don't recognize, and the name sounds just plain weird. Is it safe to ignore this error and continue?
A: Probably. Go ahead and try, you have little to lose. You should recognize most of the files and folders that are important to you, because they are visible at the root level of the drive. However, always boot from your clone and test everything before deleting the original!

Q(11): There are more items at the root level of the cloned volume than on the original volume. Where did they come from and how do I make them invisible again?
A: These items were present at the root level of your startup disk, but the Finder didn't show them. The file ".hidden" at the root level of your startup disk lists files/directories at the root level that should be hidden by the Finder. When you boot from your cloned drive, these items will become invisible, and the items at the root level of your previous disk will become visible.

Q(10): Now that I've booted from my cloned volume, many of the links do not work and some of the icons in my Dock are question marks. Why?
A: If you had links to file/folders/applications on a partition other than your startup partition, it is very likely that these links were defined by absolute path names. If this pathname is no longer valid, the links will no longer work. For example, I had two partitions: Aqua (startup), and Donut (spare). I had my Users directory on Donut, thus I had many links to files and applications kept on that partition. After moving everything to a new computer, I had three partitions (Aqua, Home, and Spare). Because the volume "Donut" is no longer on my system, the hundred or so links that I had pointed to that volume no longer work. Because "Donut" is a stupid name, I decided that renaming "Home" to "Donut" to fix the problem was out of the question, so I simply repair the links as I come to them.

Q(9): The progress bar is not moving, and CCC does not appear to be responding, what should I do?
A: Due to the lack of a decent dialog between CCC and Darwin, it is not possible to determine how far along each copy task is, so the progress bar is not to scale. Because of this, CCC may appear to be hanging when it is actually copying files. If there is disk activity, CCC is probably still working. Be patient (20 minutes for the System folder alone is not out of the question). If there is no disk activity and CCC is not responding (i.e., after an error), the easiest way to kill it is to 1) control/right click on its icon in the Dock while holding the option key then 2) select Force Quit. You may have to allow some time for the Dock menu to appear.

Q(8): CCC has finished, but it appears as if many of the directories were not copied. Where are the files?
A: Occasionally, after CCC is finished it may appear that some files were not copied (especially in the Applications folder). Log out/back in (or relaunch the Finder) to see if the copy was actually successful. It is always good practice to verify your backups, especially before deleting the original files. The best method is to compare sizes of the folders at the root level. In a future release, there will be a utility to do this for you.

Q(7): What changes does CCC make to my original installation of OS X?
A: The only changes that CCC will make to your original drive is to reset the privileges of the source disk and the /Volumes folder to the installer default. This is to ensure that privileges are preserved correctly.

Q(6): Does CCC check to see if there is enough space on the target drive before cloning?
A: No, you should check this yourself before beginning.

Q(5): The names in the Target Disk list are not the same as the names of my partitions. Why is it named "MyDisk-1"?
A: CCC lists the mountpoints for target disks, which may not be the name of the disk, but is more explicit when it comes to copying files. If you have two drives with the same name, or if there were other problems with the autodiskmount utility, one of the volume's mountpoints may be named with a "-1" appended. In general, if your drives have unique names, the mountpoints will have the same name as the disk.

Q(4): I got an error in the format "<name of file>__XXCOPIERXX__.3224.0: Operation not supported". Why?
A: Ditto (CCC's copying engine) has trouble with excessively long file names (>230 characters). You may get errors if you have names as such. To avoid problems, make sure all your file names are less than 230 characters.

Q(3): Why isn't my cloned Firewire drive bootable?
A: Many people have reported problems creating bootable clones on Firewire disks (though more have reported success). It seems to be a general problem with firewire drives and Mac OS X, but it doesn't happen every time. Some people have had success with formatting the disk with Disk Utility before the clone. I've heard that simply erasing a partition is not good enough (if you have multiple partitions, certainly give this a try first anyway), that formatting the entire firewire drive is necessary.

Q(2): Half the way through copying files to my firewire drive, CCC hangs up. What's going on?
A: Many people have reported this problem as well. Unplugging the firewire cable (not the power!) seems to escape from the holdup, but of course terminates the clone. Try formatting the drive with Disk Utility and start over. If you have other data on the drive that you can't get rid of, perhaps you can copy over say, the first half of the files, then relaunch CCC, eliminate all the files/folders from the items to be copied list that were successful, then try again. There isn't any reason this shouldn't work, it doesn't have to happen all at once to be successful.

Q(1): I was able to successfully clone the disk in my Beige G3, but it isn't bootable. Doesn't CCC support Beige G3s?
A: Select your target disk, then select "Bless OldWorld Target Disk" from the File menu.