[X4U] Re: Trying to Backup my Hard Drive

[Randy B.Singer]

SeaSoft Systems said:

>This is a bug introduced in 10.3.9. There was a discussion on 
>MacFixit or Macintouch, I don't remember which. Google should help 
>out.
>
>Basically, you're screwed; I don't believe you can make a disk 
>utility image that size in 10.3.9. (However, 10.3.8 worked fine for 
>this, evidently.)


L.J. Palmer posted a work-around to this very list earlier this month:


he Following was taken from the SuperDuper! forum.
..lj

Due to a bug in OS X 10.3.9's image conversion, backups "directly" to  
DMGs is failing at the end of the process with the message:

hdiutil: convert failed - image/device is too large

We've reported this new problem in "hdiutil" (part of OS X) to Apple,  
and hope they'll be fixing it shortly -- it's new to 10.3.9.

In the meantime, we'd suggest using a "Sparse Image" as explained below.

Our apologies for the difficulty: alas, in this situation, we're at  
the mercy of Apple's own tools.
__________
Here's how! (Note: I'm assuming that you're using Panther in the  
following instructions... the steps might be slightly different under  
Jaguar.)

This first set of steps need only be done one time, when you  
initially create the image:

1. Open Disk Utility (found in /Applications/Utilities).
2. Without selecting any volume/drive on the left side, click the New  
Image toolbar button.
3. Give the image an appropriate name (like Weekly Backup), and store  
it on a drive other than the one you're trying to back up.
4. In the Size pop-up, choose Custom.
5. In the sheet that appears, enter the size of the drive you're  
trying to back up. Note that the pop-up does not have a selection for  
GB: you need to enter "40000" MB for 40GB. Click OK when you've got  
the right size entered.
6. Decide whether or not you want the image encrypted, and choose the  
proper value in the Encryption pop-up.
7. In the Format pop-up, choose sparse disk image.
8. Click Create.

Disk Utility will create a sparse disk image that can hold up to the  
amount you specified in step 5. The image itself will only be as  
large as is necessary at any given time, however. When the image is  
created, Disk Utility will automatically mount it.


Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html