A 'Switcher's Tale'

[Yuiichi]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience Chip. That call to Apple seems unusually bad for a task that every Apple employee should know about (it's an advertised feature, for pity's sake). Oh well... at least you're back up and running now!

For future reference, there are other more robust backup applications that you can use. One that is often suggested is SuperDuper!, which creates a clone of your drive. This would have saved your VMWare installation and had you up and running in no time. A cheaper (read: free) alternative is Carbon Copy Cloner. It also clones your drive, but I believe that SuperDuper! has more features.

Hope this helps any future dilemmas!

[Ginamos]

I'd also go with SuperDuper! Plus you get the benefit of having a bootable backup, which is handy if you need to do any disk repair on the main startup disk. The user interface is very intuitive and restores are pretty fast.

[Chipell]

Yuiichi, you are once again absolultely correct. Super Duper! is exactly what I was looking for. It compliments Time Machine as well, and as I type I am also cloning my drive!

THANK YOU!!!!!!

[Chipell]

Day 7? or 8?

This iMac is nothing but trouble. Not the bad kind of trouble mind you, but the good kind. Sort of.

You see, 'back in the day' (1983) when IBM had the market cornered, and I had my brand new IBM PC, 8088 dual floppy with 640k ram, RGB 12" monitor and keyboard, I quickly became a fanatic. While formatting 100's of 5.5" floppies, that took hours btw, I would play, explore, discover.

One night my lovely wife came down and said "I think I'll get my wedding dress and put it on this darn computer." Even that did not assuage my appetite. I ended up putting in a 30mb, yes a HUGE 30mb RLL hard drive. WOW! KING OF THE WORLD!

POOF: Flash forward to 2008. New iMac. Sleepless nights. Lots of fun. Renewed technological passion. Stubble on face and (some) chores left for 'later.'

I think I hear my wife looking for her wedding dress. Gotta' go!

[Chipell]

Yuiichi,
I would like to share a nice story with you and the other wonderful folks in this community. But I address it to you as a big, heart-felt thank you.

You know how, in Windows, when it crashes and messes up something, it asks you to send in an error report, and then you never hear anything, ever, never, and then it happens again a few times, and you search for hours on the internet and finally find an answer on some hidden away website?

Well, using your advice, I bought and installed Super Duper! I read the .pdf file instructions, set it up per those instructions and sent it on it's way to do it's thing.

The next day I looked at the backup drive and I felt it hadn't worked correctly. When you look at the log it has an option to send it to shirt-pocket.com, much like the Microsnobbypeople software does. So I did.

And I heard back! They were wonderful. They pointed out how to read the log, how to improve the performance, what to look for, etc. The program works, really works, and the support, is, well, unbelievable.

Thank you to you, and thank you to shirt-pocket software for chiseling some of the cynicism off of this cranky ol' poop.

[Yuiichi]

@Chip - thanks for sharing that story!

You'll be amazed at most independent Mac developers and how friendly and human they are. I've personally had contact with quite a few - some over questions regarding their software, and some just because they've seen my blog (check my signature) and want to share with what readers I have. I think that's really amazing, personally.

It's also really amazing to be in a community like this where you can share stories like the one you just told. Every time I hear something like this, it pretty much makes my day and confirms what I already know: it's just great to be a Mac user.

[houltmac]

Scanning the forums for the last time before I drop off the grid for a couple of days and I find three great quotes that sum up the people I had contact with outside of the forum:

Ginamos:"Senuti" - Simple, to the point, correct and perfect.

Baseballboy: "That's what I like about having a small forum. Everyone is much nicer to each other and everyone feels closer." - Point blank true.

Yuiichi: "it's just great to be a Mac user." - Spot on.

Anyway, I'll be back when my MacBook Pro arrives; in the mean time the Air must be sold. See everyone on the other side...

[Chipell]

Originally Posted by houltmac

Scanning the forums for the last time before I drop off the grid for a couple of days and I find three great quotes that sum up the people I had contact with outside of the forum:

Ginamos:"Senuti" - Simple, to the point, correct and perfect.

Baseballboy: "That's what I like about having a small forum. Everyone is much nicer to each other and everyone feels closer." - Point blank true.

Yuiichi: "it's just great to be a Mac user." - Spot on.

Anyway, I'll be back when my MacBook Pro arrives; in the mean time the Air must be sold. See everyone on the other side...

We'll be waiting!

[houltmac]

My MacBook Air is sold, my MacBook Pro is still in transit and I am using a creaking, half dead loaner machine! Urgh!

Still, at least I was allowed to borrow the thing and it will get me through until mine arrives.

[Chipell]

Houtmac,

Time Machine doesn't back up the VMWare virtual drive. It is excluded. BUT, Super Duper! does back it up, but I got Super Duper! too late to do any good with this crash.

There is something about Time Machine, using scripts? or something similar that excludes the virtual drive. It backs up the folder /users/name/documents/virtual machines

but it doesn't back up the file IN the folder! Bummer.