Odd problem after replacing hard disk in my Macbook

[Howard Siegel]

Hey gang,

The disk in my Macbook was getting pretty full so I decided to replace it with a bigger disk. Until now I
have had no issues with this machine (other than some ethernet issues which it seems are well known).
After replacing the disk I have a funny problem and I haven't a clue as to what is going on.

I used SuperDuper to clone my existing disk on to a new, bigger, faster disk and then I swapped in the
new disk.

Now whenever I log in to the machine TextWrangler starts automatically, though without popping up a
window.  When I click the TextWrangler icon in the doc it opens a window with the file
cache_get_multi-i.yaml (from the Ruby framework)

Looking in to the Login Items for the account, it has 4 items:

GrowlHelperApp
MouseLocatorAgent
Nikon Message Center
cache_get_multi-i.yaml

The first 3 are applications and are unchecked.  The last one is checked and listed as a TextWrangler
template.

I used Disk Utility to do a check permissions and there were quite a few errors, so I had Disk Utility repair
them.  Note that I did not do this before cloning the disk.

I have no idea if this login item was there before or not, and if it was there why using the original disk does
not cause this problem but the cloned disk does.

Any ideas??????

I am going to put the original disk back in the machine and see what happens.

- h (who should know better than to do a major h/w or s/w upgrade right before going out of town!!!!)

[Howard Siegel]

Forgot to mention....

After cloning the internal drive to the new driver in an external USB enclosure, I booted to the new drive
and there was nothing out of the ordinary.  It wasn't until I swapped the new drive in to the machine that
this problem started happening.

In case it matters, the machine is a late 2009 white unibody Macbook running Snow Leopard 10.6.6.

- h

[Howard Siegel]

Ok, the original disk is back in the machine and nothing strange happens when I boot up and log in.

Checking the login items now shows (note that I did not maintain the same order of login items in my
previous message, but I don't think it matters):

BlueHarvest
iTunesHelper
MouseLocatorAgent
Nikon Message Center

The only one checked is iTunesHelper.

Very strange that BlueHarvest got replaced with GrowlHelperApp and iTunesHelper got replaced with cache_get_multi-i.yaml.

Any ideas???  Could it be that the cloning process messed up the copy??  Maybe I'll try using CarbonCopyCloner next
time instead of SuperDuper.

I'm going to boot from the big disk and see if the problem persists with that disk when used as an external USB disk.

I also made a second clone, but to a slower disk (5400 RPM vs 7200 RPM) and might see what happens with that one
when installed as the internal disk, but that will have to wait until I get back from my trip.

- h

[Howard Siegel]

I think I found the problem.... I had named the cloned volume with a different
name than the original volume ("Mac HD" vs the original "Macintosh HD")....

Been reading the support discussions at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/ for
SuperDuper and found several threads talking about issues with programs
"randomly" starting at login after cloning a drive and then swapping it
in to the machine.

Several of them mention that folks have found that everything is fine
when booting from the clone as an external drive but that after installing
the clone as the internal drive that the problems start and that their
login items have mysteriously changed from the original disk to the
clone and that this seems to correlate with the clone having a different
volume name than the original drive.  Something about symlinks still
using the original volume name and the paths can no longer be resolved
or resolve to who knows what paths.

Seems to be exactly what is happening to me.  With the clone as the external
boot drive, the original drive is still there so the symlink paths that use
the volume name resolve properly.  But when the clone is installed as the
internal drive and the original drive stored safely in a drawer, the symlinks
no longer resolve or no longer resolve correctly, and all hell breaks loose.

Argh!  Nothing in the docs seem to warn about this, or else this wouldn't
be a relatively common problem.  Either that, or nobody knows how to read.

Will try again when I have time next week and see if naming the cloned volume
the same as the source volume fixes the issues.

- h

[Brent Royal-Gordon]

I'm no expert on this, but simply using the same volume name may not help. From what I understand, HFS+ has a number of volume ID and file ID numbers. If SuperDuper doesn't transfer these numbers intact—and I'd be very surprised if it did—any software that uses those numbers, rather than file names, to hold references to files could get messed up.

You might have more luck copying the disk with Disk Utility and then expanding the new drive's copy to take up all available space, but you won't be able to do that while you're booted from one of those drives. Honestly, I'd just fix the mistakes by hand and enjoy your new drive—if that's the only problem people have reported, it's not a big deal to fix. 

-- 

Brent Royal-Gordon

Architechies

Sent from my iPad

[Bill]

About 4 months ago I used SD to clone my drive and renamed the new drive differently and had no issue.

Something that I do sometimes, but not always is reboot fresh before cloning. You might try that.

Interesting.

[Howard Siegel]

Since the reason d'etre for SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner is to create exact clones of drives, including cloning the
system drive, I would think that problems with volume ID and file ID numbers would have been worked out already, otherwise
you really could not clone your system drive without running in to lots and lots and lots and lots of problems.  If that were the
case, then these products wouldn't exist.

So I'm willing to believe that just naming the cloned volume with the same name as the original volume will work, although it
makes it well nigh impossible to properly test when the clone is booted as an external drive and the original drive still exists
with the original name.  But if it works after the clone is swapped in, then who am I to argue.

- h

[Howard Siegel]

Don't think I rebooted fresh after formatting the new drive but before running SuperDuper.  I'll add that to
the list of things to try when I can get back to this next week.

- h