Dorkus Malorkus

Well, I’ve completely backed up BigAl and have gotten myself used to the idea of starting w/ a completely new install when my copy of Tiger shows up.  Read about my unsuccessful attempts to create a clone of my boot partition in The Great Re-partitioningâ„¢ (Part I).  I don’t feel like bothering w/ re-installing Tech Tool Pro, so…. screw it.
The problem is that I’m not a fan of completely new installs, as I’m quite particular about what add-ons and mods I make to my OS — I run a tight ship!  A fresh install on a machine that I use to earn my living means lost productivity.  I’ve read a few articles recently about people advocating fresh installs, but I just don’t get it.  I think this is the mindset of your typical Mac user, though — “theyâ€? like to try out lots of little programs that leave small bits of cruft on your system, eventually accumulating to the point that it noticeably decreases performance.

*sigh*

Bleh.

So I read a story about Apple’s new Quicktime 7 (QT) codec, H.264, and wanted to sample some of the HD movie trailers they provided.

Well, my copy of the Tiger (I got the family pack) hasn’t arrived yet, and I’m not in *that* much of a hurry, but I wanted to try out the movies, ya know?

Having paid for QT Pro in version 4, 5 and 6, you’d think I’d remember, but for some reason… I didn’t.  Maybe I’m just an idiot.

Upgrading from a Pro version of QT to the next leaves you w/ NO PRO LICENSE.  WTF, Apple!?!?  This is the THIRD TIME this has happened to me.

I’m getting quite aggravated by this, and I’m done paying for QT Pro.  I’m going to use one of the FREE full-screen QT movie players.

Shame, shame, shame.

I spent the entire evening trying to make a backup of my boot partition (note the emphasis on “trying�, as I never managed to get it done).

My first three attempts were through Carbon Copy Cloner — each time ended in a kernel panic.  I didn’t catch where it happened during the first one, but the next two were when it was in either the /Library or /System directories (I don’t remember exactly — I tried several more times and walked away frustrated).

“Ok:  I know I’m just doing a read operation on my system, but maybe there’s some weird interaction I don’t know about that’s causing it to crash.â€?

Lucky me!  I have another OS on the Dev partition — I booted to that one and started my FOURTH attempt.

Same thing.  SAME place!

RAGE!!!

WTF?  At this point I’d already run Repair Permissions about three times, so I thought it was time for me to try some disk diagnostics.  Starting w/ the easiest (and arguably least-effective) tool, I opened up Disk Utility and gave it a chance.  I don’t remember the exact error it tanked out w/, but I wasn’t TOO surprised.

Next?  Tech Tool Pro.  I ran all of the tests I could, but guess what?  I installed it onto my boot partition, so I couldn’t do a Volume test because it was “busyâ€?, even when I booted off of the OTHER (backup) volume!  I’ll install it on the backup partition and see what I can fix on the main one tonight.

*sigh*

I contented myself w/ conducting a surface scan and went to bed.

Now I have to figure out how to get Tiger installed w/o leaving myself completely in a lurch while completing The Great Re-partitioningâ„¢.

I’ve gotten so used to technology doing what I command of it, that I get absolutely furious when things don’t go my way.

When I originally formatted the drive in my Powerbook, I was still in the “old� mind-set of having a spare partition around just to have an extra OS available to boot from in the event my primary failed for some reason.

It’s been two years (jeez:  have I been using this 17“ *that* long?) now, and having never had a major problem w/ OS X, I think I’m ready to compress down from having FOUR partitions, to just two.

FOUR??  Yes, four.  Classic, Dev, Main and Scratch.  Dev was the one w/ the â€?spare“ OS on it.  I’m still not completely convinced to fly solo w/ just one OS partition, but I NEVER user Classic (I did two years ago), and I can easily rid myself of my Dev partition.  Since most of my dev work is web-based, it makes little sense to have an OS + partition dedicated to it.

Here’s a list of the reasons for wanting to re-partition:

1. My free space is spread out over four partitions.  I feel like I have four toy chests, and sometimes none of them are quite big enough to fit my newest Tonka (like the fact that the Finder’s DVD burner requires a full DVD’s worth of free space on your boot partition to burn a DVD).
2. The constant worry that my boot partition’s running low on space.  It’s got roughly 4.5 GB of free space, which is generally enough to deal w/ the above-mentioned DVD issue.  But dipping below that means irritation.
3. I have to be mindful of where I record my EyeTV recordings.  I don’t want to fill that boot partition, now do I?
4. World of Warcraft.  Their patching program INSISTS on having at LEAST 1 GB of free space.  Since the game sits on my Classic partition, I’m constantly having to be mindful of what kinds of crap I toss on there.

My plan of attack is to attach my FireWire HDD enclosure to the Powerbook and use Carbon Copy Cloner to take care of my boot partition, and then set the Powerbook to FireWire Target Disk Mode while connected to the Mac mini in order to copy the data off of the other partitions.  Once I’m convinced that I’ve got everything, it’s show time.

I’ll re-partition, keeping the Main and Scratch partitions, w/ Main getting most of the space.  This makes me a little nervous, but w/ OS X’s built-in Resistance of HFS Plus Fragmentation, I think I’m ready to take the plunge.  My original thought process was that keeping my boot partition as pristine as possible would limit the amount of fragmentation, and thereby keep my OS snappy.

Man, I’m nervous.  *sigh*

Old dog; new tricks.

I spent most of my free time in the last four days setting up a new mail server for myself.  The old one, you see, decided that it’d had enough.  I can’t be too upset, considering it’d been running on an old IBM ThinkPad for about three years straight.
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