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.