Best way to clone a system drive and not lose authorization?

[dubz]

Does anyone know a way to clone my current OS X system Hard Drive, with logic and all my plugins to another drive and have everything work the same, meaning my authorizations and plugins will still work? I tried some apps before to clone a drive, but it resulted in the plugins losing their authorizations each time, so I needed to do everything all over, which kind of defeats the purpose of cloning a drive with all my apps and such.

Does anyone know a known method to do this? Thanks

[mklsn]

SuperDuper works for me.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

[redlogic]

There's a great thread on this topic here:
http://community.sonikmatter.com/forums ... msearch__1

[AdamJay]

curious, is restoring from a Time Machine backup an option that will preserve authorizations?

I did it once before, and can't remember if it preserved the auth's or not. It was so easy that i don't remember one way or the other. But can anyone weigh in?

Funny this thread popping up. As i began to install all my Puremagnetik Live Packs into the new Live 8.1 library + install Omnisphere (!!!!!) on my iMac with 320GB HD last night i started to thing it would soon be time to look into a much bigger internal drive.

I loathe spending time (re)installing/authorizing. I'd rather be writing music.

[G]

A perfectly cloned hard drive isn't necessarily a guarantee that your authorizations will remain active. I seem to remember some copy protection schemes which used a unique ID from the hard drive hardware. Many "challenge and response" schemes are a mystery, for obvious reasons. A clone of drive data wouldn't necessarily help there. But some merely use a unique ID from the host system, write their own unique authorization files after installation, or have authorization file(s) which the user needs to download and put somewhere manually. Those might clone just fine.

As far as I've observed, Time Machine just copies files like the Finder. If so, it could be less reliable than a true clone. It depends on the authorization method. The big boon of Time Machine is that it's well integrated and automatic, so we're more likely to make that backup in the first place.

Make backups for safety, of course. But if speed and quick swaps are really important, maybe hardware keys like the iLok are in order (where possible).

I loathe spending time (re)installing/authorizing. I'd rather be writing music.

I was just thinking the same thing as I sell off more of my old hardware. I dig the control and speed of software, but I sometimes dread starting up Logic after a few days away, because I may run into something which has suddenly become "unhappy" for some damned reason (not always a move or upgrade). I've yanked some plug-ins permanently for getting in the way.

[dubz]

There's a great thread on this topic here:
http://community.sonikmatter.com/forums ... msearch__1

I check that topic and it has conflicting reports. Plus some of the responses are from 2007, and it 2009 today, so things have changed.... Im looking for a full proff way of cloning.

I believe that no matter what cloning tool you use, it will never work and the reason is this. Since every time there is a clone operation, a new system ID is generated at time of clone. This is the case for new installs on the same HD even.

I have booted and run all my SW off the cloned drive and ALL had to be relicensed.

If there someone out there that knows how to clone the system ID as well, that is what we need to know.

If it is cloned to a different HD, it will automatically have another SYS ID generated irregardless of the app used.

This of course, is in the case of a Primary Boot failure, this would prevent down time and re-keying the PIs. That was the question- would a certain clone tool work to also clone the sys ID. I think not; as I understand it, this ID is generated even before the cloning starts by the FW on the board or, "possibly" at some root level code.

The fact we do know is that both CCC and Super do not work for this application. It simply may be a case in which there is no app that will do this. THink about the potential- users could just reproduce tons of hard drives and sell them as a pre loaded configurations on ebay with all licenses intact. Just drop the drive in and your good to go. Talk about Mass Pirating.

Two methods of cloning are: file level and block level. File level is great as it allows the user to clone to any size hard drive permitting that the drive can hold the size of the data on the source. However, a file level clone will create a new system ID which, will require any key'd apps to be re key'd / reauthorized.

On the other side, block level cloning keeps all those intact. No more registering is needed once it was done originally. The downside with Block level is that there are two constraints. One being the target drive has to be exactly the same size or greater than the source. It it does not meet that criteria, it ends up with the Clone Nazi; no clone for you!

ok, so can someone give me a step by step of what works? another question is if I had 2 of the EXACT SAME MAC's and took one hard drive out and placed it in another mac that is exactly the same, will everything work?

[redlogic]

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and have never lost any authorizations.

It may well have to do with the authorization scheme that my particular apps/plugs use.

You can always try it and see.

[KH2010]

I use carbon copy cloner and my authorisations for Spectrasonics always need to be re-authorised.

Karl

[dabarltrop]

SuperDuper works for me.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

I'll second that. Works a treat.

[strangedogs]

Super Duper works too - I have a buttload of Plugins - Logic, Cubase 4, Studio One, etc and have never had a problem with my registrations.

[supernova777]

i think the determining factor on whether or not this will work is if you use it on the same machine or a similar machine with the same type of hard drive or maybe even same hard drive size?

ive had success+ failure and im guessing at the reason, determining factor as to why..
from my findings:

-cloning frm one mac/pc to another mac/pc with a diff size hard drive has resulted in failure
-cloning on the same comptuer as a backup and restoring has resulted in success

(failure/success in teh sense that program authorizations asked for serials and came up as unauthorized after restoring the cloned image to the partition using disk utility)

hope this evidence helps someone!

chrisnova777
(http://macos9lives.com)