Hi James

I am working a lot with UNIX packages, e.g. Aperture and Devonthink libraries. How does Qrecall treat these, does it simply chop the digital footprint on disk to manageable pieces to compare those or does it have a concept of UNIX packages being folder-structured internally and compare the actual files inside?

Prion

Hello,

QRecall treats packages (or bundles) just as the filesystem does: a folder containing files and other folders. Any package, be it an application or framework, is captured by individually capturing each file contained in the package.

You can explore packages in the QRecall interface. Choose the View > Show Package Contents item from the QRecall menu and the browser will expand the contents of packages allowing you to explore their history. This is approximately equivalent to the Show Package Contents command in the Finder.

James, thanks for your swift response, much appreciated.

It looks like QRecall will become my safety net for when TimeMachine keels over.

I have one other question, if you will. You gave recommendations in another post and also in the documentation that your recommendation for setting up a bootable volume is to first install OS X in its minimal configuration to the external backup drive and then to backup to that volume. Did I get this right or should I create one partition just for the minimal OS and store the full system including apps, data etc on another partition?

Sorry if I appear dense but tomorrow I will install a new harddrive and would like to get it right.

Prion

Prion wrote:Did I get this right or should I create one partition just for the minimal OS and store the full system including apps, data etc on another partition?

The idea is that you create a bootable partition by installing a minimal copy of the OS—just enough to boot from—on an external drive. You then install a copy of QRecall to act as your recovery system. You can then create and store your QRecall archive on the same volume, or on a different volume if you prefer. Set up your actions to capture your entire boot volume to the archive on a regular basis.

So the answer is you can use one or two, but you only need one.

The idea is that if anything happens to your main hard drive, you simply boot from the external, open QRecall, open the archive, and restore your system. You don't need to make another bootable copy of your OS or try to keep your emergency OS up-to-date with your system. It exists solely to run QRecall. You don't even have to install an identity key.

There is a caveat: Apple continues to make technological changes in the filesystem. The Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5), and now Snow Leopard (10.6) operating systems all depend on new filesystem features. Thus, you must capture and restore a Snow Leopard partition using Snow Leopard. You can't restore a Snow Leopard system using Leopard. Thus, the emergency OS you have installed on your external drive must be at least the same major version as the system you want to restore.

License fee incoming.