Can you boot from a disk image on a Firewire drive

[caek]

I know that a suitably "blessed" external Firewire drive can be used by a Mac to boot with a key-press during bootup.

However, can a blassed disk image kept on an external firewire drive, such as those created by SuperDuper also be used to boot from? For extra credit, can the disk image be encrypted/password protected?

I ask because I finally have access to an external hard drive several times the capacity of my Macs, and would like to implement a rotating snapshot backup system.

Many thanks in advance.

[dnanian]

No, you cannot boot directly from an image. You can, however, create a sparse image that's encrypted and then choose it as the destination of a backup.

[caek]

Originally Posted by dnanian

No, you cannot boot directly from an image. You can, however, create a sparse image that's encrypted and then choose it as the destination of a backup.

Thanks for the quick reply! So the best way to create a rotating backup system, with all the clones bootable, is to partition the external drive into partitions as big as the internal drive?

[caek]

Also, if you're backing up to a [encrpyted] disk image, is there any reason why you would tick the option in SuperDuper to make the disk bootable?

[dnanian]

There is no option to make the disk bootable: we always make the image bootable if possible. Note that "bootable" doesn't mean "it'll boot"!

But -- once restored to a device that supports boot, it'll boot...

[dnanian]

That's certainly what I'd suggest (partitioning).

[caek]

Thanks! That answers both my questions, and incredibly quickly! One purchase, coming your way.

[dnanian]

Glad I could help.