Clone CD using Disk Utility

Hi. I attempting to make an exact duplicate of a music CD using Disk Utility. It seems to create an image of the disk fine, the dmg file being of appropriate size corresponding to the size of the audio cd. However when I attempt to burn this disk image, nothing happens. I mean, Disk Utility acts as though it's working, but once complete the newly created CD is blank. ??
This is really confusing. If anyone has any advice or perhaps could suggest some third party application for creating, mastering, and burning disk images then that'd be neat.
Thanks.
Billy

I record talks at seminars, edit the content, and burn the CDs for participants.
I've previously used Disk Utility to image the audio CDs for an easier burn at a later date. I tried this recently for the first time since Leopard came out and it no longer works.
So I tried it with Disco, and it also fails to image the disc, doesn't even offer it as an option. Funny, I just updated Disco to the latest version several days ago, this reduced function was not noted in the version log.
Strange, has the RIAA gotten something changed so we can't do this anymore? I'm trying to image a disc of my own recordings. It's outrageous that I can't image my own audio disc.
I also tried using Carbon Copy Cloner, it failed several times, I tried another method and it seemed to be working, only to announce that it had failed.
Anyone with any clues about this?
Joel.

Similar Messages

Error message while trying to clone harddrive using Disk Utility

I've been trying to clone my MacBook Pro's harddrive in advance of installing Leopard. I've been trying to clone to a LaCie Ethernet Disk mini. It's connected to my computer with a USB cable. It does about 1/3 of the disk, then I get the following error message:
An error (2) occurred while copying. (No such file or directory)
At this point the disk cloning stops.
An advice would help, thanks.

kory wrote:
I'm trying to use Disk Utility to clone it. I have verified and repaired both the MacBook Pro HD and the external HD with Disk Utility.
*Hi Kory, Welcome (Back)* to Apple's Users Help Users Forums.
In addition to Utilities Restore, these are popular Cloners.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Purchase at $27.95 will allow smart backups that look at the bu files and only move over new ones. It's quick at ~7 mins to change ~1 gig out of 20.
Be sure to test that the clone boots and apps behave properly.
Here are other popular cloners.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
http://www.prosoftengineering.com/products/drivegeniusinfo.php?PHPSESSID=909c070fb2e13b35097fa9cc1340bfc0
Good Luck, JP
Message was edited by: Jpfresno "In addition to ..."

Clone Drive using Disk Utility

Greetings,
Recently my 15, Aluminum FW800 has had the black screen of death. where I can only make out the faintest images on the screen. I took it to my local Genius bar, where he suggested that I send it in for the flat fee of 320 to get it fixed. I figured thats a good deal, so I agreed.
The problem, however, is that he said they may replace the hard drive... thus I need a complete backup of my drive. I used the backup utility in Tiger and selected the entire drive, and 4 hours later I had it copied to an external drive. However, I have also heard that you can clone a drive using disk utility. I figure if this is possible, i might as well try, since I have the space and redundancy is the key to an effective backup.
As mentioned above, though, I can only barely make out the screen, and have no instructions on how to do this backup. Does anyone know of a link that will guide me step by step through this process? I would hate to press the wrong button and erase my drive before its necessary.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Don't forget that applications have Help menu and Disk Utility has Restore feature (tab).
Before you start, make sure to do Get Info on the drive you want to restore to (target) and turn OFF the "Ignore Ownership" first.
Click on the left side icon for the volume you want to backup (source) and drag it into the appropriate field. Same for target volume.
Apply and sit back while it copies.
When done, use First Aid to Repair Permissions on the target (I would also do same for your source before you begin).
If you don't see and can't repair permissions on the target, something isn't right.
Now make sure you can boot from the target. Make sure it shows up in Startup Disk and try.

Using Disk Utility to clone one FW Drive to another FW Drive

can I use Disk Utility to clone one external firewire drive to another external firewire drive? How would I go about this? I am using a PowerBook G4, 1.67 Ghz, 17 in, 2 gig ram with Mac OS 10.3.9
I have both firewire drives connected to the PowerBook.

Yes, you can use Disk Utility for this purpose.
1) Open Disk Utility.
2) In the left hand column, click on one of your Volumes (if your disks are partitioned, this will be one of your named volumes).
3) In the right hand box, you will now see three buttons: First Aid, Erase, Restore. Click on Restore.
4) Drag the volume name of the partition that you want to copy to the "Source" box. Its name should appear in the box. Drag the volume name of the partition that you want to overwrite to the "Destination" box. Its name should appear.
5) Click "Restore" in the lower right corner. You might want to also check the box "Erase destination".
6) Wait patiently, if all goes well you should have a bootable clone. Be sure to test the clone for bootablity before relying on it. Also, do a "Get Info" in the Finder after cloning to make sure the "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" box is not checked, and then use Disk Utility to repair permissions on the volume.
Good Luck!

Using Disk Utility Restore function to clone external hard drives

Hi all,
I have a WD 3Tb My Book external hard drive which I want to use as a replacement for an older WD 1Tb My Book external hard drive. I would like to use Disk Utility's built-in Restore function to clone my old external hard drive onto my new external hard drive. Unfortunately, Disk Utility will not allow me to drag the new drive to the "Destination" box; I can drag the old drive to the "Source" box just fine. Why is this? Am I doing something wrong?
It might be important to note that my old external drive is formated to FAT32, whereas the new drive came pre-formatted to NTFS. Do I need to reformat the new drive to FAT32 before dragging the disk to the "Destination" box? In other words, do the source and destination drives need to be the same format in order to use Disk Utility's Restore function?
Thanks very much in advance.

Are these drives being used on Windows machines? If so then you will need to create a new partition from the Partition Scheme dropdown menu after which you can set the scheme to MBR. If the drives are being used only on the Mac then you have to prep the new drive as follows:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
After you copy your files from the old drive to the new one you want to repartition and reformat the old drive in the same way as outlined immediately above.

HT1553 Does using Disk Utility also backup MSOffice 2008 (Mac) software already installed on my Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard? If not, how would I do that?

Hi,
I'm looking to upgrade from Snow Leapord (10.6.8) to the new Mountain Lion. Have a lot of applications and softwares that I would like to back up when installing the new OS, such as MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Any ideas on what is the best way to do that.
I'm not too tech savvy, so a simple solution would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Shyam

If your not very tech savvy, I would have someone assist you in the upgrade process as your about to inflict major change on your life and computer.
There are some things to consider before you upgrade.
1: The age of your machine:
My advice has been if your Mac is less than two years old and has a dedicated graphics (not all only Intel HD 3000 or 4000 CPU graphics like the 13" has)) then you stand a very good chance of 10.8 (or 10.7) running fine on your machine.
In either case you need to check the specifications of your machine to see if it meets Apple's requirements, and unfortunately those requirements are a bit low, resulting in a slower machine when you upgrade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Lion
(note: 10.7 is no longer being sold via the AppStore, you should upgrade to 10.8, however some machines can't, you can call Apple Sales to upgrade to 10.7)
If your machine originally came with 10.5, I would say forget it. Mac's don't last forever and laptops usually have a life of about 4 years with normal use. Desktops last longer of course and can withstand more OS X upgrades if Apple allows it.
2: The age of your software.
10.7 and 10.8 will not run PPC based software of old like 10.6 does, also upgrading to 10.8/10.7 may require expensive software upgrades that can hit you unexpected. Consult this site and your other needed software and hardware drivers/software (for printers/scanners,custom keyboards/mice etc) BEFORE you upgrade the operating system.
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
3: Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper "clone" (payware)
Your OS X boot partition to a new/reliable, blank powered external drive and use Disk Utility to Repair Permissions on both afterwards. You can hold the option key down and boot from this clone drive to use the computer like before if your OS X upgrade fails and the machine gets bricked. You can also use Disk Utility to erase the entire internal drive and reverse clone if you find out the OS X upgrade is not to your liking.
Make sure all other drives are disconnected, like TimeMachine when cloning or upgrading OS X, thus when you reboot TimeMachine doesn't self update itself, which can lock you out from going back in time to restore from.
Note: If you have Bootcamp, you can clone that with WinClone (payware) to another drive and recreate Bootcamp later and restore it.
4: Some firmware updates can possibly "BRICK" your hardware
Firmware updates progress in a forward manner and can't be downgraded, so what sometimes occurs is a software error by programmers or a hardware glitch on your machine won't 100% cooperate with the firmware update and thus your machine will fail to function. Sometimes even a interruption in the OS X upgrade or firmware update process will cause the problem. When this occurs, a trip to a Apple Repair is in order and if your machine is out of AppleCare (3 years) or the 1 years standard warranty your looking at a very expensive logicboard replacement. At this time you usually consider the cost not worth it and rather spend the money on the newer machine, especially if it's 2-3 years old. This can come as quite a shock as you expected to pay $20 for a OS X upgrade and now have to buy a whole new machine.
You can't not upgrade the operating system for security and bug fixes, however you make sure you have AppleCare that will protect you for three years if such a hardware bricking occurs. If you don't have AppleCare you might want to reconsider taking the chance upgrading the operating system and thus the firmware.
AppleCare can be purchased within one year of the original machine purchase, it gives one 3 years of care from the date of machine purchase, not from the date of AppleCare purchase.
5: Market share of OS x versions (apx)
10.4 4.5% security updates > no
10.5 15% security updates > no
10.6 52% security updates > yes
10.7 30% security updates > yes
10.8 2 million upgraded so far, just released
6: Your decision to upgrade or not
It depends upon your computer technical ability, the age of your machine, your software investment and your budget.
Can you afford to pay for professional assistance if your upgrade doesn't go as expected? Are you in AppleCare?
Can you afford to pay for upgrades to third party software?
Can you afford the downtime while your machine is being repaired?
Can you live without the "new features" newer OS versions provide?
Does your hardware even support the newer features?
You might decide the upgrade is not worth it for your older machine and decide to ease yourself into a new machine gradually. I took this approach with my 2006 MacBook Pro, buying a Early 2011 model. I then upgrade to 10.7 on the older 2006 machine and glad I did, because it got bricked. Turned out 10.7 was a pretty awful upgrade and I was out of AppleCare, however 10.8 seems to be "normal" far as OS X upgrades go, some problems but not mass bricking of machines.

Can I Use Disk Utility from an External Hard Drive?

I would like to use Disk Utility to verify and/or repair my hard drive. I am too lazy to run this from my install disk. Can I merely copy the application to my external hard drive and launch it from there? Would this work successfully? Could it damage anything? Thanks!

Hi! You can't repair a disk that you are booted from so you could run the repair disk function IF you are booted from another volume such as a bootable internal or external drive or the install disc. You'll have to clone your boot drive and repair from the clone after booting to it. Tom

Boot camp probl"back up disk and use disk util. to reform as single MAC OS.

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.
Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.
I am trying to install win 7 32 bit but before i partition my mac osx an error message pops up with the above wording...I went to disk utility and it is already a single mac osx (journaled). any help would be great and much appreciated..thank you for viewing.

The error message must be the title of 100s of threads.
Do you know how to backup?
It can't move files, some are fixed, the free space has to also be unfragmented contiguous chunk at the end of the drive.
Disk Utility Restore tab (and Help menu).
and of course external backup drive. And backup is step #1. There is a PDF you can save or print from the Boot Camp Assistant.
If you only have TimeMachine for backup you might want to install OS X anyway on a small 30GB partition (shrink partition size) or use your OS X DVD.
From OS X DVD go to Utility and then Disk Utility. Restore to another drive and that should be then bootable.
Or pick up SuperDuper or Carbon Copy to clone-backup and use one of those.
iDefrag $$ may be able to optimize the free space.
But it is wiser to first insure any data and files are backed up before changing or installing another OS, and before changing partitions around.

Using Disk Utility to restore/copy disk - who is correct?

I had two long talks with two separate Apple Care people online today who both insisted what they were saying was right and the other person was wrong.
Hmm....
My question is this.
I have a MBP and the internal HD is currently empty. I've been running off of an external HD for about a year now.
I want to clone my external HD into my internal HD and use the internal HD as my system disk now.
One Apple Care person said to go into Disk Utility, select the source disk, from the tabs on the right hand side select Restore and then drag the source disk into the source field, drag the target disk into the target field and press restore. She said this will make a complete clone of the external HD in the internal HD.
The other Apple Care person said "No no no. You can't do that to clone a system disk that way." He said the best thing was to install a new system and then use the restore as a new system from Time Machine option (where I also have a backup.)
I believe the second method will work, but it's more cumbersome for me because I haven't been backing up everything in Time Machine. I have excluded items, such as podcasts and Parallels disk images.
If I could do this from the external system disk life would be easier.
But is the first Apple Support person right or wrong about this? Can I use Disk Utility to copy the system disk from one external HD to another that way?
Thanks,
doug
p.s. I am not in the market for 3rd party software to deal with this one-time issue, so if possible I would like to accomplish this using OS X included features...

The advantage is CCC has built in routines that "bless" (see the Terminal.app command "bless") the
os x installation so it will boot properly on the new volume it is being installed on.
Disk Utility simply copies (restores) files from one volume to another. Many times this works just fine.
Sometimes it won't boot afterwards. Most of the time (as long as there are no system files missing
or corrupted) a person may "bless" the drive and restore it to working condition.
CCC is not a "magical" application, it is in fact a front end to applications that already exist separately
in OS X (asr, hdiutil, diskutil, bless, etc.).
It doesn't matter to me how you do it. It's your time not mine. Everyone should spend some time
behind the command line in terminal. I do many tasks using the command line, including and not
limited to complete system restores, backing up data, disk partitioning, installing software, disk
repair, permissions repair, ACL management, restoring data, managing disk images, network
management, user management, file management, etc. Many people are fearful of the command
line. I feel just the opposite, I'm fearful without it.
Say Hello to my little friend.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Command_Line_Adminv10.5.pdf
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unixopensource/clix.html
http://www.macobserver.com/tips/macosxcl101/index.html
http://www.matisse.net/OSX/darwin_commands.html
Kj

Cloning drive to external & partitioning using Disk Utility.....!

Hi,
I wonder if someone is able to answer my questions and offer some advice and help.....?
I am purchasing a new external drive and would like to know how to clone the internal drive of my Power Mac G4 using disk Utility to the external drive, so that it is also bootable. I have seen that there seems to be more then one way of doing this within disk utility, but would like to know which is the best way?
1. Please could you take me thorough the steps as I have never done this before?
2. Would it be wise to partition the external drive to keep the cloned bootable system seperate from the rest of the content that will be placed on the external drive or not? If so again please could you take me through the steps on how to do this (partition external drive)?
3. Prior to partitioning the drive is it necessary to delete the new external drive even though there is nothing on it? As I read someone that this need to be done, but didn't quite get that!
Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance

Hello,
Hopefully it'll be an External Firewire drive, as USB cannit be booted from on PPC Macs.
I wouldn't use Disk Utility, there are easier ones for free.
I strongly recommend that you get a good Firewire drive to Clone your Internal drive to...
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/firewire+drives
Many of those come with Backup SW, or...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
2. It depends how big the new drive is & how much space is used on the current drive.
OSX loves lots of free space on it's boot drive for VM & other temp files, I don't feel 50% is too much free space to leave.
3. Normally isn't needed to Zero the Drive, but you may have to foprmat it...
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html

How do I make a data disk using Disk Utility (Panther 10.3.9)

I am trying to back up some of my data to disks, so I can upgrade my OS to Leopard. I have done this in the past but either forgot how or it isn't working right (some things are not working right on my computer at present..?? my Final Cut Pro won't open, that's why I decided to upgrade) Could you please tell me how it is supposed to work. I think I have made a disk image okay but when I highlight it in disk utility and hit burn it says invalid argument?? If I install Leopard will I loose all my files?

Not necessarily, but you should never do a major upgrade without having a bootable backup of your system. In fact you should never be without backups:
Basic Backup
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
9. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.
Upgrading does not have to be difficult unless you choose to make it so. You have three installation options. I would recommend an Archive and Install option when feasible:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Transferring data from one HDD to a new HDD using disk utility?

I do not have a time machine backup of my HDD. I was wondering if it is posssible to use disk utility to restore data from the old HDD to the new HDD. Will I need the system disks to partition the new HDD first or is this even possible. If it is possible, will everything transfer using the Restore in disk utility?

How to replace or upgrade a drive in a laptop
Step One: Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Step Two: Remove the old drive and install the new drive. Place the old drive in an external USB enclosure. You can buy one at OWC who is also a good vendor for drives.
Step Three: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Four: New Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the
      mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of
      the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive
      is failing or has failed and will need replacing. Otherwise, click on the
      Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from
      the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
      (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
      GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and
      wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the
      drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main
      window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the
      Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to
      return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several
      hours depending upon the drive size.
Step Five: Clone the old drive to the new drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive. Source means the old external drive.
Step Six: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the new internal volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the new drive. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

How to use Disk Utility to back up the HD

I'm trying to back up my HD onto an external HD as described in "The Missing Manual" (Tiger ed.), p. 389. I choose my Macintosh HD, read/write, no compression, and the appropriate partition of the external HD as the target.
But just after telling me it's creating the disk image (I guess I can't just drag the whole HD without using Disk Utility) it stops, saying, "resource busy).
What am I doing wrong?

You cannot backup your entire hard drive to a disk image. Essentially there isn't enough space to do that nor is this the best method for doing a full disk backup. Full disk backups should be done to an external hard drive using proper backup software. You can clone your hard drive to an external drive using the Restore option of Disk Utility but DU cannot do incremental backups. For that you need backup software:
Basic Backup
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
To clone with Disk Utility do the following:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.
For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

Cloning HD to a new HD using Disk Utility

Hi,
I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive (500 GB) to a 1TB hard drive on my Macbook Pro using Disk Utility. Here is what I have experienced so far...
1) I placed the new HD in the enclosure and reformated it to "Mac OS Extended (Journalized)"
2) I restart my MBP and holding down to "Command + R" during the initial grey screen comes up - then selected Disk Utility from the menu (I'm currently running Mac OS 10.8.1)
3) Then the process starts with "Copying Blocking" and it shows that the whole cloning process is estimated to take about 2 days and 6 hours... Is that even possible? I'm using an enclosure that supports USB 2.0
4) I have read a few other options in cloning a HD using a software called CarbonCopyCloner - and it is said that it will be much faster compared to Disk Utility. But I just don't want to be pay for the software simply for HD cloning; figured disk utility is just as fine as long as the end result is the same as CCC.
I'm wondering if there is anything that I've done wrong as the approximate time required is simply WAY TOO LONG! Or is it because of the enclosure that I use that is slowing down the process (especially with USB 2.0)?
Also I'm following the cloning process from another post (https://discussions.apple.com/message/15431074#15431074) - and one of the disk preparation step states:
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Optionsbutton, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
And I don't seem to be seeing the Option button... All I see under Erase is a "Security Option" tab, but that doesn't lead me to a Zero Data button.
Hope to get some feedback on this soon so I can upgrade my HD asap. Thanks in advance
Peter

I've always done my cloning using carbon copy cloner - it is a 30 day trial.
I've never cloned using disk utility so I couldn't tell you.
I can however, give you the step by step with carbon copy.
Click HERE for the steps if you're interested...
Cheers..

Using Disk Utility To Restore

Last month I did a Disk Restore onto my large external hard drive using Disk Utility.
I would like to do that monthly, so as to ensure that whenever I add, change, delete data, configurations, etc. on my internal hard drive..that I have the latest restore data..plain and simple.
My question is: In doing subsequent disk restore maneuvers on a monthly basis, do I need to manally delete the previous month's restore data from my external hard drive or will it just overwrite (like copy and replace) the current data on my ext drive?
I don't want the restore feature to duplicate any data from previous transactions on my ext drive. That's why I am asking. Does anyone know?
Thanks,
Henri
Powerbook G4, 1.67Ghz Superdrive 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Disk Utility->Help->Restoring files from a disk or disk image
You can choose to erase the destination disk and then have the disk image copied to it. Alternatively, you can choose not to erase the disk and add the disk image information to the current contents of the destination disk.
As I read this, if you don't erase the previous copy, when your restore, everything that's on the source will overwrite similarly named items on the destination. You cannot do incremental updates using DU's restroe function. For that, you need something like Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!, etc.

Clone CD using Disk Utility

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