Cloning the startup disk

A friend of mine is still using OS 9; he wants to preform monthly cloning of his entire hard drive. If I remember correctly, when trying to copy the start up disk with Disk Copy, files that were in use, such as fonts and certain preference files are not copied. This isn't a problem with OS X (Carbon Copy Cloner, Super Duper) but those apps aren't supported by OS 9. Is there any way short of slaving his computer to mine and using CCC or SD to clone his HD, that a clone can be made in OS 9?
Thanks.
Sass

Hi, Sass -
With OS 9 it is not necessary to use a cloning program in order to replicate an entire drive, including the OS.
All you need to do is make a Finder copy of it - drag the icon of the source drive to the icon of the target drive, and let Finder copy it there. On the target drive it will appear as a folder named the same as the source drive. This will contain everything on the drive, including invisibles, things left lying around on the desktop, and anything in the Trash if it had not been emptied.

Similar Messages

My Firewire Clone is not showing up in the Startup Disk selection window

Going to the Startup Disk section Under System Preferences to locate my mounted Firewire/cloned HD - But it's not showing up there for start up selection.
The external firewire clone, running OS X 10.4.11 shows up in the finder right away. Also I have mounted and used it as the start up disk on several other computers just fine. The current computer I'm having issues mounting to is a: 2 ghz Intel MacBook with 1 gb ram running 10.4.11
The previous computers that I have had success mounting to were a G4 ibook and a G5 imac(OSX 10.4.11). - Don't know if the Intel part is why I can't mount?
Any ideas or fixes - Thanks!

What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
Dealing with FireWire problems (drives not mounting, devices unrecognized, etc.)
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041221081432908
 Cheers, Tom

Trying to get rid of error "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition". Recovery HD visible.

Hello,
I've been stuck for some hours now trying different things to install Windows 7 on my Macbook Air, and I think now is the time to call for some custom help.
I'm using OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.
So some months ago I just wanted to run Linux on my laptop so I installed rEFInd, shrunk the Macintosh HD partition by 25GB and booted on a linux live USB flash I burned using dd.
Then I used gparted to create my linux partitions.
It worked just fine, even though disk utility from OS X seemed quite unhappy about this (it seemed to have incorrect informations about the filesystem on these partitions, seeing them as journaled Mac OS while they were clearly not). At this point already, the Recovery HD from mac showed up in disk utility, which I found weird but didn't bother me.
But recently I needed windows on my Mac. So after a few tries for the triple boot, I managed to create a bootable USB stick with boot camp, which already showed me the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" and hence refused to partition/install himself.
So I thought "OK, that's no big issue, I can just partition with disk utility and then boot on the USB stick and everything will work fine". But when EFI booting on the USB flash drive I got stuck at the beginning of Windows installer with no keyboard or mouse support.
After some hours spent googling, I was unable to find a working fix for that, and as there was no support for my case (where I used bootcamp to create the bootable flash but NOT to partition/reboot) I decided to give bootcamp a try.
So I erased my linux partitions, and cleaned up everything I could on the HD with disk utility. That means I now have two partitions showing in disk utility : Macintosh HD and Recovery HD.
When using disk utility from terminal, the list is :
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            80.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk0s3
But boot camp still isn't happy, and the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" keeps popping after the intro and I can't partition/boot from bootcamp.
So, as I don't understand what is wrong here anymore, any help would be greatly appreciated!
I will be watching the thread a lot because I really would like this resolved (or windows installed one way or another) this weekend; so any questions on my past manipulations or config just ask!
Thank you.

keyboard issues are also something of a common issue.
I wish the best threads were voted to the top of forums, something! Me, I literally burned out here, but after installing 10 Preview, wanted to "see what was going on" after hiatus of a couple years and see if anything had changed (no, not really!)
Also, these new Communities are not putting "more like this" and failing to help too.
I think rewriting Boot Camp Assistant's built in help and pdf would help a lot, and needs to be clearer and go into details. And Yosemite was not it seems tested against Boot Camp, and drivers for new Macs + new OS also lag behind. Again, common and no sign of improvement or change.
One of the tricks to the "can't partition" is rather simple - of course backup is step #1 and is spelled out - SHRINK the main HFS+ partition! then stretch it back to full length. Sometimes a reboot is needed, and sometimes even do a Safe Boot - not sure what but Recovry Mode might be a good option too. That does seem to consolidate free space, move files that are locked and cannot be moved otherwise, and allow BCA to partition, jusst be sure to have enough space left and large enough for a proper Windows install (and fudge factor).

How can I remove files from the startup disk

I am getting a screen when I am trying to quit saying the "MAC OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory" by closing the windows and removing files from the startup disk will help.
How do I do this?

That error message is misleading. Your problem is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.
That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
In the Activity Monitor application, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

Can i get the startup disks online for free for a used macbook i just bought?

can i get the installation stuff that i need to wipe all of the previous owners info off of my used macbook 13" laptop, so i can start over like new? my laptop did not come with all the startup disks or anything when i bought it.

No. Contact the seller, or phone AppleCare and buy replacements.
(106577)

How do I restore a disk image on the startup disk?

Hello,
Where do I begin? Ok, my computer is an iMac and I mainly use OS 10.6.8. I have partitioned the disk into three parts: Snow Leopard, Lion and Tiger ( and I'm thinking of deleting Tiger). The main OS I use on my computer is Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I wanted to try out Yosemite so I upgraded the Lion partition and it soon became Yosemite. I was able to switch back and fort a couple of times last night, but today, when I went to the Startup Disk to go to Yosemite the disk image for Yosemite was gone and it only shows the disk image for Snow Leopard. I did a little research and if I'm not mistaken and read correctly, it indicates that Apple has done away with the disk image for Yosemite? How is one to switch back and forth between systems? Thank you for any insight to my question. -Della
P.S. If I have posted in the wrong category, please feel free to repost in the correct category, but please let me know. Thank you!

If it's a Windows executable file other than a self-extracting zip, you won't be able to open it without installing Windows; on a PowerPC Mac, this requires Virtual PC or the Q emulator.
If it's a self-extracting zip, StuffIt Expander will open it.
If it's actually a disk image, change its extension to dmg or iso and double-click it.
(109118)

My MacBook Air keeps alerting that the startup disk is full and I've deleted applications, iTunes and MobileSync backups. What else??

I don't consider myself an advanced Mac user but I'm really trying to use my Macbook Air much more than I do... but the biggest hurdle for me is that it's been alerting me that the startup disk has been full for several months now no matter what I do. I'm on 10.9.1 OSX and can't even update to the newer version because I'm always out of space. I have 4GIGs of memory and a 60GB SSD of which 52GB are in use. Using OmniDisk Sweeper, I see I have 14.6 GB in Library of which 8.1 GB is Mail and 5GB is Application Support (and I have nearly 480 MB in Caches and 191 in Containers, 131MB in Messages). As for the rest, I've deleted my iTunes content multiple times but my iTunes library STILL says 1.7GBs in Music. I also have 672MB in Movies which I moved to an external drive and trashed so I'm not sure what still exists here. I only have 2 movie files and I deleted them both! I also have 16.9 MB in hob, whatever that is.
I have 32.8 MB in Logs, 19.8 in Safari, 7.9 MB in Calendars, 5.6MB in Google, 4.3MB in Preferences (!!), and 1.6MB in GameKit (not sure what this is), 1.1MB in KeyChains.
I'm just not sure what's going on. I have everything backed up via SuperDuper on a huge external drive and when I delete on my Mac, it doesn't seem to "take." Is is syncing that's the problem? Are my iTunes music files from my iPhone reinstalling back on the Mac as are all my photos and movies? I don't have that checked in iTunes so that shouldn't be happening either.
Again, I'm not an advanced user so maybe I'm not completing a final step to make sure it doesn't sync with my other devices (I also have an iPad mini). I like to get messages on my Macbook Air when I'm not near my phone but if it means I have 131MB in Messages that I can't pare down, I'd rather not. I see no way to reduce the Messages file so that it's not so large. I definitely want to get a handle on this before I even consider upgrading to a Macbook with more RAM and a bigger hard drive.
Final thoughts: Should I delete my mail accounts and just check mail on the web? Can I delete most of the files in Application Support or leave them alone? What's the difference between the MobileSync files and the MSYNC files?
Thanks in advance for help!

Go step by step and test.
1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
   http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
    iTunes > Preferences > Devices
    Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
    This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
    System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

The startup disk can't be used as a restore source

Dear,
can anybody tell, whenver i tried to clone (thru disk utility using firwire cable ) my macbookpro with imac (latest one), it shows me the folloing information/error
i.e.
The startup disk can’t be used as a restore source.
To use this disk as a source, restart your computer using the recovery system, and open Disk Utility again.
Followed the below steps_________________________
Disk Utility> Selected HDD > Restore (tab) > drag hdd to SOURCE (it is my MBP) > dragged hdd to DESTINATION (it is iMac) > Restore
Looking your reply.
Regards
K.Pradhan

Are you trying to copy the OSX drive from a MacBookPro to an iMac? If so, be glad it won't let you. Most likely, it won't run at all; if it does, all sorts of things will go wrong.
What are you trying to do? If you're trying to set one Mac up like another one, see How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC?

My Macbook doesn't recognise the startup disk

I started having problems with Yosemite and lion (installed in the same hard drive, different partitions) so i erase all and instal mavericks, the macbook is late 2009 stock but i don't have startup disk, when i install mavericks it tells me that wont boot and it went an error trying to install, so i am able to boot with the alt key but my mac doesn't recognise de boot disk, when i try to select the startup disk on preferences it tells me: "You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk.", what i can do, i can boot with the alt key but it doesn't boot automatically.

If you erase a drive, then in order to install Lion or later you must first install Snow Leopard 10.6.8. You can install Snow Leopard using the installer discs that came with your computer when it was new. You can then update the version of Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 by downloading the combo updater.

Boot Camp error: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Jounraled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

Hi!
I am getting the error:
"The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Jounraled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."
I read up some on google, but all of them says that they have crated a partition and that is the problem, I only have the standard "Macintosh HD".
I tried to create a partition manually in disk utility but then the error message: "Partition failed with error message: Could not unmount disk."
Can anyone help me? It's driving me crazy.
Thanks.

This message, and threads like yours got asked daily for over two years, now it is only a couple times a week!!
Is it so hard to follow through? you were to have backup already, clones are best, then erase/format and restore.
Then partition.
Some have been able to use Disk Utility booted from OS X DVD or another drive, and repair the drive.
You have to use Boot Camp Assistant (99.9% anyway) to create and achieve a proper Windows Master Boot Record partition.

Bootcamp 5 + 3TB HD: The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume

Hi all,
I installed a brand new 3TB Seagate Barracuda HD in my iMac late 2009 after read that apple provides a patch to use 3TB discs with bootcamp with 10.8.3.
I tried to install windows in my 3TB disc 4 o 5 times, reinstalling from scratch, formatting the disc from terminal, etc... I tried everything and I keep getting the same message: The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.
The disc has a single 3TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition, but bootcamp keep saying that is not... and doesn't allows me to install windows. I read a lot of discussions here and other communities but as I said, none solution worked for me.
Any of you could manage to fix this issue?? Is Apple aware of that problem?
Any idea will be welcome!
Ivan

Hi,
Anybody in the forum have managed to use bootcamp with a 3Tb disc?? or get any answer from Apple...
Regards,
Ivan

I'm getting this error with bootcamp "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned"

Here's the story...
I had a dual boot configuration on my mac with Mac OS X Lion and Windows XP (made with bootcamp).
I decided to reinstall windows.
I deleted the windows partition using BootCamp.
Tried to recreate the Windows partition with Boot Camp and got: "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned You must have at least 10 GB of free space available"
After reading several posts on this forum I decided to defrag the hard drive and try again.
The defrag did not work and I'm still getting the error, I have 22 gb of free space on my drive.
Any suggestions?
Also, I tried repair disk and repair permissions
Hmm, my external harddrive says on the box "OS X 10.5.8 or higher (32-bit kernel only)" Could the 32-bit requirement be an issue? Is lion 64-bit?

Boot Camp must be able to allocate a contiguous block of space on the drive. If it cannot find 10 GBs of contiguous space, then you cannot create the Windows partition.
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup 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 and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your internal 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. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
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. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

The Startup Disk utility is missing from Preference Panel.

I recently realized that I no longer have the Startup Disk preference pane in the Preferene Panel. I sometimes boot from other drives and now I'm forced to hold down the option key at restart or startup instead of being able to select the startup drive through the Startup Disk pane. If anybody can help shed some light on this issue, I thank you abundantly.
MacMini 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OS X 10.6.8

I was hoping to avoid a reinstall but it's probably going to be the best way to solve the problem.
Thanks again, baltwo.

I have Mac OS X, using boot camp i installed windows 7. installation was successful but when i try to select to boot back to mac os x via boot camp from Windows 7 control panel, its saying "You may not have privileges to change the startup disk..."

from the boot camp control panel, highlighted "Macintosh HD Mac OS X", click on Restart button or click OK or click Apply buttons gave me "An error occurred while trying to change the startup disk. You may not have privileges to change the startup disk. Make sure you have administrative privileges and try again."
Im logged in to Windows 7 as admin thou but still giving me the above message.
i rebooted & the option key does not give me option to boot to Mac instead gives me a screen with lock then below is a blank field then a right arrow on the right side, i normally hit the power button from this screen
please help
thx

sorry for digging up an old thread, but what was the problem?

The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition

Am trying to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp. Am receieving the following message in Boot Camp "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition"
In Disk Utilty, I get the following message after clicking Verify Disk and Repair Disk buttons
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Parition map check failed becuse no slices were found
Any solution for above message?

You will need to repartition your drive:
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup 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 and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your internal 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. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
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. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

Cloning the startup disk

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for