Disk utility to clone a drive (restore)

I'm having issues with my external passport (WD) drive where snow leopard is installed. It is only working intermittently, but if I wiggle the USB connection at the macbook's USB port, sometimes it comes back on. With that said, I'm not sure if it's the drive, the cable or the mac's ports going bad. So, I did a really good Time Machine backup, and am now cloning that drive to another drive. It's taking forever, though. I'm going on 4 hours at this point, and disk utility says there are 56 minutes remaining. However, the lights on the passport drive are no longer scrolling from side to side; there is just a single light indicating standby mode. However, I can open the drive and it's contents easily from desktop or finder. Should I be concerned that in disk utility, the "source" window is now blank and the "destination" window is now greyed out? The destination drive appears to be working, but no longer appears on desktop. Is this normal? I don't remember noticing this when I have cloned drives in the past. Thoughts, anyone?
Thanks!
Kat

Kathleen Theisen wrote:
I'm having issues with my external passport (WD) drive where snow leopard is installed. It is only working intermittently, but if I wiggle the USB connection at the macbook's USB port, sometimes it comes back on. With that said, I'm not sure if it's the drive, the cable or the mac's ports going bad. So, I did a really good Time Machine backup, and am now cloning that drive to another drive. It's taking forever, though. I'm going on 4 hours at this point, and disk utility says there are 56 minutes remaining. However, the lights on the passport drive are no longer scrolling from side to side; there is just a single light indicating standby mode. However, I can open the drive and it's contents easily from desktop or finder. Should I be concerned that in disk utility, the "source" window is now blank and the "destination" window is now greyed out? The destination drive appears to be working, but no longer appears on desktop. Is this normal?
yes, this is normal when DU does a block level copy. it will unmount both the source and the target drive so you won't be able to do anything with them while cloning is going on. has the time remaining gone down since you posted?
I don't remember noticing this when I have cloned drives in the past. Thoughts, anyone?
Thanks!
Kat

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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!

CCC or Disk Utility to clone a Mac HD of one new iMac to another, over ThunderBolt, we are getting I/O errors. Even though the clone fails, the destination system does boot and log in, however, the logins take a very very very long time.

When using CCC (Carbon Cophy Cloner) or Disk Utility to clone a Mac HD of one new iMac to another, over ThunderBolt, we are getting I/O errors. Even though the clone fails, the destination system does boot and log in, however, the logins take a very very very long time.
Thoughts.
Edit: Already ran Disk Utility. Also reinstalled a fresh OS on top of the cloned OS and it seemed to remedy the problem. Then, cloned to next machine in the row of the lab. Same problem.

OK, by that I assume that you used Disk Utility to repair the subject disk and it reported "The volume (name) appears to be OK" in green.
Also verify you followed the instructions here: http://help.bombich.com/kb/usage-scenarios/i-want-to-clone-my-entire-hard-drive- to-a-new-hard-drive-or-a-new-machine
If so, the Thunderbolt connection begins to look suspicious.
Reinstalling OS X subsequent to the "clone" operation may be an acceptable workaround but you should not have had the I/O errors you describe, nor should the login times (subsequent to the initial login, that is) be unacceptably long. It calls into question the integrity of all the information that was transferrred.
I'll try to attract the attention of a CCC expert who will likely provide more competent assistance. You can also try the Bombich support site: http://help.bombich.com

I cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac wit

i cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac with time machine no option appears if i reinstall from Mac OSX error comes and cannot able to recover from disk utility please help how can i reinstall mac OSX

Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now?

Disk utility does not allow to restore Macintosh HD after I deleted a small size (1GB) partition

Hi, when I tried to create a new 1GB partition (on my Mac mini 2011, using Mac OS X 10.7.3) and then to delete it I could not restore (increase) Macintosh HD size using Disk utility (diskutil list shows the same value for Macitosh HD (498,17GB) partition before and after I deleted a new created 1GB partition).
Please help, how I can restore the original size of Macintosh HD when Disk utility does not allow to restore Macintosh HD after I deleted a small size (1GB) partition?
Thank you.

The bottom right corner dragging does not help in my case, because it shows that Macintosh HD partition size is maximal, but its real size did not change after I removed 1GB partition.
Maybe any other idea can help me, for example some built-in tool like diskutil which allows to view and manage unused partitions in terminal?
Thank you.

My Disk Utility Is Gone After a Restore On My Mac.

My Disk Utility Is Gone After a Restore On My Mac.
How can i get it back?

First make sure it's really gone by looking in the Utilities folder. That folder opens when you press the key combination shift-command-U in the Finder. If it is gone, reinstall the OS.

"Repair Disk" option in Disk Utility need to repair drive.

I have a Seagate GoFlex Desk 2TB external hard drive. I use it as a backup drive for Time Machine. When I plug it into my iMac it dosen't open, I opened Disk Utility and clicked "Verify Drive" and then I got this...
I have backups on this drive. If I click "Repair Drive" will I lose the data on the drive?

After I Repair the drive this is what I get...
What should I do now? Is my drive bad?

Im attempting to start up from OSX 10.4.9 back up disc on my Macbook 13inch but it starts up and am able get to utilities then disk utility but my internal drive doesnt show in options on left can anyone help ?

Hi all my trusty macbook 13 inch 5 years old has let me down get a box with question mark in it when i switch on , so apple support tells me to try ans start by back up OSX 10.4.9 disk the built in drive doesnt work so i am using an external toshiba drive .
I switch on holding down c key an apple logo comes on and it starts up im able to acess utilities then disk utility but in the options on the left there is only the Backup disc and the external drive showing my internal mackintosh drive wont show so i cant move further any help

If your hard drive isn’t recognized in Disk Utility then your hard drive is probably dead.

Disk Utility - Erasing a hard drive using MS-DOS (FAT)

Hi all,
I have recently purchased a 500GB external hard drive. I have used Disk Utility to format the drive from NTFS to MS-DOS (FAT) so I can use it with Windows PC's as well as Mac's.
My issue is this.
I copied a 1.16GB file over Firewire 800 to test the speed and then deleted it. After deleting the file the info pane still reports that 1.17GB of the drive has been used.
Why is this?
Thanks!
David

Did you remember to empty the trash can? If not, the file is in the hidden directory .Trashes on the Windows drive. You don't reclaim the space until you empty the trash.

Using Disk Utility to erase Hard Drive

Hi All
I just bought a new external hard drive and am using Disk Utility to erase and format it. I did not know for sure if erasing the hard drive was the right thing to do. Anyway I set up the Volume as follows from the mac help instructions:
1.format OS extended journaled
2.Install OS9 disk driver.
3.("Zero all data" and "8 Way Random Write Format"). So it has been running for about 3 hours now and is only 1/8 of the way writing 0's to disk.
My question is should I continue on and just let it finish up? At the rate it is going It might be done by sometime tomorrow.
Or can I stop the erasing process without hurting the hard drive.
Then start disk utility erasing the hard drive without this Zero all data.
Thanks much

Just to confirm your impression, S. Frigolett: yes, everything should be fine now.
Zeroing a drive is advisable if you have reason to believe there may be bad data storage blocks on it; zeroing identifies those blocks and prevents them from being used (because using them would result in lost or corrupt data). A simple erase doesn't do that, but on a new drive straight from the factory there is no reason to think it's necessary.
The 8 way random write option is for people who have extremely sensitive data to erase from a drive that may pass into other hands, and who want to be sure that no one short of the NSA will have any chance of recovering any of that data. A new, empty drive has nothing on it that even the NSA could recover, so there's no reason to erase it that thoroughly.

Can Lion disk utility dynamically partition a drive?

Can Lion disk utility dynamically partition a drive? I see many posts that Leopard Disk utility can but nothing about Lion.

Yes. I'll post a link to instructions. Be sure to create a full reliable backup before you begin (don't just do the backup, test the backup to be sure it's good), and the only application that should be running until the process is complete is Disk Utility.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/20/resize-partitions-in-mac-os-x-with-disk-utility/
Some people have problems resizing partitions because of the hidden Recovery HD partition. It sometimes gets in the way because Disk Utility can move it "up" but cannot move it "down".

How does disk utility decide which optical drive to use for burn?

This is a somewhat daft question and purely out of interest.
How does disk utility decide which optical drive bay to open for burning?
I have two drives in a MacPro and both have the same capabilities (DVD-RW). Why does it sometimes open the lower one, and sometimes the top one?

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
The estimate is based on how long it already took to do how many blocks, and how many blocks are left to do. If you told it to overwrite 35 times, it will be a long, long time before it completes.
The estimate is made grossly large by the presence of Bad Blocks that need to be Read during the test (not the case with Erase and Write Zeroes).
Each Block is written with some redundancy bits, so that small errors can be corrected on reading. A Bad Block causes the drive to re-read. and re-read, and re-read, in hopes of getting correctable data the next time. This should NOT be an issue in writing. But if the drive stops responding (which can and does happen with a bad drive) the Erase function will just sit there, thinking it is making progress, and stretching out the time.
Thanks, Grant.
If I read your reply correctly, Erase and Zero Out free space shouldn't elongate the process, because there's no read occurring.
The drive will not be Mounted while Disk Utility works on it, so it will not be on the Desktop. But ask Apple System Profiler \[ About this Mac > More Info > Serial ATA ] if the drive is still THERE . If it cannot be seen, you have your answer -- the drive dropped out of sight while being tested -- Bad Drive.
Well, now I am confused. It's a FW800 drive. It's on the Desktop. And it appears under FireWire in System Profiler. AND Disk Utility shows a mount point. But the Unmount and Eject buttons are grayed out.
Will the drive be mounted if it fails to respond to Disk Utility? That doesn't seem to make sense.
How do I determine its status? It appears to be stuck at "1 day, 5 hours" but it'll take an hour for that to change. I think it's been that long since I first noticed the time.
Harv

Will Restore in Leopard Disk Utility reliably copy a drive with bootcamp?

I have a drive partitioned part OS X and part Bootcamp (with Windows XP installed). If I use Apple's Disk Utility to 'Restore' the drive (to copy the drive to a larger drive) will this work reliably for bootcamp as well as the OS X content? Presumably this just clones the drive?

Once you install MacFUSE you can not use the Startup Disk Utility anymore to boot into Windows, you need to hold the option key every time.
As you stated, NTFS is owned by Microsoft, its their proprietary format and has many different versions of it. I don't think any company has the full right to format NTFS which basically comes down that you can not complain to any of the companies or MS about data loss.
My idea with an image is that I can always read it, so in case the WinClone format or write fails I still have all my files (and not just parts of it). Since I am booted the most amount of time on Mac OS X anyway I don't care that a script creates an entire mirror image of my current Windows drive overnight.
I actually have several basic images that I can always restore in case I want to clean up my drive.

Can you use the "Restore" function in Disk Utility to clone MacBook Pro HDD and make a bootable copy?

I'm cloning my MacBook Pro's HDD to a SSD and didn't really want to install another app (SuperDuper, CCC), can I just use the Restore function in Disk Utility app to clone it and make a bootable copy on my SSD?
Thank you for the help!

Yes.
Clone Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Using Disk Utility to Clone/Duplicate entire hard drive.

I have read many post that touch on this question but none have cleared up my questions, and many have just lead to more questions on my part.
I want to use the included Disk Utility program to copy my entire hard drive to another.
Because I only plan on backing up the entire drive once or twice a year, I do not feel I need Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. Also I would like to understand how to accomplish this with the application I already have.
Having read all the help pages and posts I can find, I understand the general concept of using the "Restore" function in DU, but have these questions still:
1. My current HD is a 250GB partitioned with one volume "Macintosh HD" I am going to install another 250GB hard drive into bay 2. Do I need to partition this drive first?
2. Do I need to format this drive?
3. Do I need to erase this drive?
4. Do I need to use the security feature to "Zero" this drive?
5. It seems to me that if I am doing a bit for bit clone the partitioning and format from the source drive would just come over in the copy...no?
6. As the source for the "Restore" do I want to select the parent 250GB disk drive, or should I select the "Macintosh HD" volume?
7. As the destination for the "Restore" (if I had to partition and format) do I want the new 250GB drive or the "Backup" volume?
8. If I have to partition and format the new drive first, I understand that I want the GUID partition table and the MAC OS Extended (journaled), can someone explain what the heck that means?

I apologize for missing that part of the intro.
For a new drive here's the modified procedure I suggest:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must 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 or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your 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.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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 will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Disk utility to clone a drive (restore)

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