Imaging internal drive to a recoverable image

Hi everyone -
I just spent a ton of time configuring my machine - virtual machines, apps, etc. I would really like to be able to make an image to an external drive (to a file, not formatting the entire drive) that I would like to be able to restore from in the future (preferrably from the Apple disk utility). Is there any way to do this? I have a usb 2.0 drive on hand. Thanks!

Think about your desire to have the backup stored as an image file. What are your reasons for this?
In order to recover that image file you need to be able to boot up your computer and run Disk Utility. But if your hard drive is dead, you'll have to boot up from the install CD unless you have another bootable drive around. As a result, recovering your backup will be a tedious two step procedure. Why not have a bootable backup that allows you to get going after a crash almost instantly?
I have created a partition on my external drive that is the same size as my internal and have a bootable backup on that partition. I keep it up to date with SilverKeeper.

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Backing up images on external hard drive and restoring to new internal driv

I recently purchased a new external hard drive and a new internal hard drive. Before installing the new internal drive, I backed up the old internal drive on the external drive. Then I installed the new internal drive to my Macbook Pro. However, when I tried to access and print my Aperture images on the new internal drive, I received an error message saying "versions with unavailable master images cannot be printed." I clicked on 'show referenced files," but couldn't determine how to recover my master images. I checked the forum and under "referenced files go offline after restore from a backup" it said to go to "File>manage referenced files" but nothing else. How can I recover my master images? Please help - I have nearly 6000 images that are lost without recovering the master images. And no, I was ultra stupid in not placing everything in a vault = but I'm relatively new to Mac OS and thought a backup would be sufficient. Thank!

The volume name of the new hard drive needs to be the same as the old hard drive - rename it if you have to - then they should be fine.
If you cannot seem to make this work then you will have to reconnect them with locate referenced files under the file menu. Select all the files that are disconnected before going into the dialog.
RB

External Hard Drive Failures after iMac internal drive replaced

I was one of those lucky ppl who had to have my internal 1TB Seagate HDD replaced due to the recall. It was replaced on Friday.
After the drive was replaced (with another Seagate, ***?), I cloned my previous system back to the new drive (restoring from Time Machine required me to re-download Lion, which required me to re-download to a newer version of Snow Leopard, and just, Oi, vey, I used my clone).
I then had to create another bootcamp partition, and after that, I restored my previous bootcamp from an image backup with Winclone.
The next morning, my Time Machine external backup drive (a Maxtor OneTouch) makes horrible fluttering and crunching noises and cannot be found via disk utility, certainly doesn't mount to the desktop. I figure it just coincidentally failed and attached a new drive (a different OneTouch) for backup.
While Time Machine is performing an initial backup to this new drive (will take 10 hrs), I try to move a few media files to another external media drive (LaCie 1TB). I receive a couple of error -36s on a few particular files, so I figure I should wait for the Time Machine to backup and then diagnose the media drive.
The next morning (after 10 hr backup is finished), I have a stop-sign error that a disk was unmounted improperly (the LaCie media drive). The drive cannot be seen in disk utility or on a completely different MBP running Snow Leopard. It's spinning up, but it can't be read.
Only thing I can think to do is reinstall 10.8.2 over top the cloned system, make sure that the recovery partition was recreated and working.
This can't be a coinicidence, right? At this point, I'm afraid to keep my external storage drives and clone attached to the iMac, but I'm afraid to not have TM drive attached. Anyone know where to start diagnosing the problem?
1. Could a new internal drive be the problem, hardware wise?
2. Could the lack of an initial recovery partition or the setting up of a bootcamp partition have these sorts of consequences?
3. Could the problem be from restoring a clone?

Well, it is a LaCie-packaged adapter, some version of that model. The hub is on the mac mini inspired line of LaCie HDs (http://www.lacie.com/company/news/news.htm?id=10269). I've had it for 6 yrs, and the hub is still going. Other drives have been running from the hub without issue for all that time (and still are). There is no hissing, and the display light indicates the hub is getting power.
You think it's time for a new hub?
The internal switchout is just a coincidence?
(Basically, I'm not a hardware expert. Does anyone know if an internal drive or internal sensor/connection problem can cause externals to fail or blowout a controller? I'm waiting on a drive dock to arrive—I'll know more whether these are HD failures or chip failures after that. Both drives showed normal-seeming power use via their display lights.)

MacPro won't boot from (2) internal drives but will from DVD

My MacPro hung this morning, blank screen but mouse red LED working. I restarted it and it booted into my 2nd internal drive with 10.5.2 rather than "Macintosh HD". Checked Time Machine and seemed to be all good.
I used the DVD to get TimeMachine to do a complete restore from internal drive 4 onto the main Macintosh HD. This got as far as saying something like "restore complete, click to restart using restored disk".
After clicking I just got a beachball of death.
Used DVD to run disk utility, clean bill of health on all drives except verify permissions gets 15% through then stops.
Now, when I try and boot from either of my two startup disks the MacPro starts up, goes to greyscreen then I get a couple of little clicking noises and the whole thing shuts down.
Tried unplugging everything then just put power lead back in and monitor connection,
Tried running Apple Hardware Test (as it boots from disk but not drives, thought it might be a power supply problem) but AHT gets to "test 1" then locks up
I can boot into single user mode, am about to try FSCK but running out of things to try.
Can I access files from the desktop and put hem onto a remote machine or USB stick from Single User Mode - or access/mount my drives from the DVD. In the "old" days it was poosible to boot to a desktop from a CD - can that still be done?
Cheers
Beardy man
Message was edited by: Beardy man
Message was edited by: Beardy man

I always keep spare drives, and use SuperDuper to keep images even of drive volumes.
Keeping one drive to OS only and no data or prefs helps.
Having an emergency drive or partition: a must (sort of like Micromat TTPro eDrive only better).
Pull the drive for now. Maybe Data Rescue II later. And a FW case you can throw it into for repairs or to recover files.
I am surprised you don't get the "stop" sign, a circle + slash, that often indicates corrupt journal/directory and no boot device where it expects to find one.
TechTool Pro, commercial $90 5.0 is due soon, hopefully they were just waiting now for 10.5.5 to be out and see if it would change or alter (or break) their utility.
Backups, whether TS or a clone made with SuperDuper, are critical, should run on their own automatically in background, and the OS doesn't have to be that large, fit it on 60-100GB disk image so you don't have to worry about partition and size.
For now, use the DVD to install OS X on a new drive partition to begin to build a foundation from which you can do more and mark this as emergency-only. You can clone it later if needed to a "working" system. SuperDuper is free for full copy, or use Disk Utility Restore even to set the source and 'target' destination volumes.

System drive full want to move files to another internal drive

my sysytem drive is almost full it is only 52gb I have another internal drive that to 100gb and I want to move everything to that drive. I kow that I can do this by making a disk image of the system disk. however I need a bootable cd, which I donot have. can i use another mechine to boot with and make the disk image that way? if so how?
thanks

MDD G4s have room for four drives on two IDE buses (plus two optical bays). No reason to go through the disk image intermediate step that I can see though. Just use Disk Utility -> Restore to move or clone everything over. Or you can do same with CCC, or SuperDuper. Lots of ways.
No need for bootable CD (and CD is rather small) and while BootCD worked with Panther, no version is out for Tiger.
You can just boot from your Tiger DVD and use Disk Utility from there.
When copying between drives, it is a lot faster to copy from/to different IDE buses. If your OEM boot drive is in the ATA/100 cage on the right (in front of cpus) then copy to the ATA/66 bus on the left. You might want to zero the drive or test your 100GB (odd number, that, I have seen 80 and 120, but 100GB?).
If you don't have OS X CD/DVD, then I would suggest buying a retail 10.4.6 DVD now.

How to install OS X on another internal drive?

I have a Mac Pro with 4 internal drives. One has Yosemite on it, and I would like to install Yosemite on one of the other internal drives. I have the disc image for 10.10.1 already downloaded.
Is there a way to do what I'm trying to do?
thank you!
ray

If you'll be running the full installer, open it and select a different volume when setting up the installation.
If you'll be moving an already-installed system, use a product such as the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper.
The 10.10.1 update dmg isn't a full installer.
(118864)

Internal Drive Going...

I am using three of my four drive slots. The first slot contains an original 500G hard drive and it runs the system. Slots 2 and 3 hold 1TB drives. I also have two 1TB external USB drives. I had three but during some very hot weather I lost one. I tried to save it using Disk Warrior but DW couldn't find or work with it.
So I used DW to run a repair on all of my drives without a problem - except for that first internal drive. To run a repair required booting from the DW disk and running DW from there. It started out alright and got to a mid-point of reviewing the drive then just stopped. After 6 hours I ended the repair process (it wasn't actually repairing, just locating the files), tried it again and came up with the same problem. The system runs as well as it did before the attempt but I don't want to take any chances.
I have a new 2TB Western Digitial drive I'll slide into the 4th slot and move the data (movie and editing stuff) from slot 3 over to Slot 4, erase/reforma Slot 3 and use Carbon Copy to clone my original hard drive (Slot 1) over to Slot 3, then switch the two drives so Slot 3 beocmes Slot 1 and restart the machine so I boot from Slot 1 (the newer 1TB drive).
My question is, I can do that, right? I shouldn't run into problems, right?
I'll be moving the operating system (10.5.6) from a 500g over to a 1TB just in time for the upcoming release of Snow Leopard.
If anyone sees a problem please speak up and let me know. I've never cloned an OS before but theoretically see no problem (or am I just too full of myself???)
Thanks, Lisa

Here is a better solution that will handle what you want, take a small amount of time to setup.
Always work with an "emergency boot drive" for maintenance and repairs, doesn't get used for anything else and has DW etc on it with just Apple current system. Small 20GB and backup once for safety on a DU "sparse" disk image.
Make a bootable backup of your current system.
Never repair a drive that is not backed up, try to backup anything essential.
- you can Preview and backup inside Disk Warrior.
Never run repairs off a CD or DVD, just use your "E" drive.
Before upgrading to 10.5.7, backup, and then boot from "E" drive and run maintenance.
There are no slot depend positions and it doesn't make any sense to move a physical drive to another slot or drive bay. Sounds complicated and doesn't buy anything in the process.
You could put your emergency 20GB on any of your non-system drive, or on more than one, plenty of room on the 2TB WD.
There are times when DW can take a long time if the directory is damaged, if the journal is wrong, if there are a large amount of file fragments and has trouble finding files. It has been known to take a day - or three.
Use the System Pref control panel to set the default boot drive. And use the OPTION key to boot from an alternate drive for one time.
Keep it simple and you will have less trouble - and work.

Internal drive failing

ok, help. . .i have been having problems all morning & ran a scan with disc utility & come to find out one of my 4 internal drives is failing s.m.a.r.t. it shows up as a drive on my desktop, but i cannot access it nor try to back it up with carbon copy cloner or the sort.
are there any suggestions get retrieve files or create a disc image of this drive before it craps out completely? it has never made any sounds or caused me problems until today. i am a graphic designer & this is a major project drive as well as software drive. . . any help appreciated. . . i am in full panic mode.
drive is a wd5000aaks in my 3rd bay

Silent dealth... noise can be head crash, or it can be just very corrupt directory in which case Disk Warrior or reformat is all it needs.
A 7-way write (security erase) of the entire drive can help. Takes a day.
Never use a CD, boot from a current version of OS X, used for emergency only, and pull the drive and put in FW case and mount it after you are booted, sometimes works.
I was hoping TimeMachine's nagging would get people thinking and backed up regularly. It can be too intrusive so you disable the smoke alarm theory. I use a program that backs up every day, once, to update changes, and takes 10 minutes or so. SuperDuper and do the same and have a couple alternating sets.
There are devices in the $500 range that just do a full system-less sector copy of a drive that you can then recover and repair from.

Saved presentation is smaller on my internal drive than on my external disk

This is not a big deal and it does not affect the use or effectiveness of Keynote, but I am curious. If I save a presentation on my internal drive it has a smaller file size than if I move it to my external disk. Can someone tell me why?
Thank you
Mireille

Different disks and disk formats have different allocation block sizes; except for zero-byte files, each file needs to occupy at least one block. For this reason, some space is wasted on a disk, and the larger the disk is, the more space will be lost. Using the Mac OS Standard format for a disk causes much more space to be lost compared to Mac OS Extended.
When a package is placed on a drive, each item in the package counts as a separate file. Creating a disk image with the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and storing files on it will reduce the amount of lost space.
(25621)

Storing my catalog on separate fast internal drive...?

I'm curious as to whether certain performance issues with Lightroom 4 are related to my setup...I am on Windows 7, 12GB RAM, 2 750GB 7200rpm hard drives (internal) and several external drives. The way I have it set up is:
C: - Where Lightroom is installed (duh)
D: (separate internal drive) is where my catalogs are stored
4 external USB 3.0 drives store all my photos.
I feel like Lightroom doesn't like the fact that my catalogs are on a separate drive from the program itself (?), despite being a SATA connected fast internal drive. Does anyone else have this setup? Will it affect performance?
Thanks
p.s. My D: drive is also setup as the primary scratch disk for Photoshop. Could this negatively affect performance?

it shouldn't negatively affect the performance the way that you have described:
reference these links-
http://thelightroomlab.com/2011/03/where-should-i-keep-my-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-catalo g/
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/03/five_ways_to_speed_up_lightroo.html
http://kelbytv.com/lightroomkillertips/2012/01/19/using-external-drives/
if you feel you are encountering problems, i would try to keep lightroom and the image storage on the same drive....
-janelle

Another tip for working around iDVD encoding errors: Use internal drive

I've had several projects that produced the encoding error while rendering the menus, I've also seen a number of tips in this discussion area, e.g., have 20 GB of free space, delete iDVD preferences, delete encoded assets, and make sure your chapter markers are not near a transition or end of a clip (good luck with that using iDVD to set your chapters). Neither of these tips alone allowed me to burn a disk image to disk, but I'm confident they contribute to a more stable iDVD performance overall.
In my case, the only way I've managed to make the projects to work is to copy the iMovie project over to my internal drive, create the iDVD project on the internal drive and to save the disk image to the internal drive.
If you're low on internal disk space, as I am, easy to move assets is another advantage of using iMovie 6 over iMovie 8, i.e., you can create the iMovie project on the external drive and then drag a temporary copy over to the internal drive, then you can launch iDVD from within iMovie 6 without the annoying step of exporting to the Media Browser. When you're done, delete the temporary movie to free up space for your next project. The iDVD projects can also be moved to a backup drive or deleted.

You'll always get better results on the startup volume / internal HD (as opposed to an ext. HD) provided you also have at least 20GB's of available HD space remaining. Anything less is often problematic at best.
My suggestion in this situation is to find a way to clear more HD space. You can clear video files already burned to DVD-R media, burn your iPhoto Library to DVD to clear more space , or even consider clearing languages you won't need on your system with an app like Monolingual. No problems will be created by removing unneeded language files (however it's highly recommend you avoid removing architectures on any intel mac).
http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/
The following may interest you as well:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1102377&tstart=0

2 T internal drives?

How well does the Mac Pro handle 4x 2T internal drives. I currently have 4 X 500 GB Intel drives and 4 X 2T G-Raid external drives. I would love to bump up the internal storage now that my warranty is ending. Any advise?

I always keep spare drives, and use SuperDuper to keep images even of drive volumes.
Keeping one drive to OS only and no data or prefs helps.
Having an emergency drive or partition: a must (sort of like Micromat TTPro eDrive only better).
Pull the drive for now. Maybe Data Rescue II later. And a FW case you can throw it into for repairs or to recover files.
I am surprised you don't get the "stop" sign, a circle + slash, that often indicates corrupt journal/directory and no boot device where it expects to find one.
TechTool Pro, commercial $90 5.0 is due soon, hopefully they were just waiting now for 10.5.5 to be out and see if it would change or alter (or break) their utility.
Backups, whether TS or a clone made with SuperDuper, are critical, should run on their own automatically in background, and the OS doesn't have to be that large, fit it on 60-100GB disk image so you don't have to worry about partition and size.
For now, use the DVD to install OS X on a new drive partition to begin to build a foundation from which you can do more and mark this as emergency-only. You can clone it later if needed to a "working" system. SuperDuper is free for full copy, or use Disk Utility Restore even to set the source and 'target' destination volumes.

Can I move the Pictures folder to a different internal drive?

I would like to move the Pictures folder that shows up in the Finder sidebar from my Macintosh HD (boot drive) to a separate internal drive (Media Drive) where I store all my media files. I want to do this so that when I want to save a photo from a web site or email I can click on it, select the Pictures folder, have it saved to the Pictures folder on my Media Drive rather than on the Macintosh HD (boot drive) where it currently resides. I have tried dragging and dropping the folder from the Macintosh HD (boot drive) to the Media Drive but it does not work. Ideas would be most welcome. Thanks

Baltwo,
a question - perhaps it might be safer to create a symbolic link to the relocated folder on the external drive instead of an alias. Otherwise Unix based image editors like GIMP will not be able to see this new "Pictures" folder in the file chooser dialogue.
Regards
Léonie

After zero erase internal drives no raid button in utilities

I had two 3tera byte internal drives in my 2010 mac pro. I wanted to use both in a raid 1 configuration. I read that you need to zero erase these drives first. Before I did that there was a raid button available when I highlighted that drive. But after the erase that took 7 hours or so I’m ready to create the raid but now there is no raid button for either of the drives I erased. My other drives show the raid button but not the two internals I want. Any ideas?

If your Mac shipped with a DVD, you could boot from that DVD and erase the drives using the Utilities menu on the DVD. That older version of Disk Utility works fine. The Mac Pro (tower) 2010 model probably will not boot from a "Full Retail" 10.6.3 DVD if you had one of those, but it can run 10.6.8 if you have an old clone on another drive. Or if you ever made an Installer Image (NOT 10.8.4 or later), you could boot from that and use its Disk Utility.
An External Enclosure in this context would be an External FireWire enclosure or an External USB enclosure -- like one you might use for backups. If you have one, you can swap each of those drives in turn into the Enclosure and do a quick Erase -- then do not use Erase in 10.8.4 and later!!

Got all my photos and LR library onto external HD. How to clean my internal drive?

OK guys here where I sit and need some insight on how to clean up my internal drive.
I have a new MBP and originally imported all my photos from my PC into iPhoto. Then I installed LR3 and it created the library on the internal SSD drive. But I did not move any photos from iPhoto into there yet.
Then I installed an external raid drive just for my photos.
So in watching some of the LightroomLab tutorials, they said to create 2 folders on the fresh external drive. One for Photos and one for the LR library. So I did that and have lightroom now pointing to that index on the external drive.
Coming from a PC I was having a hard time grasping all this import/export stuff so I just found where all my iPhoto pictures were stored on my internal drive and manually copied them over the the external drive Photo directory.......Bad move I found out. No order what so ever. But still did not move them into LR yet.
So today I found another lightroomLab video showing me how to export out of iPhoto to a desktop folder and they exported very nicely organized in dated folders. So I finally imported into LR and moved all the photos from that desktop folder onto my external drive during the import. I am very happy with the organization now in the LR GUI.
So now I ask of you whats the best way to clean everything from my internal drive. Can I just delete the iPhoto library and will that delete all my photos from my internal drive? And what about the initial LR install? Can I just delete the whole LR folder that contains the initial library stuff?
Sorry for all the questions but I am almost there and where I want to be and just want to do the cleanup right so I don't lose anything I am supposed to have.
I really want to be a MAC person and little by little I am understanding more and more.

I dont know anything about iPhoto, but in terms of LR, just delete the photos from your Mac Finder. Then they will show as "missing" in LR. You can then update the location (right click the folder) to one of the versions of the folder that you have on your external.
Maybe you should practice this on a dummy folder or two so that you are comfortable with the process. FYI, LR can only update the location of one folder at a time. Having a parent folder on your internal that is indentical to the parent on the external would be ideal.
If you already have a separate catalog on your external that has all of your photos and edits on it., then just delete the internal files with the finder. Deleting the catalog will only delete the metadata and changes that you made to the images. the photos will remain on your internal drive.
There are a lot of different methods of doing this (like "export folder as catalog"), and different people will have their own favorites.
I'm not sure exactly would your folder heiarchies and catalogs look like, so make sure that it makes sense to you before deleting away.

Imaging internal drive to a recoverable image

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