Make a carbon copy of your drive/folder with Terminal!

I always see people throwing carbon copy disk programs around like no tomorrow. I've wondered to myself "why?". The termainl in Mac OSX can do it out of the box and do it for free and, for more advanced users, you can start getting rather fancy with the commands for fine tuning. Type man cp in the terminal for more info.
Say I want to make a carbon copy of my Home folder to my external disk called "Backup USB" so I can restore it later to a new drive.
Firstly, open Terminal.app found in Applications > Utilities. Make sure the External Disk is plugged in first before continuing.
Now I simply type in the following command:
cp -pvR /Users/benanderson "/Volumes/Backup USB/benanderson"
Once typed, press the return key and let the computer do its job.
I'll run through the command so people know what each section does
cp: this is the command for "copy"
-pvR: these are "flags" and tell the computer how to perform the action.
p: this flag stands for "preserve" and keeps all the file attributes intact. A file or folders owner, group, permissions and time stamp will remain the same. Say I have a file in the finder with a "created" and "modified" date of 8th September 2011 (you can see these by single clicking a file an pressing cmd+i) - if I was to copy this with the finder, the created and modified date of the copy would change to 17th December 2011 (today). By specifying the -p flag, the copy will keep the 8th of September creation and modify date. This is very important for system files that MacOSX has to keep track of.
v: verbose, it basically tells you what file is currently copying so you're not copying blind wondering what its doing and when it will finish. Its a progress bar, basically.
R: it will mimic the directory structure of the folder you are copying. without the -R flag, if you ask cp to copy a folder, it will skip the folder because the folder is not a file. With -R, it will copy the folder, the files in the folder and any folders within the folder and so on.
/Users/benanderson: this is my home folder. Your name will vary, obviously.
"/Volumes/Backup USB/benanderson": The destination of the copy on the disk "Backup USB". I need double quotes around the destination because "Backup USB" as a space in it. Without the quotes, the computer would read it as "/Volumes/Backup" and stop there, which is invalid and would cause an error, stopping the copy from working.
To restore from backup, just do it again in reverse order.
cp -pvR "/Volumes/Backup USB/benanderson" /Volumes/benanderson
Hit return and set it on its way!
If you're feeling sassy, make a carbon copy of your Macintosh HD onto another HDD, a carbon copy of your home folder from your desktop computer onto your laptop computer over the network (I do this with my iTunes folder every few months), carbon copy your HDD onto a Disk Image so you can "flash" other HDDs from disk utility. Carbon copy of your time machine or time capsule if moving to a larger disk. The cp command is increadibly useful, free, easy and powerful - its most likely what the Carbon Copy programs are doing under the hood, so why not cut out the middle man?
Just a nice tip for everyone interested!

Carbon Copy Cloner is free; its tasks are editable and restrictable; it works via a simple user interface; and it works without error. There is next to no learning curve involved, no need to learn Terminal's syntax, and none of the dangers that an error in syntax can cause when using Terminal.
Did I mention CCC is free?

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Is it possible to make a security copy of your iphone on your ipad's itunes? Es posible hacer una copia de seguridad de tu iphone en tu ipad, como si éste fuera un ordenador?

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Or in Spanish:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519?viewlocale=es_ES

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ro-76 wrote:
Thanks for the reply.
My main backup is over 6 months old.
then I suggest you start backing up regularly. there is no excuse not to do it.
I use dropbox to backup the stuff I'm working on at the moment, but not the older stuff.
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HT201372 used this to make a bootable copy for a new hard drive installation. copied the install find but gave error code 110 when making the disk bootable.. Any help in what this code is

Used createinstallmedis to make a copy of the Mavericks app for use in a new hard drive install.. Copied find but gave error code 110 and failed to make the flash drive bootable.. Any help in what errror code means?

Did you partition and format the flash drive first? See the following:
Make Your Own Mavericks, Mountain/Lion Installer
After downloading the installer you must first save the Install Mac OS X application. After the installer downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing.
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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.
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Type : Disk
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Media Name : Maxtor OneTouch III Media
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I know that the drive had a name (besides the generic "Maxtor OneTouch III Media) before I did anything with Carbon Copy Cloner. Is my data already gone?
Message was edited by: theleez

Hi , and a warm welcome to the forums!
I think the problem is more the One-touch, they can't boot PPC Macs even via Firewire.
I think you'll have to Reformat it again... did you maybe use GUID Partition Scheme the first time?
See this, except for the GUID part...
http://carlbach.blogspot.com/2008/02/maxtor-one-touch-iii-and-formatting-on.html

Steps to Copy Existing Hard Drive

Hi. I just bought 2 Maxtor 500GB internal SATA hard drives. I have a Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHz purchased April 2006. It has an existing 250 GB hard drive. I also have a Seagate Firewire 250GB External HD. Would anyone be willing to map out the step by step process of installing the 2 new 500GB HD without losing any data? No need for Serial RAID or any of that. Install one, copy to that and then install the other? I pretty much use the Mac for Business- MS Offfice, Internet Banking and email, large Music Files and future plans for Logic Music files. I know how to physically install the units. But then what....? Your help-advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hello! You have some good advice here and I would add that along with SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner apps to clone with you can also use Kappy's instructions below. Always boot from the clone to make sure it boots ok. The process involves copying millions of files so there's always a possibility that everything isn't perfect so boot with the clone to make sure it's bootable. Better sooner than later as you wouldn't want to wait until a crash to find out if it's bootable. Also I recommend multiple clones with alternating dates. If you clone a system that becomes unstable 10 minutes after you've finished cloning then your current system as well as the clone may be corrupt. I note this because it happened to me. Tom
Kappy's Steps to Produce a bootable clone
Prep external FW drive:
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.

Copy and paste applications folder?

Hey,
I used to back up my powerbook to an external drive partition using Disk Utility but niw it throws up an error after a few seconds of copying over, and I can't format the external drive as it has other important stuff on the other partitions. So I've been copying and pasting my home folder ( which works fine ) to this partition.
What I was wondering was if I copy over my Apps folder too, in the event of my Mac dying and a new one arriving, would I be able to import my Apps folder via copy and paste and have everything sitting like it is now??
Or does anyone know why disk utility crokes everytime??
many thanks
John

I'm not sure why Disk Utility won't do what you wish, - what is the error it gives you? - but I don't think that using copy and paste will work on your Applications folder.
The reason is that while some applicaions are self contained, many have references to folders in the /Library or /System/Library (for instance any the required an Admin password to install) as well as to your own Home/Library folder, and any of these can only be re-installed with the supplied installers.
Instead of this, you could CLONE the hard drive which would make a complete copy of the drive on your external disk. There are several apps which will do this for you.
In relation to copying and pasting your home folder, have you considered using software that will make incremental back ups (that is, only copy the changed files, which is a lot faster. There are many out there from the very reasonable to the horrendously expensive.
Regards
TD

Make a carbon copy of your drive/folder with Terminal!

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