Reformat and restore directed by disk utility

I have mid 2011 Air. Disk utility has told me to reformat and restore system to solve problem with SSD. Won't reformating destroy the ability to restore ystem fron the SSD? How should I do this?

On systems delivered with Lion or later, you have the recovery partition, which is what you are booting from when you boot with the command and r keys held down. The recovery partition is a separate partition on the hard drive/SSD and is not visible in DIsk Utility. Think of it as the same as install disks you used to get with the system. When you say to erase the disk, you are erasing the partition that houses all the system/data, not the recovery partition.
See this for general description of OS X recovery, noting it says you can erase your hard drive from thru OS X recovery.
See this for how to use Time Capsule for recovery
See this for more details on OS X recovery

Similar Messages

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.

Reformat and restore?

I have a mid 2010 imac that I recently maxed out the RAM in. It has been running lightning fast until yesterday. Lightroom will not download pictures and other applications are slowing down. My internet connection doesn't work either (although my macbook connects just fine). I ran disk repair and it said to run from startup disk.
I ran from startup and it said the disk could not be repaired and to perform backup, reformat, and restore. I'm a photographer and I back-up daily, so losing information is not a concern of mine. I've just read where this doesn't always fix the problem or there is a better solution. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hey G.
This all sounds all too familiar.
Ditto what Kappy said but I'm using TechToolPro, essentially they do the same thing.
This sounds like a situation I had earlier this year where a drive failed on me totally
and irreparably, TechTool never even saw it coming!
First things first, backup and then reformat. Hopefully some kind of bad sector mapping-out
is builtin but not guaranteed. I don't think DU will inform you if you've got bad sectors,
you'll need professional tools like mentioned above. It's pointless using a disk that is
going to fail again.
You've got a few options...
1) Use existing disk and hope that it's just a one-off event and forget about it.
2) Borrow the original Pro Disk Utils disk from a friend to check your drive.
2) Get worried and buy professional disk utilities to give you some options.
3) If reformatting doesn't solve the problem buy a new drive and Pro Disk Tools anyway.
Also you didn't mention if you've got any Anti Virus software? The first thing you
should be thinking about even before backing-up. It would be pointless to backup
infected files that could reinfect your machine in the future... I'm using Sophos.
A.

Reformat and Restore iMac

I would like to reformat and restore my hard drive on my iMac and have good instructions for doing this. My question is, if I use the Mac OS Install DVD will it format to Mountain Lion or an older OS? Maybe this happens in the restore step, but I don't want to end up with an old OS. Thank you!

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
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.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

Re: How to Clone Using the Restore Option of Disk Utility

This is a revision to original post:
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.
4. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click on the Erase button. Wait for volume to remount on the Desktop.
5. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
8. Select the destination drive icon 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.
9. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

There is a checkbox option in the Restore dialog to Erase the Destination. Be sure you uncheck the option.

Restore image with Disk Utility

In Lion I miss the checkbox in the restore section of Disk Utility to NOT erase the volume I want my image to restore to. In Snow Leopard I was able to uncheck this box and Disk Utility then did a file restore instead of a block copy. The result was a completely defragmented volume. Is there an option to get a similar result in Lion?
Thanks!

If you need to defragment your drive, then the safest and fastest way to do so is:
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external 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 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
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. 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.
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. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
2. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
3. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
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 internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
Alternatives to the above are using one various defragmentation utilities such as iDefragment or Drive Genius. But these utilities have to move data around on the drive resulting in slower times plus the greater risk of file corruption or disk directory corruption. The above method gives the same result - a fully defragmented drive plus a backup to boot.

How to recover after performing an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive?

Hi - I accidently ran an 'Erase' and then 'Partition' within Disk Utility of an External USB drive (meant to run it against another drive that was plugged in). Does anyone have any suggestions on if it is possible to recover from this? It has all my family photos on it and my backup is a few months old :-(
I tried running Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery but it found what looks like basic mac folder structure (probably from the first erase). I think what messed me up was that I rain the repartition which formats the drive a 2nd time! Any help is truly appreciated!
thank you,
-Steve

Hello RalphR_MI,
Take a look at this page, which lists several articles. Please let me know if any of these help you restore your backup.
Also, take a look at this article, as well as this one.
I hope this helps. I'm not sure of a few things, so I'm sorry for sending you so much, but I'm confident it will give you something new to try.
Please let me know if this helps. Good luck!
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

Why is the Restore function in disk utility so slow?

I am using the Restore functionality in Disk Utility to copy my old 250GB Time Machine disk (which is now full) to a new 1.1TB disk.
250GB is calculating to take 11 hours to copy. Both disks are connected via FireWire (old one is FireWire 400, new one is FireWire 800).
If my math is correct, that's only 6.4MB per second.
Why is it so monumentally slow?

That's pretty much normal for a FW400 drive. Restore takes more time that some copy programs because of the file verification it performs.

When I go to disc utility, repair disc is not functioning, neither is the verify disc. There is a statement that says,"start up from the mac OS X intallation disc and then choose utilities Disk utility. However there is no option for that

Verify disc and repair disc are not working. They give me the option to install the "installation disc" click on utilities>Disk utility from there. When I try this, there is no option to do this that I can find. Can anyone help me to do this?

You can't run Repair Disk from the Utilities folder. With 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
Or if you are running 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion, boot from the recovery partition (Command +R on boot) and use Disk Utility to repair your OS 10.7 or 10.8 partition.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window. Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. When it comes up is your Hard Drive in the list on the left?
If it is, then click on the Mac OS partition of your hard drive in the left hand list. Then select the First Aid Tab and run Repair Disk. The Repair Disk button won't be available until you've clicked on the Mac OS partition on your hard drive. If that repairs any problems run it again until the green OK appears and then run Repair Permissions. After repairing use Startup Disk from the same menu to choose your hard drive for restarting from your hard drive.

Reformatted and Restored and Still get Excl Mark

All seems to stem from downloading a podcast and then when I synched my ipod it froze the system.
Have had all the usual do not disconnect freezes and pc freezing but have got to a point where I get the folder and exclamation mark appearing on the ipod.
With further tinkering I have eventually managed to reformat and restore using both the original and latest updater software, got the icon telling me to plug into power to reflash the software but it still returns to the exclm mark.
Any ideas if there's anything further I can do or does it need to go back to Apple? (I have a week left before warranty expires!!!)

Just for info I returned my iPod to Apple last week and have just found out my replacement is on the way!!
Woohoo, and hopefully a whole years warranty for this one - I just hope this one doesnt break down so often.

Hi, Had boot issue and got the following from DU repair function on Macintosh hd: updating boot support.....Error: Disk utility can't repair this disk.....reformat and restore backed up files. How is that done or do I go to Genius?

In reference to question the computer gave no warning but lost internet connectivity. I shut down for a while and when returned it would only boot to gray logo screen with spinning gear. Ran disk utility and on Mac HD drive it stopped after "Updating boot support partitions as required". Then in red: Error: Disk utility can' repair this disk ....disk, and restore backed up files. I'm running OS X 10.8 and had just updated the iOS about three days ago. Not familiar with reformat process on MacBook Pro and would like some ideas whether I should go to the Genius Bar here in Sydney or try it on my own. I have been using time machine to back up to a 1TB La Cie drive right up to the crash. Thanks for any advice.

Well it turned out the drive was shot. Took it to the genius bar yesterday and they ran a test on the drive before trying the restore routine again. Drive failed.
Replaced the drive and got the MBP back today. Pretty quick and decent service once you get an appointment.
Now having trouble figuring how to do the Time Machine saved files. Have several applications which I'd like to keep but not sure how to trans the apps from my backup to the new. Hunting for answers on that on the web.
Thanks for you help, Eustace.

I have received an error message from an attached USB hard drive (not Time Capsule) stating "Disk Name" cannot be repaired. Back up your data and reformat. I opened the Disk Utility in an attempt to repair the disk but am advised that the disk "could not

I have received an error message relating to an attached USB hard drive (not a back up and not Time Capsule) advising that "disk name" cannot be repaired. Back up your data and reformat. When I attempted to verify the disk with Disk Utility, I was advised that the disk could not be unmounted. What can I do to repair the disk?
Write Status is Read/Write
SMART Status is Not Supported
Partition Map Scheme is Master Boot Record
HELP!
timothy7712

You need something stronger, such as DiskWarrior, TechTools Pro, or Data Rescue.

Selling old mac, how do you reformat and restore?

I bought a mac mini off a friend and now I'm getting a new one but first I have to sell the mini.
My first question is how do I reformat my hard drive, I want to get rid of ALL of my files just to make sure nothing is on it that would compromise my security.
Also my friend didn't give me the restore discs. So does anyone know the repercusions of using another freinds restore discs?
I have a Mac Mini 10.4.11 with the superdrive and my friend who has restore discs has a iMac 10.4.11.

It might work for just the Disk Utility, to zero the drive, but it won't install OSX. If it doesn't work, create a new administrator account, logout, login to the new account, delete all other accounts and their data, empty the trash, then use Disk Utility to Erase Free Space. A single pass of zeros is enough.

Format External Drive for HFS+ volume and FAT32 volume with Disk Utility

I just bought a Seagate 1tb external drive from OWC and I want to partition it into a HFS+ (journaled I assume) volume and a NTFS volume. Objective: To manually backup critical folders from my wife’s Dell (running XP) to the NTFS volume and critical Mac folders from my PowerBookG4 to the HFS volume.
My plan was to have my Mac (10.4.11) do the partitioning into a 350gb FAT32 volume for Windows and a 650gb HFS+ volume for Mac – then take the external drive to the Dell and have the Dell reformat the 350gb FAT drive to NTFS.
First question – Is this possible overall?
Second question – I haven’t been able to get my Disk Utility on my Mac to do the initial partitioning into one HFS volume and one FAT32 volume the way I want it. Is this step possible?
I’m happy to be more specific about the steps I’ve taken if the basic plan is good. From what I’ve found in some forums so far, I think I’m on the right track but am unable to execute it. Thank you.

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

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.

Reformat and restore directed by disk utility

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for