norton Norton Ghost-type software for Mac?

[whitebread]

I am in need of a program to create an image of my hard drive which I can store on an external hard drive. This way, if I ever need to reinstall the OS, I don't have to re-download and re-configure all my programs.

I am running OS X Lion. It doesn't have to be free, although that would (of course) be nice.

Thanks!

Edit: it must be able to support writing to NTFS as that is the format my external HD is in.

[Japlabot]

Boot off the Mac OS X install DVD, Go into Disk Utility.

Or even easier, just create a Time Machine backup. Time Machine backups can restore the entire system including the Applications, even to a different model Mac. Even if you keep using Time Machine for backups you can also go back to the date you want (until old backups are cleared) or as a Bonus, keep your Time Machine backup regular and you can always restore from where you were if anything happened.

Macs are reliable enough that they rarely need a clean install unless there has been some kind of disk fault (failure/corruption). Performance does not degrade over time.

[ian]

Boot off the Mac OS X install DVD, Go into Disk Utility.

^this.

... or check Carbon Copy Cloner (free) and SuperDuper! (free/paid for extra options).

[CPressland]

Disk Utility is more than powerful enough for imaging. And if you combine it with solutions like Absolute Manage, you can even reimage a Machine on your network while the user is using it (providing they restart as soon as the imaging is complete).

[whitebread]

Boot off the Mac OS X install DVD, Go into Disk Utility.

Or even easier, just create a Time Machine backup.

I'll have to use Time Machine. I don't have an install DVD as I'm using Lion.

[Elliott]

I don't have an install DVD as I'm using Lion.

You can boot into the Lion Recovery Mode by pressing and holding Command+R on boot.

Time Machine is great, but it doesn't create a bootable version of your disk (if you need that). You have to wait for it to restore before it's usable again.

Edit: Just noticed you're using an NTFS drive. Your only choice will be to use SuperDuper and let it make a disk image. The Lion Recovery Mode won't be able to write to an NTFS drive, and Time Machine requires the destination be HFS+.

[.Neo]

Why would you need to boot off the OS X Install DVD or Recovery Partition? Disk Utility is right there in the Utilities folder of every OS X installation.

[Elliott]

Why would you need to boot off the OS X Install DVD or Recovery Partition? Disk Utility is right there in the Utilities folder of every OS X installation.

Can you image a boot partition while it's running?

[.Neo]

Can you image a boot partition while it's running?

Pretty sure I've done so in the past. Not lately though.

[murr]

+1 for SuperDuper. The paid version allows for hot updates of the image file while you are logged into your account.

[CPressland]

Can you image a boot partition while it's running?

Yep, the company I work for even has this method of reimaging the OS during use Patented now.

Pretty sure I've done so in the past. Not lately though.

I done it on a Snow Leopard box and swapped it out to Lion via this method on Monday, works perfectly.

[Elliott]

Yep, the company I work for even has this method of reimaging the OS during use Patented now.

I didn't mean in general. :p I know you can (after all, SuperDuper can), but I didn't think Disk Utility could do it. Guess it can though. :p It doesn't show me as being able to make an image of my Macintosh HD partition, but it does seem to let me take an image of my whole hard drive (though I didn't let it finish).

[.Neo]

It always amazed me how frequently people underestimate Disk Utility when it comes to this. Is it because its Windows counterpart is utter crap? I honestly don't recall. :/

[Elliott]

It always amazed me how frequently people underestimate Disk Utility when it comes to this. Is it because its Windows counterpart is utter crap? I honestly don't recall. :/

I'm not underestimating Disk Utility, but when I checked and saw this (attached below), I just figured it couldn't do it. Maybe it's because my disk is encrypted?

[.Neo]

It's because you need root access for the Macintosh HD now? It's the same reason why the Finder sidebar won't remember a custom set width for the Macintosh HD and resets back to defaults after a relaunch. Extremely annoying. I actually thought I was going insane of these little things, but it all boils down to root access.