Bootable clone with Maverick installed

[Hassan Munir]

Hi

 

I have installed OS X Maverick as a clean install and with all the programs that I need. What I want to do now is make a clone but is bootable from an external HD. This external HD has already got partitions on which I split up in pictures, movies and other things.

 

I have made a partition which has enough space for a full clone of the main HD. I tried using Get Back Up 2 but it mentions that the partition i'm using will not be bootable.

 

Can anyone shed some light on what I am doing wrong or provide a step by step guide on how to sort this out as your're help would be much appriecated and it would save doing a complete reinstall if anything ever happened.

[Hassan Munir]

Can someone please help.

[Brian M. Veteran]

Just use disk utility.

 

Open disk utility. Click your Macintosh HD (or whatever your boot partition is). Click restore. Drag the new partition (on your external) from the destination field. Press restore.

 

The HDD will need to be GUID though. Mavericks won't boot from an MBR drive.

[panomedia]

Use Super Duper:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13803/superduper!

[#Michael]

Use Super Duper:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13803/superduper!

 

That works too or use Carbon Copy Cloner.  I have always been a fan of ccc.

[Shadrack]

Here is a step-by-step guide:

 

Step 1: Connect hard disk

Step 2: Tell Mac OS X hard disk is Time Machine disk (I think it will just prompt you unless you have Time Machine turned off completely)

Step 3: Once done, place disk in safe place

 

If ever you want to restore to where you are now, plug in the Time Machine disk, boot from it, and do a full restore.

 

Use that disk as your clean restore point.  Buy another one and connect it occasionally for automatic incremental backups.

 

You can use other software, but I find Time Machine meets most people's needs just fine.  Plus it is super easy to use.  A time machine disk is a bootable clone of your hard drive which is what you are asking for.  Although, I don't believe it can be considered an "image" format.  Maybe... it has a more incremental structure that is capable of saving multiple versions of files that makes it superior to a simple disk image.

[darkz]

I did this with CCC yesterday and I remember it said something about that the external hdd needs to have a recovery partition to become bootable

I can't find anything like that in any guide tho, just use GUID partition table and it will boot 

[Hassan Munir]

I've tried Superduper! and it's makes a clone and I have booted from it but somehow it hasn't replaced or installed my clone as the new version as when i detached the external HD it reverted back to the the original one. The way i tested this out was to put a empty folder on the desktop. And I thought that the clone would permanently replace the original version. What have i missed out in the process?

[Sikh]

Disk utility and Super Duper.

Disk utility is the easiest and works really well and does a block by block low level copy.

Super Duper is a nice app that tells you what its doing, transfer speed, setting boot flag, etc.