Recommend best way and program to clone disk

[Ariosto]

Can anyone recommend a program (free if possible) to clone a mac mini hard drive to a new external SSD? My wife's computer is running very slowly and we want to use a solid state drive to clone a copy of the op system (High Sierra) and data whilst keeping the old drive with all data, and then deleting any old unwanted rubbish and data from the new drive.

Thanks in anticipation.

[ConcertinaChap]

You want Superduper. It does lots in its paid-for form but in its free form will do exactly what you're after.

Time Machine can also do the job but Superduper is significantly more straightforward.

CC

[muzines]

+1 for Superduper which is what I use.

CarbonCopyCloner is the other recommended Mac tool for this.

[Ariosto]

Many thanks - that's just what i wanted to hear. Will be using it in a day or two. Thanks again!

[Guido3]

Another thumbs up for SuperDuper from me. Its so easy to use you really can’t go wrong. Its well worth paying the small fee for the paid version too.

[Ariosto]

Thanks! I've run the program Superduper on my wife's computer and it appears successful, but I cannot get a choice of disks under preferences - it only shows the Macintosh boot drive. I've tried many things like holding down various keys on booting. (It said it made the drive bootable - or the boot drive on completion).

On my computer I get the option in preferences of choosing the solid state drive or the Mac drive.

Can't seem to be able to boot up from the new ssd drive. Any thoughts?

[muzines]

Assuming you've properly cloned your system drive to another drive, and both are available to the system:

When you turn the computer, hold option, until a menu appears, showing all available drives that your system sees as bootable - you can then choose which one you want to boot from.

[Ariosto]

Assuming you've properly cloned your system drive to another drive, and both are available to the system:

When you turn the computer, hold option, until a menu appears, showing all available drives that your system sees as bootable - you can then choose which one you want to boot from.

Thanks.
I have done that and the drive does not come up, only the Mac drive shown.

So maybe it's not recognising it as a drive that's bootable? Maybe I have to down load the operating system from Apple again onto that drive?

[muzines]

So maybe it's not recognising it as a drive that's bootable? Maybe I have to down load the operating system from Apple again onto that drive?

No, a clone is a clone, and should be just as bootable as your source drive (provided you didn't copy the drive to a disk image file or something like that.)

Can your Mac boot from an external drive? How is the drive connected?

[Ariosto]

On my computer it does boot from an external ssd drive, but on my wife's it won't. I did clone her mac drive and it seemed to have worked. But the drive is not showing as an alternative boot drive. So it appears to not recognise it as a bootable drive.

On both computers the drives are connected by USB.

[muzines]

So with the cloned SSD plugged into your Mac, you can boot from it, but if the same drive is plugged into the other computer, it doesn't show up?

If so, it sounds like the other Mac is old and doesn't have the hardware to let it boot over USB, but the drive itself is fine. You can always put the SSD into the other Mac and see whether it will boot from it internally...

[Ariosto]

It won't work. I've got the op system on the ssd drive now, with help from the mac people - but it's a disaster as a mirror image.

I'm fed up with macs. Going to change back sometime soon to a Microsoft windows system and computer. Apple change the op system every ten minutes and each one gets worse than the last. By early next year our mac's will be in the rubbish dump. Overpriced rubbish, I'm afraid.

Thanks for your help, but computers are enough to send one to an early grave!

[Jumpeyspyder]

Hi Ariosto,

I'd advise going to :-

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com

type in your macs serial number and it should tell you what the maximum and minimum operating systems are for your macs. Its possible that your imaged OS is not compatible.

Hope this helps

[Ariosto]

Hi Ariosto,

I'd advise going to :-

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com

type in your macs serial number and it should tell you what the maximum and minimum operating systems are for your macs. Its possible that your imaged OS is not compatible.

Hope this helps

Thanks. I used the link and It appears that the operating system is compatible. I think the clone program is the problem, it is now not working at all. I've given up and I'm using the new ssd drive as an external drive on my own machine, and my wife will have to put up with a slow computer.

[wireman]

I replaced the disk in the Macbook Pro my wife uses last year and I don't remember it being too difficult, The built-in disk clone from the recovery console did not work because of a size mismatch in the drives and I think I was going to use Macrium reflect from a laptop (disk in an enclosure) but in the end just installed the SSD from a time machine backup. Note that this is not equivalent to cloning, you lose the recovery options.

Most annoying part of the project was getting the screwdriver needed to replace the battery which I did at the same time, as far as I can tell the only use of that screwdriver (ever) is for the screws in the particular model I have.

[Sam Spoons]

Macbook Pro batteries are fixed with a stupid (IMHO) screw that requires a three point screwdriver..... Other components, mostly, use a Phillips like four point driver (it may be a JIS driver but that's another story) but a couple use a Torx six point driver. I can't understand why they would use three (at least) different forms of screw head on screws which are mostly the same thread size. It's not for identification as they are, either clearly different (length or colour) or, like most of the screws holding the bottom panel on my MBP, the same head/size/colour but , some have a shoulder and some don't.......

[ConcertinaChap]

I don't think I'm being particularly conspiracy driven when I suggest screws with non-standard heads are specifically intended to make life difficult for the DIY repairer/upgrader. Why make it easy for owners to upgrade and give up all that lovely moolah that comes from making them pay for it?

CC

[wireman]

The 2009 model I have uses a Pentalobe screw (PL5 or PL6). Wiha make a decent scredriver that fits.

[muzines]

Macbook Pro batteries are fixed with a stupid (IMHO) screw that requires a three point screwdriver.....

Heh, I had to replace the keyboard in my MBP, so I bought one of those a couple of weeks back - £2 off ebay iirc - but I didn't need it, as you can completely strip a MBP down without removing the battery anyway...

A bit annoying, but not the biggest of problems really...

[Sam Spoons]

Didn’t see any point in starting a new thread but I want to clone the hdd out of my free view recorder. The problem is that neither finder or disc utility recognises the drive. Thinking of trying SuperDuper or buying one of these dual drive caddies which claim standalone cloneing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inateck-Docking-Station-Function-Tool-free/dp/B00LN0GX4I/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1550163318&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=hard+drive+clone+kit&psc=1

[ConcertinaChap]

Not convinced that will work unless you know the format of the disk in your recorder. On my recorder, for instance the file system is EXT3. Many video recorders use Linux as the host OS and they tend to use EXT2, 3 or 4 for their file systems. That means that you'll need special software on your Mac to be able to read the disk at all! I used extFS from Paragon Software to handle this, but to be honest it was more flakey than paid-for software ought to be.

Executive summary: what you want to do is quite difficult.

CC