99 Clones Mac OS

Cloning a hard drive is making an exact replica of the existing hard drive on another storage device connected externally to the system. The clone acts as a data backup or alternative source to boot into your Mac system. It also acts as a restore point for the system. If you have a cloned hard drive, you can boot from the clone easily and get access to the system in an event of main internal drive boot failure. A drive containing sensitive data is often encrypted using the FileVault to protect it from an unauthorized access. Here, in this article, we will discuss methods to clone an encrypted hard drive on a Mac system. [Helpful utility to clone Encrypted Mac volumes]

Two modes to clone hard drive in macOS Catalina. AweClone for macOS Catalina is very easy-to-use. It offers easy and safe solution to clone hard drive under macOS Catalina or other Mac OS system. Now, just run it from Launchpad. It gives you two modes to clone a hard drive from one to another in macOS Catalina. Mode 1: Copy hard drive in macOS. There are many ways to clone a drive on Mac OS X, but none quite as simple and effective as Carbon Copy Cloner. It's our top pick for disk cloning utilities because it gets the job done any.

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Cloning the hard drive
Two methods can be used to clone an existing hard drive to another drive. One is to use the Disk utility functionality provided in with the Mac OS X and other to use the dd command and clone from the target disk mode. Cloning process involves following three basic steps as listed below:
  1. Decrypting the drive to be cloned.
  2. Making the clone of the drive.
  3. Obtain the resultant drive and re-enable the encryption.

This process involves using the built-in feature of the Mac OS X. Follow the steps below to clone an encrypted drive:
  1. Connect the drive to the system on which clone is to be done.
  2. Boot from the encrypted drive.
  3. Open the Disk utility from the Applications.
  4. Unlock the encrypted drive from here.
  5. Format the target drive with the configuration that is same as the source drive.
  6. Restore the contents of the internal drive to the external drive.
  7. Shutdown the system and boot from the external drive.
  8. Go to the System and preferences.
  9. Re-enable the encryption here.
This completes the cloning process. This method may seem to be too lengthy. Next, we discuss the method that involves the usage of dd command that may seem to be too technical for some users.
Using dd command
dd command can be used when target and source disks are offline that is they are not in the active state. Before this to happen, you need to boot from the source drive and turn off the encryption as explained in above-mentioned steps. In addition, you need to create a startup drive from where you can access the system and the target and source drives are offline. If the cloning is done using the existing internal drive, you end up in copying the data in an inconsistent state to the clone. This will result in a corrupt clone on the target drive. Then, follow the instructions below:
  1. Restart the system and boot from the startup drive keeping the target disk connected to the system.
  2. Open the Terminal application.
  3. Type and enter diskutillist that will display all the connected storage devices. Note down the target and source disks.
  4. Execute the command: sudo dd if=/dev/disk0 of=/dev/disk2 bs=128m conv=noerror,sync where disk0 and disk2 are the destination drives respectively (change the disks as displayed in your terminal).
  5. Ignore the error message showing “short write”.
  6. Now boot from the device on which the clone has been made and turn on the encryption again from the system and preferences.
This completes the cloning with the dd command. Using this command a bit-wise clone has been produced. To gain the speed of cloning you may try using rdisk0 or rdisk2.
Advantages of cloning a Hard Drive

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Following are the advantages that a clone offers over a traditional backup:
  1. It does offer an instant data recovery. All that needs to be done is to connect the cloned drive to the system. Power on the machine keeping the option key pressed. Select the cloned drive to boot from and you are up and running in no time.
  2. Disk utility does offer a disk repair feature but there may be situations where a complete system is required to run third-party applications. In such a case, you can boot from the cloned drive and run those third-party applications as well.
  3. Suppose you get stuck while upgrading your Mac system to a newer OS X. With the cloned drive at your disposal, you can easily revert to the older OS X version on your system if there arises a compatibility issue with the new version.

To summarize the article, cloning is an important process that every Mac user must follow in order to avoid a situation where you lose all access to your system. Additionally, after completing the cloning process, you should immediately check the clone to verify that it is in a usable position when you require. A successful boot up from the clone should indicate the good health of the clone.
Article ID = 232
Article Title = Virtualising a physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file
Article Author(s) = Graham Needham (BH)
Article Created On = 27th March 2019
Article Last Updated = 27th March 2019
Article URL = https://www.macstrategy.com/article.php?232
Article Brief Description:
Instructions for installing, setting up and virtualising a physical Mac/hard disk/disk image fileClones

Virtualising a physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file

The ability to virtualise an existing Mac/macOS installation is important and very useful as it is an easy way to continue running your old Mac and also a possible way to run 32-bit applications that do not run on macOS 10.15 or later. MacStrategy presents this special guide to virtualising a physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file.
This article deals with transferring an existing Mac running Mac OS X / OS X / macOS to a virtual machine, or take a bootable storage device/clone/disk image and convert it into a virtual machine. If you would prefer to set up/install a virtual machine with a clean Mac OS X/OS X/macOS from scratch please see one of the following articles instead:
  • Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (Server) - costs money but you may already be running/want to run this to be able to use PowerPC/Rosetta based applications
  • OS X 10.7 - OS X 10.8 is better
  • OS X 10.8 - costs money but if you already own it/want to pay for it, it runs very efficiently in a virtual machine and there are few internet/iCloud based services clogging it up
  • OS X 10.9 - was very kludgy and slow when installed on a hard disk
  • OS X 10.10 - was slow when installed on a hard disk, does not support latest Apple internet/iCloud based services
  • OS X 10.11 - free, supports most internet/iCloud based services
  • macOS 10.12 - free, supports most internet/iCloud based services
  • macOS 10.13 - buggy, slow + the new Apple File System (APFS)
  • macOS 10.14 - probably a good one to run (as it's the last macOS version able to run 32-bit applications) but we haven't tested this OS virtualised yet
  • macOS 10.15 - buggy, slow + the new Apple File System (APFS)
  • macOS 11 - still being revised

Virtualisation Software

  • Parallels Desktop [£69.99 inc VAT one time purchase or yearly subscription - 14 day free trial available]
  • VMWare Fusion Pro [US$199 inc VAT - 30 day free trial available]
  • Oracle VirtualBox [FREE - Open source under GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2]

Instructions

NOTE: This document was written using a Mac mini (2014 model) with macOS 10.14 Mojave running in 64-bit only test mode and using Parallels Desktop 14.1.2, VMWare Fusion 11.0.2 and VirtualBox 6.0.4.

Preparation

NOTE: You will need the following:
  1. Mac computer for hosting your preferred guest OS preferably with a working Recovery Partition
  2. Make sure your actual, physical Mac has a working internet connection e.g. use a web browser to go to https://www.apple.com and see if you can view a web page
  3. Purchase/install/update your preferred virtualisation software (see list above)
  4. On later versions of macOS your preferred virtualisation software will require specifically allowing their System Extension(s) to run via System Preferences > Security & Privacy, plus they may require to be granted access to Accessibility
  5. Purchase/download/obtain your preferred cloning software (we list some in our How To Clone Your Primary/Boot Drive article - we highly recommend Carbon Copy Cloner)
  6. If you going to clone from a physical Mac or a clone on a bootable storage device, if possible, boot that system first to make sure it works/is bootable, and also de-activate any software e.g. Adobe Creative Suite (applications)
  7. Bootable physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file of your old system
    8. NOTE: If you have the original Mac you will need to clone its startup disk either to an external storage device (preferably USB) or to a disk image first using, for example, Carbon Copy Cloner.
  8. Make sure you have plenty of free space on your physical Mac's hosting drive - you will need to create a basic Mac OS X / OS X / macOS virtual machine where you may need to copy the disk image file of your old system to + an additional virtual machine drive that has enough space to host your old system
  9. If you are using an external storage device for your bootable clone or to hold the disk image file it's best to rename it to something that is easy to recognise e.g. 'VM Transfer'
  10. Create a basic/clean Mac OS X / OS X / macOS virtual machine - if your Mac host computer has a working Recovery Partition, in VMWare Fusion you can easily do this by going to File menu > New… > select 'Install macOS from the recovery partition' > click 'Continue' and follow the on-screen instructions. Alternatively, use our step-by-step guides:

99 Clones Mac Os X

Instructions for virtualising a physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file with:

Parallels Desktop Instructions

We have not tested this in Parallels Desktop but you should be able to do something similar to what we did in VMWare Fusion - we will update this article when we have more time to test this. Don't forget to donate to us (use the button in the bottom left corner of this web page).

VMWare Fusion

  1. Make sure the basic/clean Mac virtual machine you created in the preparation section above is shutdown
  2. Go to Virtual Machine menu > Settings > Hard Disk (SATA) > click 'Add Device…' > select 'New Hard Disk' > click 'Add…' > choose size > Apply
    3. NOTE: This additional virtual machine drive must be larger than the space used by the physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file of your old system.
  3. Start up/boot the virtual machine
  4. At the Desktop Mac OS X / OS X / macOS will recognise the additional virtual machine drive and ask you to initalize it > click 'Initialize' (which will open Disk Utility)
  5. Select the unformatted additional virtual machine drive on the left (VMware Virtual SATA) - this is the one without 'Macintosh HD' underneath it
  6. Set 'Name:' to 'Second HD', 'Format:' to 'OS X Extended (Journaled)', and 'Scheme:' to 'GUID Partition Map' > click 'Erase' to initalize/format the additional virtual machine drive (it should now mount/appear on your Desktop if you have the virtual machine's Finder 'Preferences' set to show 'Hard Disks')
  7. Click 'Erase'
  8. If OS X / macOS asks you whether you want to use the additional virtual machine drive for Time Machine Backups click 'Don't Use'
  9. Quit Disk Utility
  10. Connect your physical Mac/clone or hard disk with the disk image file of your old system to your virtual machine OR, if you have enough space, copy the disk image file of your old system on to the virtual machine's Desktop
  11. The physical Mac/clone or hard disk with the disk image file of your old system on it should now mount/appear on your Desktop (if you have the virtual machine's Finder 'Preferences' set to show 'Hard Disks') OR double click to open the disk image file of your old system that is now on your virtual machine's Desktop
  12. Using your cloning software of choice, clone your physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file of your old system to the additional virtual machine drive e.g. with Carbon Copy Cloner:
  13. In the virtual machine go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Startup Disk > set it to 'Second HD'
  14. Quit System Preferences
  15. Shutdown the virtual machine (Apple menu > Shut Down) - not Restart
  16. Go to Virtual Machine menu > Settings > Hard Disk (SATA) > make sure 'File name:' is 'Virtual Disk.vmdk' > click 'Advanced options' at the bottom > click 'Remove Hard Disk'
  17. You will be given the choice to keep or Trash the virtual disk file which is your choice (it might be worth keeping the original virtual disk if you have plenty of space as it is a clean Mac OS X / OS X / macOS virtual machine)
  18. Go to Virtual Machine menu > Settings > General
  19. Change the virtual machine's 'Name' to something that is relevant to your original Mac system e.g. 'Old OS X 10.8 Mac Pro'
  20. Change the virtual machine's 'OS' to match that was on your physical Mac/hard disk/clone/disk image file
  21. Go through and configure your required virtual machine custom settings:
  22. Start up/boot the virtual machine
  23. To avoid confusion with your host Mac, rename the virtual machine's hard disk from 'Second HD' to something that is different to your current hard disk e.g. 'Virtual OS X 10.8 HD'
  24. Go to Virtual Machine menu > Install VMWare Tools
  25. Install VMWare Tools, following the on screen instructions and restart the virtual machine when complete (you may get a message about the installer certificate being out of date and this appears to stop the Tools installing so things like drag and drop are not supported [with this guest OS])
  26. If you are running an unsupported version of Mac OS X / OS X / macOS make sure you check out our Securing Older Operating Systems article
    27. Q. What are the current, supported versions of macOS?
    A. macOS 11 (Big Sur), macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and macOS 10.14 (Mojave) are supported by Apple. The latest security updates are:
    • macOS 11 - included in the macOS 11.3 Installer (or go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Software Update and install the 11.3 update)
    • macOS 10.15 - included in the macOS 10.15.7 Combo Update + Security Update 2021-002 for Catalina
    • macOS 10.14 - included in the macOS 10.14.6 Combo Update + Security Update 2021-003 for Mojave
    • SECURITY WARNING: macOS 10.13 and earlier are no longer supported with security updates - see our securing older operating systems article.

VirtualBox

We have not tested this in VirtualBox but you should be able to do something similar to what we did in VMWare Fusion - we will update this article when we have more time to test this. Don't forget to donate to us (use the button in the bottom left corner of this web page).

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