Backup boot disk mac os x

You already have it, because it's included with OS X. The destination hard drive can be an internal or external drive. If it's an external drive, there are two considerations that will determine whether the backup you create will be usable as an emergency startup drive. Even if your backup drive isn't usable as a startup disk, you can still use it to restore your original startup drive if needed; it will just require a few extra steps to restore the data.

Before you back up your startup drive, make sure the destination drive has no errors that could prevent a reliable backup from being made. The disk verification process will begin.

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After a few minutes, the following message should appear: The disk repair process will begin. If there are errors listed after the repair has finished, repeat the steps listed above under Verification Errors. Disk Utility can sometimes only repair a few types of errors in a single pass, so it may take multiple passes before you get the all-clear message, letting you know that repairs are complete, with no remaining errors.

Now that we know the destination drive is in good shape, let's make sure that the source drive, your startup disk, has no disk permission problems. Permission problems can prevent necessary files from being copied, or propagate bad file permissions to the backup, so this is a good time to perform this routine maintenance chore.

The permissions repair process will begin. The process can take a few minutes, so be patient. When it's finished, you'll see a "Permissions repair complete" message. Do not be concerned if the Repair Disk Permission process generates a lot of warnings, this is normal.

Preparing your backup disk for a backup of OS X | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

With the destination disk ready, and your startup disk's permissions verified, it's time to perform the actual backup and create a replica of your startup disk. During the process of creating the backup, the destination disk will be unmounted from the desktop, and then remounted. The destination disk will have the same name as the startup disk, because Disk Utility created an exact copy of the source disk, down to its name. Once the backup process is complete, you can rename the destination disk.

You now have an exact replica of your startup disk. If you intended to create a bootable replica, this is a good time to ensure that it will function as a startup disk. In order to confirm that your backup will actually work as a startup disk, you'll need to restart your Mac and verify that it can boot from the backup. The easiest way to do this is to use the Mac's Boot Manager to select the backup as the startup disk. We will use Boot Manager, which runs optionally during the startup process, instead of the Startup Disk option in System Preferences, because the choice you make using Boot Manager only applies to that particular startup.

The next time you start or restart your Mac, it will use your default startup disk.

Preparing your backup disk for a backup of OS X

Once the desktop appears, you know that your backup is usable as a startup disk. You can restart your computer to return to your original startup disk. If the new backup isn't bootable, your Mac will stall during the startup process, then after a delay, automatically restart using your original startup disk. Your backup may not be bootable because of the type of connection FireWire or USB an external drive uses; see the first page of this guide for more information. Share Pin Email. Tom Nelson has written hundreds of articles, tutorials, and reviews for Other World Computing and About. He is the president of Coyote Moon, Inc.

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Updated February 18, A startup disk will often include the manufacturer's serial number in the title e. Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility's toolbar, then configure the name, format, and partitioning scheme of your backup disk. You may use the same backup disk for both Time Machine and CCC backups, but if you do so, you must use a dedicated partition for the Time Machine backup. Otherwise Time Machine will consume all available space on the backup volume and make it impossible for CCC to use the backup volume. Ensure that you have selected the correct disk for your backup drive.

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This step will delete all data from the selected disk. Click Partition.

Now skip ahead to the remainder of the instructions that are not OS-specific. Preparing a drive for a backup of the macOS in macOS Skip to main content.