Disk Utility "restore" fails with "no such file or directory"

Did you:

A. Repair the hard drive and permissions prior to cloning?
B. Erase the destination drive before cloning?

Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions

Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.


How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility

1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.

For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

That's the reason for the error message. Clones should always be made to freshly erased drives. If you have room on your internal drive you should move the files from the external to the internal then erase the external before cloning. Alternatively, store the files on the external drive temporarily elsewhere until your clone is completed. Alternatively, use a backup utility instead of Disk Utility:

My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):

1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)

The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:

1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync

Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.

Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.

Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

I've been having the same problem. My error occurred right at the end of the back up and it was still fully bootable. I had to restore from the back up a few days ago and it went over seamlessly. Today I tried to back up and got the same error, but after it had only copied 10 gb. On my second try it got all the way done and gave me the error, when I booted from it, I was unable to log in.

I ended up splitting up the 30gb of files I couldn't loose on my external to another computer, 2 4gb jump drives, and the internal. I ended up ripping videos and a few seasons of Scrubs off my iPod with Senuti because I ran out of space to clear the external.

I partitioned the external so that one partition was the same size as my internal and then moved everything back to the other. When I went to the back up, I clicked erase disk and checksum. It went smoothly and boots up perfectly. While it was a lot of work (and messed with my movie paths in iTunes) it is definitely worth while to have a secure back up copy.

Hi,
I'm having a very similar experience getting the same error when I try to back up my internal partition to the FW Disk Exernal Disk.

Why would I be able to copy the files using the Finder to the external FW disk partition (which BTW, I am erasing before restoring in each case), but when I do a restore using Disk Utility I get the "Restore error-no such file or directory" error. Where is the trouble? Can it be repaired? I have Disk Warrior? Should I try it on this partition?

Out of many many disks with many many partitions, this is the only disk (partition) that has ever given this error, and I am using Disk Utility all the time to make back up copies of my many, many partitions.


Thanks in advance and so long for now, TOM