Copying Cloned Hard Drive Back to Internal Drive

Question

Copying Cloned Hard Drive Back to Internal Drive

About a week ago, I cloned my hard drive to my external hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. Today, I was hit by a serious problem which prevents me from starting my computer. Fortunately, I'm able to boot up using my cloned hard drive.

In fact, I booted up with my external hard drive just now and got the following message:

"The disk "Macintosh HD" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."

Anyway, I want to erase my hard drive and replace it with the cloned hard drive from my external hard drive. I'm pretty sure it's "clean." I've installed several new software programs and widgets in the last couple days, and I suspect they're the source of the problem.

At any rate, I wondered if anyone could tell me what steps I need to follow in order to replace everything on my hard drive with the cloned hard drive on my external hard drive.

Actually, it looks I should be able to do the job with Carbon Copy Cloner. However, I opened CCC, then designated my cloned hard drive the Source Disk, with Macintosh HD the Target Disk. The selected "cloning options" are "Copy everything from source to target" and "Erase the target volume."

But I get an error message: "The target volume is not large enough to accommodate the entire contents of the source volume. Please choose another target volume."

How can a cloned hard drive be bigger than the drive it was copied from???

In the meantime, the light on my power cord is orange, not green. It took me about five hours to clone my hard drive, so I'm assuming it will take just as long to copy it back to my internal hard drive - and my battery won't last five hours.

Incidentally, here's a list of the "Items to be copied":

.com.apple.timemachine.support
.DS_Store
.fseventsd
Applications
bin
cores
Desktop DB
Desktop DF
etc
home
Library
mach_kernel
mach_kernel.ctfsys
net
Previous Systems
private
sbin
System
tmp
Users
usr
var

I opened up Disk Utility, and it says my cloned hard drive is 97.1 GB. The files on my internal HD take up 92.8 GB, but there's 12.9 GB of free space. That adds up to a little over 100 GB - unless I need a certain amount of free space.

Sorry for all the questions; I know I'm rambling. I'm just getting more confused. 😉

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 9, 2008 6:57 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Feb 9, 2008 7:56 PM in response to David Blomstrom

Erase the internal hard drive first using Disk Utility. When you get ready to clone from your Source volume omit the Previous Systems folder. You obviously did an Archive and Install and never deleted the Previous Systems folder so you have a second OS X installation taking up disk space inside that folder. No point restoring something you don't need and should delete.

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2008 7:58 PM in response to David Blomstrom

You may have to erase and use the zero out option on your internal drive; you can do this using disk utility.

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Answer 3

Feb 9, 2008 8:07 PM in response to Kappy

Ah, I was going to ask about that very folder on this question a few weeks ago and forgot about it. I did do an Archive installation...but it didn't work, so I then did an Erase and Install installation. Thanks for the tips.

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Answer 4

Feb 9, 2008 8:10 PM in response to Red Jacket Mike

OK, I'm looking at Disk Utility right now. Near the top right section of the screen, it says First Aid | Erase | RAID | Restore. I understand I should simply highlight "Macintosh HD," then click Erase. But what do you mean by "zero out option"? I've never seen that term before.

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Answer 5

Feb 9, 2008 8:30 PM in response to David Blomstrom

Never mind; I found it.

But I have one more question...what should I select for Volume Format? Mac OS Extended is the default setting, but I was advised to use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) when I cloned my hard drive.

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Answer 6

Feb 9, 2008 8:42 PM in response to David Blomstrom

On second thought, my last question may merit a new thread...this is more complex than I thought.

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Answer 7

Feb 10, 2008 3:54 AM in response to David Blomstrom

Use Mac OS Extended (journaled) for a system drive that you want indexed. Just Mac OS Extended is fine for a media drive.

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Feb 10, 2008 5:27 AM in response to David Blomstrom

It should be GUID partition type. And "journaled" should be default, and no harm using it, no real performance issue even.

Before cloning, make sure to click on volume, get info, and insure that "ignore ownership" is not checked as on. You need to unlock to make change to disable. Then clone. Afterwards, you should also Repair Permissions. Repair drive can't hurt either.

Some external drives aren't GUID by default. That shows if you click on the DRIVE name, down at the bottom. It is changed from Partition tab -> Options... at the bottom. When I erase a drive I don't actually erase, I redo the partition. It recreates and tests the partition tables as well, and not just the user volume. The first and last 100 sectors are tested, which is where hidden partitions are written, including the volume information block and backup, EFI and GUID partitions are also recreated.

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Answer 9

Feb 10, 2008 5:48 AM in response to The hatter

Wow, more stuff to learn!

"It should be GUID partition type. And "journaled" should be default, and no harm using it, no real performance issue even."

I'm not familiar with the term GUID, but I did go ahead and change my internal hard drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as I copied my cloned hard drive back over. Everything seemed to be working OK, too. However, I encountered an issue when I tried to install Adobe Creative Suite after uninstalling a test version. When I ran Repair Disk, it revealed dozens of errors.

I had the same problem before, and I fixed it by running Repair Disk Permissions half a dozen times. But I decided to go back to square one and get it right the first time. The only problem is, now I can't seem to reinstall Leopard! I think it's been "Installing" for a couple hours, and I'm still waiting.

"Before cloning, make sure to click on volume, get info, and insure that 'ignore ownership' is not checked as on. You need to unlock to make change to disable."

OK, I'll check that next time, too. Thanks.

P.S. I was going to mark your message as "Helpful," but there was no Helpful button to click. But I'll check again.

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Answer 10

Andreas

Level 4

1,510 points

Feb 10, 2008 6:20 AM in response to David Blomstrom

In CCC whether you select "Copy everything" or "Copy selected items" with everything selected you get, for most practical purposes, the same result. However, the former uses "block-level" copying and the latter "file-level" copying. If you are curious, see ‘Block-level’ and ‘File-level’ clones ~ an explanation.

You would be best advised to post questions about CCC at the Bombich forums. Such questions here are sometimes answered correctly but often very wrongly, causing me concern for the integrity of a user's data.

Moderator, forums.bombich.com

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Answer 11

Feb 10, 2008 7:00 AM in response to Andreas

OK, I'll visit your forums shortly. Thanks for the tips.

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