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2012 MBP 13" I need to clone or backup my hard drive but I keep getting an Input/output error when I use the restore button in the recovery mode disk utility Mac HD -> External drive. Then I tried to repair the original hard drive but it says "Error unrecognized file system".
MacBook Pro
Using Disk Utility to clone a drive is not a good option as Disk Utility tends to fail a lot in the cloning process and doesn't always make a bootable clone.
Either the hard drive and/or the hard drive SATA cable is bad. Usually I/O errors indicate a failing hard drive. If the hard drive is the source of the errors, then you need to be very careful on minimizing its use if you don't have a good backup since the more you use the drive the worse the failure will get. If the drive is failing, then you need to be extremely careful since most standard utilities will not work to retrieve data from a failing drive since those utilities cannot handle all the errors thrown up by the bad drive. If you don't have a backup and the hard drive is failing, then I highly recommend you contact a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers or Ontrack. Both vendors provide free estimates and both are recommended by Apple.
You should check the health of the hard drive by running the Apple Diagnostics. If the Apple Diagnostics pass, then create a a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive so that you can check the health of the hard drive since the Apple Diagnostics only performs a very basic check of the drive. You can use Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux) to create a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive. Option Boot the Knoppix USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the computer may appear to be frozen on the boot picker menu so give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.
Once Knoppix boots to the desktop click on the "Start" menu icon on the lower left of the Taskbar and navigate the menus to "System Tools ---> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the laptop's internal hard drive to access the drive's health report. Post the complete health report here.
Using Disk Utility to clone a drive is not a good option as Disk Utility tends to fail a lot in the cloning process and doesn't always make a bootable clone.
Either the hard drive and/or the hard drive SATA cable is bad. Usually I/O errors indicate a failing hard drive. If the hard drive is the source of the errors, then you need to be very careful on minimizing its use if you don't have a good backup since the more you use the drive the worse the failure will get. If the drive is failing, then you need to be extremely careful since most standard utilities will not work to retrieve data from a failing drive since those utilities cannot handle all the errors thrown up by the bad drive. If you don't have a backup and the hard drive is failing, then I highly recommend you contact a professional data recovery service such as Drive Savers or Ontrack. Both vendors provide free estimates and both are recommended by Apple.
You should check the health of the hard drive by running the Apple Diagnostics. If the Apple Diagnostics pass, then create a a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive so that you can check the health of the hard drive since the Apple Diagnostics only performs a very basic check of the drive. You can use Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux) to create a bootable Knoppix Linux USB drive. Option Boot the Knoppix USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the computer may appear to be frozen on the boot picker menu so give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.
Once Knoppix boots to the desktop click on the "Start" menu icon on the lower left of the Taskbar and navigate the menus to "System Tools ---> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the laptop's internal hard drive to access the drive's health report. Post the complete health report here.
Thanks! I figured the drive was dying so I pretty much did that. Since I couldn't boot the system I had to manually remove the drive and use an external drive reader, which only cost me $30 at Best Buy. Then I was able to open the contents of the drive. This saved me the $100 best buy was going to charge me. Fortunately none of the information on the drive was lost, so either there was an issue with what might be the boot loader or simply a corrupted system file. Although in hindsight i could've just booted live linux usb and saved that $30, but hey now I know. Appreciate it!
2012 MBP 13" I need to clone or backup my hard drive
