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I have an M1 MacBook Pro running Monterey. Is there a way to make a bootable external USB backup using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD and Carbon Copy Cloner? I formatted my Sandisk drive APFS (not encrypted), backed up my MB Pro with Carbon Copy Cloner to the Sandisk drive, and then installed Monterey on the Sandisk drive. Unfortunately, my MB Pro does not recognize the Sandisk drive as a bootable drive.
MacBook Pro (2020 and later)
since your mac is already running monterey, you could use recovery to download and install monterey on the external SSD. first make sure the external drive is connected to your mac. then you can use the keyboard combination of "command-R" to start up into recovery. once in recovery, you will choose "reinstall macOS monterey". then slowly follow the prompts until you get to the window where it asks you to choose which disk you want to install monterey onto. just choose your external SSD, and then choose to start the download and installation process.
You have to use the Legacy Bootable Backup Assistant… option when you Control (right) - click on the Destination drive in CCC:
It's quick and easy.
Check with the CCC folks for this latest. I think the kind of bootable backup we are all used to may have become impossible.... This from last year
When you made your clone using CCC did you specify to make it bootable. You need to click on the destination drive and select the legacy option or it will not be bootable. I have done this process several times. Also you need to change your security settings from the recovery mode to let the drive be recognized. Also with Monterey when you do try to boot from this drive it may state that this drive has not been authorized and when you try it does not work. In that case you pick continue anyway and it should still boot. The M1 Macs are not as user friendly as the previous Intel Macs. in this process.
Hi All,
Thank you for your responses. I went back and ran CCC and selected the option for Legacy Bootable Backup Assistant. Just as it was finishing I saw a message that "cloning failed" and then CCC finished with a "Successful Backup" message. I shut down and then restarted and held the power button to bring up the startup options. It launched right into Startup Disk, which I closed. I restarted again and held the power button to get the startup options and there was an icon for my external drive. I selected it and was able to boot from the external drive.
Overall, the behavior of creating the bootable external drive and then booting from it seemed sketchy, so after I had shut down and restarted on the internal volume, I erased the external drive and then did a standard Backup with CCC. Since the CCC web page from the link in one of the above posts said that if the internal SSD of a M1 Mac fails, the machine cannot boot at all, even from an external drive, there does not seem to me to be any point in trying to put up with the quirkiness of the M1 machine and trying to create and use a bootable external drive.
CCC's developer says you can make a bootable clone but there are some restrictions as stated here:
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/cloning-macos-system-volumes-apple-software-restore
Bootable Monterey backup on external USB SSD drive?
