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BlueberryLover Author

Level 4

1,130 points

FYI: Restoring an APFS Container from a disk image

Having created a disk image of an APFS Container on an external drive using the Disk Utility (Image from "Container disk", encrypted and stored with the "compressed" option (the readonly option should also work)), I could not initially retrieve the contents by using the Disk Utility.

Here are the steps that I used to restore the APFS volumes. Take note that the target drive is completely erased.

1) Generate a checksum (equivalent to "Scan for restore" using the Disk Utility):

2) Restore the APFS Container:

Below is a screenshot of the Disk Utility showing that the APFS volume group has been properly restored:

The DMG file used as input was quite large (141GB):

Here is a screenshot of the DMG contents (when mounted):

Hope this helps anyone else who comes across this issue.

- Pie Lover

Posted on Mar 22, 2022 9:57 AM

Top-ranking reply

BlueberryLover Author

Level 4

1,130 points

Posted on Mar 24, 2022 8:40 AM

The Terminal command hdiutil can be used as an alternative to using the Disk Utility to create disk images. For example:

hdiutil create -encryption AES-256 -srcdevice /dev/disk3 /Volumes/External\ SSD/Monterey\ backup

Booting into Recovery and launching Terminal, I was able to use the above command to create a disk image of the APFS Container on the internal drive (see below). Note that all volumes of the APFS Container must first be unmounted.

- Pie Lover

hdiutil info (with the disk image mounted)

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FYI: Restoring an APFS Container from a disk image

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