ASRDataVolume I see 3 of them and snapshot, is this normal?

Hi ChangeAgent,

Thanks for including the screenshot! Unfortunately, it looks like there's a mess of old volumes lying around. Let's fix that.

The three ASRDataVolume volumes are failed clones that were created by the command-line tool asr (Apple Software Restore). It is currently the only known tool that can clone both macOS and your data. Looking at your existing replies, it looks like ChronoSync ran this tool in the background while it tried to clone your data.

The ASRDataVolume volumes can safely be removed in Disk Utility. For each volume, select it, then click the (-) button.

Regarding the MBP-E snapshot, that is actually your real startup disk. Starting in macOS Big Sur, a typical macOS installation uses two important volumes: the System volume, and the Data volume:

• The System volume (MBP-E) contains the vast majority of macOS. To protect the contents of the system volume, at installation time, your Mac verifies all of the system content being installed. Then, it makes a seal on the system volume, and creates a read-only snapshot of that perfectly sealed system volume. Whenever your Mac starts up, it always starts up from the snapshot, and never the live System volume. This ensures that even if someone were to modify the live System volume, the snapshot is still in perfect condition and remains unaffected. If your Mac can't find the sealed snapshot to start up from, it will likely boot to macOS Recovery and prompt you to reinstall macOS. (The snapshot is termed as the Signed System Volume, or SSV.)

• The Data volume (Data) contains all of your apps, files, settings, and other data. It also contains Safari, to facilitate fast updates.

• Both of the above volumes are paired together into a volume group. As far as I'm aware, there can only be one system volume and one data volume per group.

Looking again at Disk Utility, it appears that there are two data volumes. Perhaps one was left behind from an improper erase? Regardless, we need to move the content from the old Data volume (MBP-E - Data) into your real Data volume (Data), and then remove the old one:

1. In Disk Utility, select MBP-E - Data. Note the volume's Mount Point.
2. Open a new Finder window. At the top of the screen, select Go -> Go to Folder...
3. Paste in the Mount Point shown in Disk Utility, and hit Enter (Return).
4. Review the contents inside the previous data volume. If there is any content you want to preserve, move it to a safe place inside your real Data volume (e.g. onto your Desktop).
5. When you're ready to delete the old Data volume, select MBP-E - Data in Disk Utility, and click the (-) button. Click Delete to confirm.

1 - As for ASR thingy. Has the User every used some other Cloning Software to either Make a Bootable Clone or attempted to perform this action using Disk Utilities

2 - ~ % diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0

   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC ⁨⁩                        524.3 MB   disk0s1

   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk3⁩         245.1 GB   disk0s2

   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery ⁨⁩                        5.4 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +245.1 GB   disk3

                                 Physical Store disk0s2

   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩            15.2 GB    disk3s1

   2:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.2 GB    disk3s1s1 and that is where the OS Resides

   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 678.4 MB   disk3s2

   4:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                789.6 MB   disk3s3

   5:                APFS Volume ⁨Data⁩                    15.7 GB    disk3s5

   6:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩              

The ASR Volumes appear to be connected to Carbon Copy Cloners' attempt to make Bootable Clones

Sealed Key Protection (SKP) and the Operating System in housed in a Sealed and Read Only Volume on the drive which only Apple can Modify.

Any Modifications to this Sealed and Read Volume is normally when there is a update to Big Sur and /or Monterey

Thanks for clarifying that! I thought it was an orphaned Data volume due to the sheer number of bad erases I see on this site, lol.

As long as you know exactly what that second volume is being used for, that's all that matters :)

Then contact the Developer of the software.