What’s the best way to clone the disk of a MacBook Pro no touch bar mid-2017? The APFS is corrupted and I want to make a copy to attempt to recover from.
I have a Mac Pro I can connect it to if I can connect it in target mode (usb-c to thunderbolt 2) if there is a cable available to attach them. Will a cable like this, https://bit.ly/3EB1wDL?
Is Apple System Restore bit by bit or do I have to use dd raw disk to raw disk?
Mac Pro, macOS 12.1
You can use an Apple USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter along with the appropriate older style Thunderbolt cable.
Disk Utility's "Restore" feature is complicated. I never use it for cloning a bootable drive or for creating large .dmg file archives. Normally Disk Utility's "Restore" feature only does a file transfer. However, with recent versions of macOS, the ASR portion of Disk Utility will transfer an APFS snapshot to another location and is in fact the only way to transfer the restricted read-only system volume (even third party utilities such as Carbon Copy Cloner needs to rely on the macOS ASR transfer feature with Big Sur & Monterey). I'm not entirely sure how the ASR transfer works, but it is more than a file based transfer when I've seen CCC use it.
As far as a bit for bit copy, you may be able to copy the APFS data volume, but I'm not sure about the macOS system volume since Monterey system volume is signed & sealed. macOS may prevent access to that volume even for reading it. While older versions of macOS can technically see an APFS volume(s) from newer systems, things may be hard to locate or even traverse since macOS performs some behind the scenes magic to link the system volume with the data volume so within the Finder they appear as one volume. Older versions of macOS (even one generation back) may not be able to see the two volumes as one.
I applaud you for wanting to perform a low level clone so that you don't risk damage to the data on the original source, but I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish since there are no third party utilities available to repair an APFS volume since Apple has not yet released the necessary APFS documentation. You can definitely try using a data recovery app to attempt to access data that is otherwise inaccessible, but these apps will not be able to recover any data that was removed from the Trash due to how SSDs work.
To perform a low level clone of a volume or drive, you will need to use the command line. Using the command line is very risky & dangerous since it is very easy to make a mistake that could destroy all data on the drive if you make a mistake identifying the destination location. The only macOS native utility available is "dd", but this is a very old & outdated utility which is very limited in its abilities and features (no progress status, won't report errors in data, unable to resume an interrupted transfer, etc.). A better option is to use GNU ddrescue (the "GNU" part is important since there is another old utility called "ddrescue" which should not be used -- even the GNU ddrescue utility is just called "ddrescue" once installed). Unfortunately I am unaware of any pre-compiled binary version of the utility being available for macOS although you could compile it yourself or install it using Homebrew (Homebrew is not ideal since it makes multiple system modifications as well which could possibly break macOS). Also, macOS tends to get in the way of the process especially if there are any errors from the source drive. GNU ddrescue is basically a much more advanced version of the older "dd" utility. GNU ddrescue addresses the issues I mentioned regarding "dd" earlier.
You should keep in mind that the SSDs on the 2016-2017 non-touchbar model seem to have a much higher rate of failure than most other Apple SSDs.
FYI, I did not click on the link to the cable since I won't click links that I don't know where they go and don't feel like taking the time to convert it to the real link.
You can use an Apple USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter along with the appropriate older style Thunderbolt cable.
Disk Utility's "Restore" feature is complicated. I never use it for cloning a bootable drive or for creating large .dmg file archives. Normally Disk Utility's "Restore" feature only does a file transfer. However, with recent versions of macOS, the ASR portion of Disk Utility will transfer an APFS snapshot to another location and is in fact the only way to transfer the restricted read-only system volume (even third party utilities such as Carbon Copy Cloner needs to rely on the macOS ASR transfer feature with Big Sur & Monterey). I'm not entirely sure how the ASR transfer works, but it is more than a file based transfer when I've seen CCC use it.
As far as a bit for bit copy, you may be able to copy the APFS data volume, but I'm not sure about the macOS system volume since Monterey system volume is signed & sealed. macOS may prevent access to that volume even for reading it. While older versions of macOS can technically see an APFS volume(s) from newer systems, things may be hard to locate or even traverse since macOS performs some behind the scenes magic to link the system volume with the data volume so within the Finder they appear as one volume. Older versions of macOS (even one generation back) may not be able to see the two volumes as one.
I applaud you for wanting to perform a low level clone so that you don't risk damage to the data on the original source, but I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish since there are no third party utilities available to repair an APFS volume since Apple has not yet released the necessary APFS documentation. You can definitely try using a data recovery app to attempt to access data that is otherwise inaccessible, but these apps will not be able to recover any data that was removed from the Trash due to how SSDs work.
To perform a low level clone of a volume or drive, you will need to use the command line. Using the command line is very risky & dangerous since it is very easy to make a mistake that could destroy all data on the drive if you make a mistake identifying the destination location. The only macOS native utility available is "dd", but this is a very old & outdated utility which is very limited in its abilities and features (no progress status, won't report errors in data, unable to resume an interrupted transfer, etc.). A better option is to use GNU ddrescue (the "GNU" part is important since there is another old utility called "ddrescue" which should not be used -- even the GNU ddrescue utility is just called "ddrescue" once installed). Unfortunately I am unaware of any pre-compiled binary version of the utility being available for macOS although you could compile it yourself or install it using Homebrew (Homebrew is not ideal since it makes multiple system modifications as well which could possibly break macOS). Also, macOS tends to get in the way of the process especially if there are any errors from the source drive. GNU ddrescue is basically a much more advanced version of the older "dd" utility. GNU ddrescue addresses the issues I mentioned regarding "dd" earlier.
You should keep in mind that the SSDs on the 2016-2017 non-touchbar model seem to have a much higher rate of failure than most other Apple SSDs.
FYI, I did not click on the link to the cable since I won't click links that I don't know where they go and don't feel like taking the time to convert it to the real link.
cloning APFS by bit
