creating a disk image of my internal drive

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Level 1

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creating a disk image of my internal drive

I receive an operation failed message when trying to create an image file of my Macintosh drive. Is there a way to create such an image. When calling Apple support I am told that Apple does not support this and the disk utility feature does not allow it. All that I am told to do is use the Apple Time Machine. I used to think there was an alternate booting system that allowed you to make a copy of your own machine using the disk image feature. Very frustrating as I am trying to get the machine to make an image of itself.....

Posted on Mar 25, 2023 10:23 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

19,646 points

Mar 25, 2023 10:54 AM in response to mortimer96

FWIW Carbon Copy Cloner can make disk images that even boot when copied back to a SSD.

I have used this to archive small (20-40 GB) test volumes because it takes only a few minutes to re-create a new "clean" clone for testing.

But with large real internal disks I have just "legacy" cloned to an external SSD up to Intel Ventura as a bootable backup.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,982 points

Mar 25, 2023 6:52 PM in response to mortimer96

Nothing will install iOS on a Mac.

You cannot make an image of the sealed startup snapshot except maybe with Apple Software Restore (asr). It is what the Restore tab in Disk Utility uses. Apple couldn’t even clone it when it was first released. Once the got asr to work, Carbon Copy Cloner began using it, but they don’t have much faith in it.

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2023 7:52 PM in response to mortimer96

It depends if you have a secondary Mac or not. Let's call the mac you want all the files off of Mac A, and let's call your secondary Mac Mac B. you can boot Mac A into Target Disk Mode, which is connected to Mac B, create a disk image on Mac B, and copy the contents of the root of the Main drive on Mac A into the disk image on Mac B.

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Answer 4

mortimer96 Author

Level 1

6 points

Mar 25, 2023 4:34 PM in response to mortimer96

I am planning to make a disk image of my MacBook Pro max, a 1 tb drive of which I have used 500 gb. As it is too small a drive, I am returning it and getting a larger capacity MacBook Pro. I wanted to avoid any complications by using a disk image which I will transfer to my new MacBook Pro. I hope to avoid any migration type issues if I can simply replace whatever is on the new machine with the disk image I create. The size is quite large , 500 gb.

The Time Machine solution is causing me concern as I dont know if it will re-install everything including the iOS operating system and the programs with all the passwords and setups. That is why i was trying to use the disk image method. I dont know if i am proceeding the right way and if using Carbon Copy or the Disk Image of Apple , or the Time Machine will do the job. Apple support was not helpful.

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Answer 5

Owl-53

Level 10

102,043 points

Mar 26, 2023 2:39 AM in response to mortimer96

Building on previous posting regarding ASR usages

The information in the below link may or may not work for your specific purposes

And Disk Utilities is not the way to go to make an Image of the Entire Drive for reasons already presented

How To Clone Your Mac Using ASR - Apple Community

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creating a disk image of my internal drive

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