Disk utility restore failure

my early 2011 MacBook Pro won’t boot up containing my restored files.

I can boot it only from a Mac installation disk but can’t install that OS on the hard drive with my restored files on it.

when attempting to install the Mac OS X from DVD installation disk to the internal hard drive containing my restored files, it isn’t booting up and I get this message-

Error message:

could not restore - not a directory

If i delete everything on the hard drive , it allows me to install the OS from the installation disk onto the blank hard drive and will boot from that drive and I can also update the OS on it.

but when when I try to restore all my files from my superduper backup disk (which apparently has a corrupted or unrecognizable OS. on it) to the now bootable drive , it erases the OS and becomes unbootable again.

Is there a work around for this?

Do I need to delete or modify certain files on the backup copy to add a directory ?

is there a way to preserve the fresh OS on my internal drive when restoring my old files to it using SuperDuper?

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Aug 28, 2023 3:28 AM

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 8

41,411 points

Posted on Oct 15, 2023 6:52 PM

It seems to me that if you can install the OS from the Mac Installation disk onto the internal startup drive and then boot the Mac and upgrade, then you should be able to drag and drop the backed up files from the Super Duper drive into your user folders.

How, exactly, are you trying to "restore" the files with SuperDuper?

If you are trying to use the "Restore" function from within Disk Utility, I believe your usage is incorrect for this case.

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Disk utility restore failure

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