Clone bootcamp partition after using ASR to clone bootable APFS system to external disk?

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Clone bootcamp partition after using ASR to clone bootable APFS system to external disk?

I have a bootcamp partition on my internal physical drive along with the standard APFS container scheme.

After using ASR to properly restore a bootable clone to an external SSD, I see all of the APFS container configuration and can boot the external system volume perfectly, as expected. However, the Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP partition is missing from the external drive.

How can I clone it properly, with the necessary partitioning of the external physical drive equivalent to that of the internal drive? Since the external is a bit smaller, it won't be exactly the same size on the APFS container, but that's fine as the volumes on the synthesized disk leave plenty of room to spare.

Here's what I've got after the ASR restore:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         873.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data ⁨BOOTCAMP⁩                127.3 GB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +873.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD - Data⁩     373.6 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 675.8 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                2.2 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      1.1 MB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩            15.4 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.4 GB    disk1s5s1

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *960.2 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk3⁩         960.0 GB   disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +960.0 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk2s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Clone MacOS - Data⁩      367.6 GB   disk3s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Clone MacOS⁩             15.4 GB    disk3s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 629.0 MB   disk3s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                1.1 GB     disk3s4

Need external APFS physical container partition disk2s2 down-sized by 128GB
and the BOOTCAMP partition cloned from disk0s3 to disk2s3

Posted on Oct 5, 2023 8:14 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

FabrizioRizzo Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 8, 2023 9:12 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks!

Can confirm everything is operational.

Winclone did the trick.

a FOSS alternative to do the block clone (dd) and something to update the bootloader would be nice… Props to TwoCanoes for making it easy.

Using diskutil to resize smaller the cloned target apfs container and create the bootcamp partition in the freed space, then mounting that read/write and using winclone to do a volume to volume clone worked. did the process twice - once to the external ssd, and then back to the new internal 2TB NVMe SSD.

Even have winclone doing incremental updates to a ntfs volume image file on MacOS (and then part of my Carbon opyCloner Mac backup strategy. So I can skip the windows “backup” process all together.

Windows and MacOS both clean and operational. gen 3 NVMe isn’t running at the full spec’d 2500 MB/s due to the limits of the trashcan’s bus, but am getting 1243 MB/s writes and 1370 reads. Better than the ~950MB/s from the factory ssd when new. Will call this a win.

Will integrate the MacOS full bootable clone to external drive process into my regular backup schedule.

Its so much easier and convenient than booting recovery, re-installing MacOS, patching, and then restoring the user data via CCC in the case of a boot drive Hw failure. For as long as Apple supports such things….

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Answer 2

Oct 8, 2023 7:01 PM in response to FabrizioRizzo

You will need to use Boot Camp Assistant to recreate the missing Windows Bootcamp partition.

You may be able to use WinClone to transfer the old Windows installation to the new drive/system. I don't know if this will work since it would likely need to update the Windows' bootloader and configuration files to reflect the new drive layout. If you were just restoring to the exact same partition on the exact same system, then I know WinClone would definitely work. Read the WinClone documentation to see if it supports your intended purpose.

Another option would be to reinstall Windows using Bootcamp Assistant and use the Windows built-in "restore" or "migration" feature to bring over the custom setup from the original drive. I recall an earlier version of Windows had an option for backing up & restoring a configuration, but I have never personally used it since I haven't used Windows in many years.

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Clone bootcamp partition after using ASR to clone bootable APFS system to external disk?

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