Bootable Catalina onto SSD?

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Msallie1928 Author

Level 1

4 points

Bootable Catalina onto SSD?

Apple Mac mini Catalina clone help please!

There has got to be someone out there that can help me.

I’ve got an original 2012 Mac mini i5 500gb that I’m finally trying to upgrade RAM and the HD on.

Sadly, I updated the mini to Catalina years ago which is now proving my downfall. I’m all hooked up to an enclosure with a new formatted Crucial 500gb SSD and when I go to restore onto it as a bootable clone to get ready to just slide it in, CATALINA is in two files/partitions, HD and HD Data.

Please for the love of God how do you clone the Catalina OS (HD) and data (HD Data), when restoring one folder wants to wipe out the other. I either get 11gb of OS or 77gb of data, but not both.

Am I making this hard on myself? Do I need to format the new SSD again and partition it to accept both Mac HD and Data files separately? I tried partitioning the clone of the HD folder and the Mac refuses as it’s “not mounted.” Should I just be using Time Machine or whatever other magic Apple has?

If you have a YouTube video please pm it to me because this is crazy and I’m needing help here!

Many thanks in advance.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 20, 2024 5:37 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

woodmeister50

Level 7

21,633 points

Jan 21, 2024 4:26 AM in response to Msallie1928

Another approach to getting a working system on the external in preparation to install internal, do a fresh install of Catalina on the external SSD. It will then near the end of the process when it reboots will ask if you want to migrate data from another Mac. You then select the internal as the migration source and then just let migration assistant do its thing.

You can then boot to the external and test until you are satisfied all is good then swap the drive.

No software to buy. No fighting with an unreliable restore process.

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2024 6:23 AM in response to Msallie1928

Two volumes on a macOS Catalina startup drive is NORMAL.

Apple has changed the file system from HFS+ to APFS and this is expected behavior.

The system files reside on the secured, read-only volume "Macintosh HD" while user accounts and files live on the volume "Macintosh HD - Data".

You can make a proper clone of the startup drive onto that ssd by using Carbon Copy Cloner from bombich. Just make sure the new drive is formatted with APFS and a GUID partition scheme, which it sounds like it already is.

What process are you using to clone your startup drive?

If using Migration Assistant and a Time Machine backup, then this:

Restore your Mac - Apple Support

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 3

MartinR

Level 7

26,306 points

Jan 20, 2024 7:43 AM in response to Msallie1928

macOS has evolved significantly over time, especially after High Sierra & Mojave. A lot of it has to do with increasing the security of macOS (and your data), the advent of APFS and more.

For users familiar with older versions of OS X/macOS, the advent of Catalina was a night-and-day kind of change. It is architecturally very different from its predecessors and subsequent versions of macOS continue to extend those architectural changes.

Going forward, it may be helpful to understand some of the major changes that first appeared in Catalina. Here are two articles to get you started:

Working with APFS Volume Groups - this is a good, basic description of modern macOS
Catalina Boot Volumes - this is a detailed look at the volume layouts

It's important to keep in mind that the "two" volumes Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD-Data are intimately related and linked to one another. You will not normally see them separately unless you dive into Disk Utility or Terminal.

CCC is your friend when it comes to cloning & backup.

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Answer 4

Msallie1928 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 20, 2024 7:58 AM in response to MartinR

Thanks Martin. As I dig into this it appears CCC is my only option (at a user level). That being said it’s cruising along nicely. I’m no 3rd party fan but CCC seems to be compensating for Apple making everything end user difficult.

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Answer 5

Msallie1928 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 20, 2024 6:41 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks. I continue to be mystified that Apple thought is was a good idea to split the OS and the only way to clone it would be to use a third party CCC to get a bootable with your preexisting data. Reformatting the HD “volume” off the SSD now, and check CCC. Are they Apple cousins or something?! Will look at your links just in case there’s still a solution without getting “someone else” (3rd party) in the mix. I meant for this to be a clean easy HD swap where the old HD is cloned, the new clone popped in.

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