Is it not possible to make a image in disk utility of 10.13? This was easily done in older OS's but cant seem to make it work for 10.13
Also if i want to "restore" my 10.13 Mac to an image i already have the restore option is completely greyed out?
MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13)
OK, I was able to successfully create the image after ejecting the lower level container.
It did however make the image the full 250+ GB of the drive i imaged from rather than just the utilized space of the HD as in past OS's. Although not ideal, at least i have an image.
I was then able to connect a new system (running 10.12)
I had to eject the "Macintosh HD" container here as well (weird ive never had to do the eject thing in lower OS versions of Disk Utility).
then erase and reformat to APFS (couldn't just "restore" even though this is already supposed to erase. I had to manually erase first)
then restore from the new image.
Seems to be booting fine though once restore was comple and everything appears working.
Thanks again etresoft!
OK, I was able to successfully create the image after ejecting the lower level container.
It did however make the image the full 250+ GB of the drive i imaged from rather than just the utilized space of the HD as in past OS's. Although not ideal, at least i have an image.
I was then able to connect a new system (running 10.12)
I had to eject the "Macintosh HD" container here as well (weird ive never had to do the eject thing in lower OS versions of Disk Utility).
then erase and reformat to APFS (couldn't just "restore" even though this is already supposed to erase. I had to manually erase first)
then restore from the new image.
Seems to be booting fine though once restore was comple and everything appears working.
Thanks again etresoft!
Hello GGZilla,
Go to the "View" menu and "Show all devices". Does that fix the problem?
Modern versions of macOS can have very complex file system arrangements. The new disk utility tries to hide that by just showing volumes by default.
GGZilla wrote:
etresoft, sorry for the confusion, the screenshot is from the structure as it appears when im connecting to it via target disk mode from a second mac.
That's why I ask for clarification on these things. đ
Starting to doubt its possible..
I haven't imaged an entire disk like that under High Sierra. I've only done it a few times total and not recently.
One more thing to check is to manually unmount any disks before doing an image or a restore. Maybe it did that before but it fails with APFS. Or maybe it never did that but APFS just prevents it for some reason. But if you really want to keep trying, try unmounting first.
However, I suggest you don't attempt this. Mac users rarely have multiple hard drives anymore. It is not something that Apple regularly tests and there are lots of edge cases. One particularly buggy feature that I've noticed in the past couple of versions has to do with disk identifiers. It is safe to "move" an installation from one machine to another. You can do this with some cloning tool, with Disk Utility backup/restore, or with Time Machine/Migration Assistant. But you can only "move", you can't "copy". If you try to use both the old and new installations, lots of things will get confused. You likely won't notice it until you want to use something like Handoff and have to spend a few choice hours debugging it. That is just one bug. There is another bug specifically related to these kinds of low-level disk clones and images. Sometimes you can see this from the sidebar. I forget the exact sequence required, but when you have multiple volumes, the Finder will sometimes open the wrong one. Disk Utility will also sometimes show mounted images that have long since been ejected.
One problem that power users have with Macs is that they build some clever procedures for managing their Macs and data. But as the OS evolves, those procedures may not be supported anymore. That doesn't mean that will just flat-out stop working. It means things will start acting funny and then you will run into annoying bugs exactly what you are describing here.
I suggest starting a new question to describe what procedure you have been doing and for what purpose and get some suggestions on better ways to accomplish that.
etresoft,
Sorry i think we are confusing things here. There is only one disk to be included in the image. the main drive on computer 1 (MBP13") No partitions or anything.
In the past (and currently working for machines on 10.12) i would put the machine in target disk mode, connect it to computer 2 (MacMini) then select File>New Image>Image From: (then select the Main HD from computer 1, currently attached via target disk mode)
Doing this for the same (or different as tested) computer after updated to 10.13 i cannot do this.
the file structure is as shown in the screenshot.
the results are:
-the top level "Apple Thunderbolt UTDM Media" will let me select it but requires that i save the image to a drive with 250GB+ (or whatever is bigger than the size of computer 1's drive). Then when attempting to do such it results in the "Resource Busy" error
-second level "Container disk3" lets me select it but results in the same "Resource Busy" error
-3rd level "Macintosh HD" is not selectable
The result is the same with or without an external drive connected
the only work around i found that allowed me to complete anything close to this in 10.13 was to do a time machine backup, boot to internet recovery on the desired machine and then restore from the time machine backup. This is not ideal though.
cragiboy,
Can you share how you were able to create an image?
Once i expanded the view per etresoft's first response the "restore" option was available higher up n the structure but i have not been able to test its function as i dont have a 10.13 image yet and im not at a point that i am downgrading to an older image but i can let you know once i am able to test
etresoft, thank you for your response.
When showing all devices i can see the file structure as the APPLE SSD>Container Disk 1>Macintosh HD
the create image options are still greyed out for the last 2, for the first one "APPLE SSD" i can select this but it wants to backup the full size of the SSD (250GB+) so i cant save the image to the local desktop for instance and connecting an external with sufficient space results in the "Resource Busy" error attached.
Ive tried creating from the machine itself to multiple external drives and from another mac via target disk. Both are same results.
Any other thoughts?
etresoft,
I see what you mean, it auto mounts them when you connect it, i ejected the "Macintosh HD" and it seems to be trying to create now. ill keep you posted if it works but this is the most promising its been. đ»
I too am struggling with trying to do a restore. I was able to create an image of the container by un-mounting it. My problem now is the restore, when I boot to recovery it does allow me to select the imate(.dmg) file only the disk it is residing on.
did you need to boot from an external recovery partition when you completed the restore?
Thanks for any help you can give,
creating an image is possible in my case. But i can not restore an image. Is it possible for you?
Your screen shot doesn't show an "APPLE SSD". Did you mean the "APPLE HDD"? I'm sorry, but on these internet forums like to be very precise.
You aren't going to be able to image your boot disk. What you can (may be able to) do is boot from your recovery disk (via holding down Command R at boot). But your recovery partition is still on the same disk, so you might have to boot from some other disk. If you have a Time Machine backup (and you should), you can boot from its recovery partition (via holding down option at boot). Then you can image the old boot disk.
etresoft, sorry for the confusion, the screenshot is from the structure as it appears when im connecting to it via target disk mode from a second mac. IDK why but the structure naming changes when doing this but in the image its represented as Apple Thunderbolt UTDM Media>Container disk3>Macintosh HD
the other items you see are an external drive "untitled" and the mac im booting from "Mac Mini HD"
I get it if i am not able to create an image from the booted drive while running from it but doing it in target mode connected to a second Mac i should (and normally do and have no issues from non 10.13 computers).
Another correction, in target disk mode it WILL let me select the "container disk3" as an "image from" option however after stating it fails with the same "resource busy" error.
I thought it might just be this mac because of all the testing ive done or possible issues with the thunderbolt 3 communicating so i did a fresh install of Sierra on an older MBP then updated to 10.13 and tried to create the image from it, i had the same results. Starting to doubt its possible..
But in your screen shot, both the volume and the APFS container were both mounted. Make sure they aren't mounted first.
10.13 image?
