Cannot clone boot drive on MacBook Pro (2011)

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Level 1

4 points

Cannot clone boot drive on MacBook Pro (2011)

Dear Apple community,

I have been having a nightmare experience trying to upgrade from a 1TB Seagate SSHD to a 2TB Seagate HD on my MacBook Pro (early 2011) running Sierra 10.12.5.

I have cloned the 1TB (and recovered/cloned using Disk Utility) using two different softwares, and attempted to install the 2TB drive each time (internally) only to find that it has completed failed. The result is always the same:

I have checked the 2TB Seagate drive (ST2000LM003) using disk utility both on a Windows and a Mac computer (in that order) and the disk has checked out fine. I have been researching how to do a drive clone for a while and I was told that the easiest way was with Carbon Copy Cloner but I cannot pay to use it (I've already used it once) and I read an article that said I could use Disk Utility to make a bootable clone. So I did. To unmount the boot drive, I started the Macbook Pro in internet recovery mode. This seemed to work, and I spent over 24 hours waiting for Disk Utility to make an exact clone of my 1TB boot drive. At the end of the cloning, there was no confirmation but also no errors. Here is the webpage that guided me through the steps: https://www.lifewire.com/use-disk-utility-to-clone-macs-drive-4042367

And the result was the same (see above picture). I have now spent days trying to upgrade my hard drive.

Here is what I have considered to be the reason why it won't work:

1. Difference of sizes in the two drives.

2. bootup files in the drive are invalid

3. Apple will not let me clone my drive because of copyright concerns.

4. I didn't let Disk Utility finish "updating boot support partitions for the volume as required" (see image below).

To troubleshoot the problem, I loaded up the computer in Internet Recovery mode and used Disk Utility, both Verify and Repair, to check the disk. Here is what it showed me:

So I am completely stumped as to why my new drive will not boot up. I spent a lot of time on this and I'm sure I haven't told the whole story, so if you need additional information, just ask.

There is a possibility that I have done everything right, the drives are exact clones of each other, and the 2TB drive is just broken. It is a few years old. But I doubt that is true.

Thanks for reading this,

~Mindus

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.5), Uses only 22 watts.

Posted on Jan 16, 2018 1:35 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

babowa

Level 9

78,580 points

Jan 16, 2018 7:20 PM in response to Tiberiusfury

I couldn't find this in your post: did you format the new drive Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID partition scheme? Both are needed before doing anything else with the drive.

And, I am unable to make out what some of the entries are in your screenshot: what is on the bottom right (such as partition...) As for the folder showing, that is usually a sign that the drive cannot find an OS.

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Answer 2

y_p_w

Level 6

17,762 points

Jan 16, 2018 4:07 PM in response to Tiberiusfury

Carbon Copy Cloner is the gold standard. I haven't had a clone that didn't boot. Did you try an external boot of the clone first - holding option at power up?

Super Duper allows manual clones without paying. They say you can use it as long as you want without paying, but you need to pay to unlock more advanced features.

https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

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Answer 3

Tiberiusfury Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 17, 2018 12:56 AM in response to Tiberiusfury

OK: my conclusion is that the 2TB drive is broken, and Apple just refuses to tell me that it is broken.

For the 4th time or so, I have perfectly cloned my 1TB drive to a 2TB drive using Clonezilla, Disk Utility, and the free version of SuperDuper! Everything should be perfect. I just saw a completion by SuperDuper! that said that everything went 100% perfect and that my new drive should be bootable.Then I remove the external 1TB I was booting off of and I get the same folder + question mark symbol. The 2TB clone is actually inside of the the computer where the only hard drive could ever be.

Another conclusion is that Apple is refusing to allow me to have another clone of my computer, for intellectual property reasons. *shrugs* who knows. My next step is to close this thread and to see if there are any customer service possibilities, or otherwise just take a hit and buy a new hard drive. I have reason to believe that this 2TB drive was defective in the 1st place because it wouldn't be recognized by my previous PC laptop, but 3 disk scans and several completed Disk clonings truly convinced me that it was the PC laptop's bug/glitch, and not the hard drive itself.

Thanks for reading.

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Answer 4

y_p_w

Level 6

17,762 points

Jan 17, 2018 9:17 AM in response to Tiberiusfury

Tiberiusfury wrote:

Another conclusion is that Apple is refusing to allow me to have another clone of my computer, for intellectual property reasons. *shrugs* who knows. My next step is to close this thread and to see if there are any customer service possibilities, or otherwise just take a hit and buy a new hard drive. I have reason to believe that this 2TB drive was defective in the 1st place because it wouldn't be recognized by my previous PC laptop, but 3 disk scans and several completed Disk clonings truly convinced me that it was the PC laptop's bug/glitch, and not the hard drive itself.

There's no IP or licensing issue with performing a clone. Legally, you're entitled to make as many personal backups for the same machine as you wish, and many computer experts recommend doing that to drives, disk images, and even cloud storage. I've never known a clone of an OSX/MacOS drive to not boot. I've made bootable backup clones of four different Macs using FW or USB, with different operating systems including Panther, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Sierra, and High Sierra. MacOS/OSX doesn't have any kind of license key. That it works without a license key that you might lose is part of the benefit of being in the Apple "ecosystem".

This really sounds more like a hardware issue that's been difficult to diagnose. If you know someone with an external drive (preferably something different) that you can erase and try, you'll know whether it was your particular setup or just a hard drive with some strange issue.

Good luck. I know it's frustrating, but I've never seen Apple software that prevented the user from creating a legitimate, bootable backup of a drive.

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Answer 5

y_p_w

Level 6

17,762 points

Jan 16, 2018 4:23 PM in response to Tiberiusfury

You can tell by booting the clone externally.

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Answer 6

Tiberiusfury Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 16, 2018 2:35 PM in response to y_p_w

I will try Super Duper. However, I would like to know if there is any way to determine if my drive is actually a good clone already. After all I spent 26 hours using disk utility to clone the drive and I'm really disappointed and exhausted.

Shouldn't "verify disk" and "repair disk" tell me everything I need to know?

Thanks for your reply.

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Answer 7

babowa

Level 9

78,580 points

Jan 17, 2018 8:35 AM in response to Tiberiusfury

You did not answer my question(s), so I won't ask again since you wish to close this thread.

Another conclusion is that Apple is refusing to allow me to have another clone of my computer, for intellectual property reasons.

Can you post a link to a directive or article from Apple please.

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Answer 8

Lanny

Level 6

13,235 points

Jan 18, 2018 8:55 AM in response to Tiberiusfury

Posting to the wrong forum area and then marking your own comment as answering your question is not the way to get the most out of these forums.

I recommend that you re-post your issue in the MacBook Pro forum area instead of the MacBook forum area.

In the mean time, I've requested that your posting be moved to the correct forum area, but since you've answered your own question, don't expect many future responses.

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