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Disk Utility restore failed - inverter failed

I'm running macOS 10.13.4 and my file system is APFS.

I want to create a backup on an external hard drive - Seagate GoFlex for Mac. I have often done this previously using DiskUtility in Recovery mode. The external hard drive was HFS+.

When I tried using the latest DiskUtility it failed to verify the target saying not enough space.


After various failed attempts to sort things out I eventually used diskutil from the command line to eraseDisk as APFS. I went back to Recovery mode and started to restore my system to the external hard drive using DiskUtility.


All seemed to be going well (but slowly ! - it took 7 hours) and verification seemed OK only for it all to fail at the last minute.


The error message was "APFS inverter failed to invert the volume" saying there was an invalid argument.


I'm left with a single large file (500GB) named ContainerToInvert.

Is there any way to complete the inversion from this point?

Any ideas what went wrong?

Posted on Mar 31, 2018 11:48 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 6, 2018 9:55 AM

Similar problem


For many years I have used Apple's Disk Utility to make a copy of Macbooks and iMacs hard drives to external hard drives for off-site backups. On a few occasions, to restore a Macbook or iMac hard drive without problems.


After upgrading to High Sierra, my Macbook Air's internal drive was converted, without warning, to APFS. When I attempted to use new Apple Disk Utility, installed with High Sierra, the backup to external hard drive failed with "APFS inverter failed to invert the volume".

I have tried formatting a partition as APFS file system. I have tried setting entire disk up as APFS file system, breaking APFS file system down into sizes matching Macbook Air's internal drive, etc.

Every time, I get same failed result from Apple's Disk Utility, one large file, with Error message about inverter failed to invert.

What do I have to do to get Apple's Disk Utility to make a backup copy of Macbook Air's internal drive to USB connected External disk drive?

Similar questions

8 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 6, 2018 9:55 AM in response to peakman1

Similar problem


For many years I have used Apple's Disk Utility to make a copy of Macbooks and iMacs hard drives to external hard drives for off-site backups. On a few occasions, to restore a Macbook or iMac hard drive without problems.


After upgrading to High Sierra, my Macbook Air's internal drive was converted, without warning, to APFS. When I attempted to use new Apple Disk Utility, installed with High Sierra, the backup to external hard drive failed with "APFS inverter failed to invert the volume".

I have tried formatting a partition as APFS file system. I have tried setting entire disk up as APFS file system, breaking APFS file system down into sizes matching Macbook Air's internal drive, etc.

Every time, I get same failed result from Apple's Disk Utility, one large file, with Error message about inverter failed to invert.

What do I have to do to get Apple's Disk Utility to make a backup copy of Macbook Air's internal drive to USB connected External disk drive?

Jun 12, 2018 2:53 PM in response to peakman1

I have worked on this extensively. For many many hours. I have used Disk Utility to make full backups of my system drive for all the years I have been using a Mac. I have tried every variation of the process I can think of, and all have failed with my APFS formatted drive. Today I gave up and downloaded Carbon Copy Cloner. Instant success. And it took almost no time compared to Disk Utility.


Thank you to everyone in all the forums listing CCC as the answer to all these APFS backup problems. I appreciate it.

Jun 18, 2018 4:52 PM in response to peakman1

I'm am also running macOS 10.13.4 with APFS file system and struggling with Disk Utility. The error message was the same "APFS inverter failed to invert the volume" saying there was an invalid argument."


Solution:

In order to restore my "Macintosh HD" to my new "JetDrive 720" I had to download a software from the internet called "Carbon Copy Cloner". Once downloaded and installed, I connected the external drive, followed the prompts and cloned the original drive. That was it, it just worked. I had a fresh new backup of my "macintosh Drive" that I could used to restore in case of data loss.

May 10, 2018 11:41 PM in response to peakman1

Having the same issue when I tried to upgrade my ssd to a bigger drive. I tried a 'solution' to first reinstall MacOS on the new drive, and then restore the main volume of the old drive to the new one. That was suppose to ensure that both volumes were setup correctly with efi, restore, other system partitions, etc. as well as setup the new drive with apfs.


Anyhow, it didn't work. I received the same inverter failed... Osstatus error 22 message.

Disk Utility restore failed - inverter failed

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