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Level 1

34 points

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

Best reply

astirusty

Level 1

30 points

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?

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Disk Utility restore failed - inverter failed

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