This is essentially the same thing dd does, except that Disk Utility can expand/contract the volume if the destination isn't exactly the same size as the source, and it's a lot faster (for some reason, dd is quite slow on OS X).ĮDIT: After seeing note about speed using /dev/rdiskN vs. it just copies the volume structures, so all the files come out identical (down to the file ID numbers).
Os x create image of hard drive mac os#
Between two Mac OS Extended volumes, this'll do a block copy, i.e. The disk structure is copied block-by-block so this dd approach works to copy data from a disk that uses a partitioning scheme that macOS doesn't natively support.ĭisk Utility can do volume-to-volume cloning with the Restore tab.
![os x create image of hard drive os x create image of hard drive](https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/show-all-devices.png)
Reboot your system using the Macintosh HD drive and enjoy your clone! And when we say bit-wise perfect we mean it. Now you've got a bit-wise perfect clone of your Macintosh HD drive.
Os x create image of hard drive full#
The last block written was a short block because there wasn't a full 1MB block to copy. That last error message is actually okay. When dd finishes you may see an error like this: dd: /dev/rdisk2: short write on character deviceĥ00107862016 bytes transferred in 14584.393113 secs (34290619 bytes/sec) Start the clone with: > sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0 of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m conv=noerror,sync Let's say that Macintosh HD (disk0) is the source and Clone (disk2) is the target for our dd operation. For example: > diskutil listĢ: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 319.2 GB disk0s2ģ: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3 One of them will be your target drive you're trying to clone. Run diskutil to get a list of your available drives. With your machine booted to your secondary boot disk, log in and fire up a Terminal or iTerm window.
![os x create image of hard drive os x create image of hard drive](http://www.kenstone6.net/fcp_homepage/images_partitioning_tiger/02_partitioning_tiger.jpg)
Otherwise you risk copying things that are in incomplete states on disk.
![os x create image of hard drive os x create image of hard drive](https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/kWHWpl7eoN737grKb5YTjYl3z3o=/1186x800/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/DiskUtilitycontinueannotted-466f545a0f694970be81b88d10e2ac92.jpg)
Your source for the clone should be an offline volume, not in use, when you're making the copy. To prepare for the clone I recommend creating a secondary boot disk that you can boot from. In order to make the clone perfect you'll need to ensure the source and the destination aren't actively in use. It's a command line tool that ships with OS X. You can use the dd command to make a bit-perfect clone of a drive.