Carbon Copy Cloner- getting a "Bootable Duplicate Disc"

[Reesche]

Hi you guys..... I just bought a 4TB SATA drive for my desktop Mac Pro and used Carbon Copy Cloner V5.1.5 and the new cloned drive (4) will not boot.

Running MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6

1. I formated the new drive with Disk Utility..... using Mac Os Extended (journaled)

2. Then opened up CCC and cloned Drive 1 to the NEW 4TB Drive 4. It came through it just fine no alerts and it shows up in System Preferances.... start up disc. But when I select Disk 4 to be the start up disk..... It always starts up from the "Original Disk 1 (I cloned Disk 1 TO Disk 4) Disk 4 will not boot.

NOTE: Please see attachments....

Any thoughts here?

Thank you!
Rich

 

[honestone]

I use SuperDuper!, which is similar to Carbon Copy Cloner. "Out of the box", so to speak, whenever I do a backup/clone with SuperDuper!, after it is completed cloning/copying everything, it then makes that "receiving" volume bootable. I noticed that in your third screen you provided (about CCC), where it says "AFTER COPYING FILES", there is another "heading" Destination Volume:, with an "associated" pull down arrow containing (I gather) choices. Yours says "Do nothing". Is there a choice there for something like "Make bootable"?

PS: just noticed that is the same thing ,ie, "Do nothing", in SuperDuper!. Not sure why that is happening.

 

[Reesche]

No there is not anything there... see attached screen shot. Also there is only (1) Partition on Drive 4.

 

[Reesche]

No there is really nothing there.... See attached Screen shot. Also, Drive 4 has just (1) Partition.

 

[honestone]

Really, really strange. I know that when my SuperDuper! backup runs, it goes through 3 "stages": a "starting" stage (gets everything "ready"), a copying phase (copies everything from the Source Volume), and a "completion" phase, and one of the tasks in that last phase is "Make destination volume bootable", and it shows that step occurring. I would think CCC is the same.

Just out of curiosity, what brand/model is the new drive? Also, maybe first Erase, Format, and partition that new drive. Then run CCC to copy/clone your internal volume you want cloned to one of those partitions. If you can, see if CCC shows that "Make bootable" process, like SuperDuper! does.

 

[Reesche]

I really did not see anything different than the screen shots I sent you during the clone.

 

[honestone]

So, during that process, one of the tasks CCC did after the copying was "Make "such and such a volume" bootable", correct?

Again, what make/model is your new drive?

 

[Reesche]

Thank you for bearing with me on this.... I am attaching another screen shot of my hard drives via "About this Mac"

I do not remember seeing anything like your are asking me. Make Bootable?.....never saw it.

 

[honestone]

Hmm, 2.3 gig of that new WD (I assume Western Digital?) is being used already. Is that after the backup? How about HD2 and HD3? What make/model drives are those?

As for "Make bootable", as I stated, when SuperDuper! "enters" that last phase (after copying all the files, folders, etc. to the destination volume), one of the tasks it does is "Make "such and such a" Volume bootable", and I can "see" that occurring. Even when SuperDuper! is done (but I have not exited the program yet), the screen it shows includes showing that task (and of course as having completed successfully).

 

[Allen Davis]

I think I might be able to help since I use CCC exclusively for backing up.

Under your Source, you have some files excluded from your backup. Right next to the little funnel icon beneath your Source, I see it says "Copy Some Files" and that it is grayed out. Something somewhere isn't being included in your clone, which is preventing that drive from being capable of booting your machine. You want to be able to access the pop-down menu and choose "Copy All Files."

Under your current setting when selecting which files to copy, something has been omitted that is necessary to make a CCC drive bootable.

Your "Advanced Settings" look fine.

 

[honestone]

You now have an expert helping you! Thanks Allen. Not sure about such settings, as SuperDuper! typically works "out of the box", so to speak.

 

[Allen Davis]

Thanks for the flowers, Arthur. There are some who might think I'm paranoid because I keep multiple clones of my Macs at all times. But is it really paranoid if something bad has happened before, like losing a drive suddenly and catastrophically?

I'm blessed (or cursed, depending on one's perspective) with a whole box of 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs, some of which are in their own enclosures, but most I just plug into a dock I keep on my desk and can hot-swap to my heart's desire. I keep "partial clones" of my system as well, and they're not bootable for security reasons and I keep offsite since I'm not going to ever discount the possibility of a fire wrecking everything.

With CCC, I noticed Reesche had his "Safety Net" on. This is the best choice, especially if one is backing up to a drive which is much larger than the one being cloned. The "Safety Net" is a dedicated folder at the primary level of the clone which contains files which have been changed or even deleted since the previous cloning session. And they're in dated folders, so if one deletes a file (accidentally or otherwise) and then wants it back, all one need do is simply mount that volume (booting from it is unnecessary for this purpose) and then locating the file and dragging it back to your "home" drive or wherever you want.

I heartily recommend that the clone drive have at least twice the storage capacity of the drive being cloned. This affords the user with ample space for storing a lot of "Safety Net" folders and need only be "pruned" when the clone begins getting crowded. And I further recommend that no one ever let a drive have less than fifteen percent of free space. This is for both performance purposes as well as extending the useful life of any drive.

If one is using a 1TB internal drive (HDD or SSD) and are approaching 850GB of used space, it's probably time to consider either getting a bigger drive or "offloading" a bunch of stuff to free up space. I'm kind of a weirdo about that. I get nervous when I have anything less than 25% of free space available. Believe me, it makes a difference in not only performance speed, but also lets macOS do its own thing in defragmenting the drive without resorting to a defragmenting program, which I discourage with extreme prejudice. Third-party defragmenting apps are NOT beneficial, regardless of what the guys at TechTool or elsewhere may tell you. Purposely defragmenting a drive, most especially a SSD, will drastically shorten its life.

And, yes, macOS does defragment drives in the background without any assistance.

 

[Reesche]

Hey you guys thanks again for your feedback.

I reformatted Drive 4 again. I redid the clone from Drive 1 to Drive 4. I think it is now booting.

Part of my issues here was that I was cloning from my start up disc Drive 1. This time I booted from Drive 2 eliminating the start up disc. Cloned from Drive 1 to Drive 4.

Now, see the screen shots I have uploaded here to see what the final steps were on this second cloning effort.

Reesche

 

[Allen Davis]

Hey you guys thanks again for your feedback.

I reformatted Drive 4 again. I redid the clone from Drive 1 to Drive 4. I think it is now booting.

Part of my issues here was that I was cloning from my start up disc Drive 1. This time I booted from Drive 2 eliminating the start up disc. Cloned from Drive 1 to Drive 4.

Now, see the screen shots I have uploaded here to see what the final steps were on this second cloning effort.

Reesche

I see you selected "Copy All Files" from the Destination pop-up. Good.

However, you should still have been able to clone directly from Drive 1 (or whatever startup drive) and gotten a bootable clone. What matters here is that you now indeed have a bootable clone.

On your final screenshot, I see that CCC notifies you that the clone "should be bootable." "Should" is operative here and you should verify that it will boot your system just to be on the safe side.

And any time you create a new clone, always choose the option of creating a Recovery Partition just so you have an additional layer of "insurance" in the event your system befalls a really weird, unexplainable crisis.

In addition to Hone (backup! backup! backup!) stone's sage and ubiquitous advice, always practice "CYA" because it's better to have a plan and not need it than to need a plan and not have it. Additional bootable drives is always a good thing. To have a Recovery partition on each of those drives can be priceless. It will someday spare you from considerable anguish, tears and gnashing of teeth.

 

[Allen Davis]

I should've added that now that you have a bootable clone, it's okay to modify your default "Copy All Files" setting.

You can now "deselect" your "System" and "Library" folders from your backups, but I wouldn't because you may add/delete things that will need updating as time goes by.

You should create "New Task(s)", give them an appropriate name and customize what each task does.

What I do is create a "Full Clone" and "Incremental" task. I've included a screen shot so you can see what I'm talking about.

Glad everything is working out for you!

 

[honestone]

Thanks for the flowers, Arthur. There are some who might think I'm paranoid because I keep multiple clones of my Macs at all times. But is it really paranoid if something bad has happened before, like losing a drive suddenly and catastrophically?

You're most welcome! Your posts are informative, useful, and at times funny!

I'm blessed (or cursed, depending on one's perspective) with a whole box of 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs, some of which are in their own enclosures, but most I just plug into a dock I keep on my desk and can hot-swap to my heart's desire. I keep "partial clones" of my system as well, and they're not bootable for security reasons and I keep offsite since I'm not going to ever discount the possibility of a fire wrecking everything.

Yeah, I have 2 external SSDs that I use for backups for each of my Macs. And with my new Samsung 500 gig 860 EVO SSD, after I complete Mojave testing, I could use it for backups.

With CCC, I noticed Reesche had his "Safety Net" on. This is the best choice, especially if one is backing up to a drive which is much larger than the one being cloned. The "Safety Net" is a dedicated folder at the primary level of the clone which contains files which have been changed or even deleted since the previous cloning session. And they're in dated folders, so if one deletes a file (accidentally or otherwise) and then wants it back, all one need do is simply mount that volume (booting from it is unnecessary for this purpose) and then locating the file and dragging it back to your "home" drive or wherever you want.

I heartily recommend that the clone drive have at least twice the storage capacity of the drive being cloned. This affords the user with ample space for storing a lot of "Safety Net" folders and need only be "pruned" when the clone begins getting crowded. And I further recommend that no one ever let a drive have less than fifteen percent of free space. This is for both performance purposes as well as extending the useful life of any drive.

I am using only 1/3rd to 1/4th of the space on my internal SSDs. For my SuperDuper! backups, I have about 40% of free space on each one. Given all the disk cleanup I am doing just about every day, that does not change much, if at all.

With my weekly backups/clones, they are "full" ones. That is, the prior backup is first deleted by SuperDuper!, and then the new one replaces it. Again, that is easily sufficient for my purposes. If I needed daily backup "updates", then of course I would need to be more careful.

If one is using a 1TB internal drive (HDD or SSD) and are approaching 850GB of used space, it's probably time to consider either getting a bigger drive or "offloading" a bunch of stuff to free up space. I'm kind of a weirdo about that. I get nervous when I have anything less than 25% of free space available. Believe me, it makes a difference in not only performance speed, but also lets macOS do its own thing in defragmenting the drive without resorting to a defragmenting program, which I discourage with extreme prejudice. Third-party defragmenting apps are NOT beneficial, regardless of what the guys at TechTool or elsewhere may tell you. Purposely defragmenting a drive, most especially a SSD, will drastically shorten its life.

And, yes, macOS does defragment drives in the background without any assistance.

As I mentioned above, I am using only 1/3rd to 1/4th of the space on my internal SSDs. Also, doing file or volume optimization on SSDs is STRONGLY discouraged, and of course I do not do it. And the folks at Micromat (company that develops Tech Tool Pro) do the same.

 

[honestone]

However, you should still have been able to clone directly from Drive 1 (or whatever startup drive) and gotten a bootable clone. What matters here is that you now indeed have a bootable clone.

Most definitely! I have ALWAYS been able to clone my startup volume (it's the only one I have on my internal SSDs).

On your final screenshot, I see that CCC notifies you that the clone "should be bootable." "Should" is operative here and you should verify that it will boot your system just to be on the safe side.

Again, excellent advice!

And any time you create a new clone, always choose the option of creating a Recovery Partition just so you have an additional layer of "insurance" in the event your system befalls a really weird, unexplainable crisis.

SuperDuper! does not backup the Recovery HD partition. I wonder if I could create one on my clone. Don't think I really need it. In fact, given that I have been using SuperDuper! for so long, the need for it has never arisen. As it is, if I have software issues on my internal/startup volume, after booting the "problematic" Mac to its respective SuperDuper! backup, I will go through my "clean installation" procedure. That is, launch Disk Utility to Erase and Format that SSD, launch the applicable "Install macos "OS name"" file (I ALWAYS have a copy of the latest one) and do a clean installation, then "migrate"/copy needed "stuff" from that SuperDuper! backup. I am then happily back in business!

 

[honestone]

By the way, Reesche, the latest version of Carbon Copy Cloner is V5.1.6:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

It would be wise to upgrade your copy. But do it from Bombich's site. That is, download the update from there, and install it You can also, I suspect, launch CCC, and in the menu entitled "Carbon Copy Cloner" (should be just to the right of the Black Apple icon, which is in the upper left hand corner), there should be a "Check for Update" option. But no matter how you update, it is always best to have such an updater file somewhere.