Backup & Restore via Disk Utility (DU) – on Mac OS install-disk – to a fresh hard-drive:
- Routine: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553
- Complication: Backed-up not the whole disk but aMac OS partition alongside a Boot Camp partition.
- DON’T: Naive use of Disk Utility (DU) to restore straight away the partition (as a sole partition) from backup doesn’t work – it won’t boot.
- You may see a grey Mac OS screen with “No Entry/Parking” sign, or error messages about ACPI drivers not present.
- Attempts to install (fresh or archive i.e. user file preserving mode) from install disk fail since disk is not bootable.
- Error message: “Mac OS cannot start up from this disk”
- DO: Try install fresh OS X from install-dvd, then use it to create Boot Camp partition (and presumably boot-selection menu) then restore (with erase) to the OS X partition (only). To save time (hopefully), didn’t actually install Windows.
- Both the fresh-install and the restoration of OS X took about an hour.
- Yes it worked! Booted into Mac OS just fine.
- Left it to “settle” a bit – e.g. until CPU level down around zero.
- Restart in Shift-Boot mode (to refresh OS’s tables etc.) and log-in as “DefaultEverything” (dummy user created as per advice – I think from Larry Jordan). Maybe should have done that the first time…
- Restarted in normal user account, again left awhile.
- Boot Camp Assistant:
- Create a partition (e.g. divide disks space equally between the two partitions)
- (takes a minute or two – progress bar is initially misleadingly stationary)
- Select [Quit and install later]
- All we wanted was the partition, to restore into.
- Create a partition (e.g. divide disks space equally between the two partitions)
- Started WinClone (App, started from MacOS)
- It appeared to first scan the backup then began to install it. Not quick, maybe an hour for each of these (two) tasks.
- Source partition was 232.57 GB – as compared to the destination partition of around 250 GB.
- Alt-Booted into W7 just fine.
- Being on the internet, it began downloading numerous system updates – furiously (like it was hard to web-browse even on another computer on the network.
- Correspondingly, on ShutDown, W7 installed numerous (61) updates. Took ages – so if ever repeating such a recovery, allow for this…
- Also on subsequent start-up, updating & registering stuff – took a few minutes – wish I’d run it straight (boot camp) not within Parallels. But it seemed “happy”.
- (to be continued…)
To Restore via DU:
Important: These steps will overwrite data with the same name in the same location, such as files on your desktop and in your Home folder.
- Connect the external disk you’ve backed up to.
- Start from your Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6 Install DVD. (Insert the disc, then restart and hold the C key.)
- Select your language. Do not start an installation.
- Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
- Select your internal Mac OS X disk that you want to restore to.
- Click the Restore tab.
- Drag your internal disk to the “Destination:” field.
- Click the “Image…” button next to the “Source:” field.
- Navigate to the location of the backup image you want to restore (located on your external disk).
- Click “Open” to continue.
- Click the “Restore” button. Confirm you want to “Restore to Disk” by clicking “Restore” again. This will replace data on your Mac OS X volume with data from your backup that has the same name and is in the same location.
- Enter your admin name and password when prompted. If the backup disk image is encrypted, enter the disk image password if necessary. The time it takes to restore from the image depends on factors such as the amount of data on your backup disk image.