OS X Tip : Creating a Bootable backup on a FireWire Drive
Everyone knows to create a backup before you do an Archive and Install or any sort of system maintenance, but very few actually do it. A recent experience has shown me the value of creating a mirror of your computer onto an external drive. When doing a recent archive and install on my Macbook Pro, the installer quit half way through, leaving me with an unbootable machine. I came back from a morning of meetings with an unusable machine and work to be done.
Booting from the install disc, I selected my connected FireWire drive and was able to boot up and run OS X as if nothing had happened, got some work done, and re-started my install later. It was a life saver, and now I’d like to share how to get through it.
Creating the mirror is very simple if you follow these steps:
1. Connect your FireWire Drive
2. Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)
3. Select Your System Disk
4. Select the “Restore” Tab
5. Drag your System Disk to the “Source” Area from the left pane
6. Drag your FireWire Drive from the left pane into the “Destination” Area
7. Click Restore
This will make a copy of your system onto the drive. Once it is complete; to boot from this drive, follow these steps:
1. Open System Preferences (Applications > System Preferences)
2. Choose Startup Disk from the “System” Area (toward the bottom of the panel)
3. Choose your FireWire disk from the list and click “Restart”
This will boot your machine from the external disc. You can also boot other macs from this drive, although I am sure there may be some hardware issues. Obviously, you can also reverse this to restore from the backup, that process would look like this:
1. Connect your FireWire Drive
2. Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)
3. Select Your System Disk
4. Select the “Restore” Tab
5. Drag your FireWire Drive to the “Source” Area from the left pane
6. Drage your System Disk from the left pane into the “Destination” Area
7. Click Restore