Trying to mirror, "could not allocate memory"

jknight8907 · Nov 14, 2009, 01:44 AM

My Macbook Pro's hard drive has started making a lot of noise recently so I'm attempting to replace it. However, when I boot from the Snow Leopard CD and try to use Disk Utility to 'restore' my Macbook's HD to the new HD (in an external dock), it seems to get started copying, then says "could not allocate memory". What's going on here?

madog · Nov 14, 2009, 02:32 AM

Disk Utility either needs quite a bit of additional space to clone, or at least another drive of equal or greater value to the source. For example, a drive with 95GB used (of 120GB) isn't able to copy over to a 100GB drive. I'm not sure of the necessary requirement though.

Might not be the correct answer as I don't remember DU's exact error for the above scenario, but it could be the case.

Using an app like SuperDuper may avoid that problem, but you might not be able t do that.

jknight8907 · Nov 14, 2009, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madog

Disk Utility either needs quite a bit of additional space to clone, or at least another drive of equal or greater value to the source. For example, a drive with 95GB used (of 120GB) isn't able to copy over to a 100GB drive. I'm not sure of the necessary requirement though.

Might not be the correct answer as I don't remember DU's exact error for the above scenario, but it could be the case.

Using an app like SuperDuper may avoid that problem, but you might not be able t do that.

Thanks, but it's a 160gb copying to a 500gb.

cjmillsnun · Nov 14, 2009, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jknight8907

Thanks, but it's a 160gb copying to a 500gb.

Carbon copy cloner FTW.

http://www.bombich.com/

madog · Nov 14, 2009, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jknight8907

Thanks, but it's a 160gb copying to a 500gb.

Last I can think of, is the external drive formatted properly?

larkost · Nov 14, 2009, 05:35 PM

If you already know that the drive is failing, then Disk Utility (and to a lesser extent Carbon Copy Cloner) is the wrong tool to use. Disk Utility (rather the underlying tools that it shares with CCC) will fail silently when there are disk errors.

Rather the better way of doing it is to use something like rsync that will make attempts at every file, work with checksums, is resumable, and log when it fails.

Nov 14, 2009, 01:44 AM	#1
jknight8907 macrumors 6502a Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Memphis	Trying to mirror, "could not allocate memory" My Macbook Pro's hard drive has started making a lot of noise recently so I'm attempting to replace it. However, when I boot from the Snow Leopard CD and try to use Disk Utility to 'restore' my Macbook's HD to the new HD (in an external dock), it seems to get started copying, then says "could not allocate memory". What's going on here? __________________ Elmo I throw rocks at Windows.

Nov 14, 2009, 02:32 AM	#2
madog macrumors 65816 Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Korova Milkbar	Disk Utility either needs quite a bit of additional space to clone, or at least another drive of equal or greater value to the source. For example, a drive with 95GB used (of 120GB) isn't able to copy over to a 100GB drive. I'm not sure of the necessary requirement though. Might not be the correct answer as I don't remember DU's exact error for the above scenario, but it could be the case. Using an app like SuperDuper may avoid that problem, but you might not be able t do that. __________________ CLEAN INSTALL [klēn ĭn-stôl' -- kleen in-stawl]: to back up your drive, then erase it, install OS on it, copy personal data to it, and manually reinstall applications on it.

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Nov 14, 2009, 05:35 PM	#6
larkost macrumors regular Join Date: Oct 2007	If you already know that the drive is failing, then Disk Utility (and to a lesser extent Carbon Copy Cloner) is the wrong tool to use. Disk Utility (rather the underlying tools that it shares with CCC) will fail silently when there are disk errors. Rather the better way of doing it is to use something like rsync that will make attempts at every file, work with checksums, is resumable, and log when it fails.