Cloning or Backup/restore of OSX/Win7 HDD?

[Piplodocus]

Hello!

I want to copy/clone my current HDD onto another (both 500GB, but a different make/model). Usually a OSX re-install and TM restore does the trick, but this one has the OSX HFS+ and a smaller NTFS Win7 partition. I assume cloning will still let both OSes run, or is this just a bag of hurt and I need to reinstall everything...

P.S. They're both in a Mid 2010 MBP (with optibay).

 

[panzer06]

Hello!

I want to copy/clone my current HDD onto another (both 500GB, but a different make/model). Usually a OSX re-install and TM restore does the trick, but this one has the OSX HFS+ and a smaller NTFS Win7 partition. I assume cloning will still let both OSes run, or is this just a bag of hurt and I need to reinstall everything...

P.S. They're both in a Mid 2010 MBP (with optibay).

The OS X partition will clone just fine with superduper or disk utility. The windows partition will most likely need to be re-installed. Winclone used to be the way to go but it's had issues since snow leopard and since discontinued.

Cheers,

 

[Blondie :)]

Damn really? I was just about to post the exact same question. I need to upgrade my HDD because I'm running out of space because of drafting on Windows so there is no way you can just backup all of the information on the windows hard drive?

 

[balamw]

Winclone used to be the way to go but it's had issues since snow leopard and since discontinued.

It still works most of the time if you heed the warnings. Turn compression off and use DMG format.

If you're not resizing you can simply use a bitwise tool like dd.

B

 

[panzer06]

It still works most of the time if you heed the warnings. Turn compression off and use DMG format.

If you're not resizing you can simply use a bitwise tool like dd.

B

I'll give it another try. Thanks

 

[Piplodocus]

Not only will reinstalling Win7 and all the stuff be a PITA, but I'll have to put the optical drive back in and swap the others around, then swap them all back after, making it a MASSIVE PITA since you can't install Win7 from an external DVD drive.

So in Winclone there's an option to set the type of image, and if I use .dmg it should be ok? I'll make sure I restore before I delete the old one!

If I use dd (I'll go and google it in a sec) and it's a different make drive will all 500GB be exactly the same size, or is there a bit of variation, and will that create any problems? Is a bitwise image gonna be 500GB or is there any compression in the image? I don't have spare 500GB anywhere, but I do have a spare 80GB for the winclone backup...

 

[balamw]

So in Winclone there's an option to set the type of image, and if I use .dmg it should be ok? I'll make sure I restore before I delete the old one!

Use Winclone 2.2 with DMG format and turn compression OFF was the recommendation from the developer.

If I use dd (I'll go and google it in a sec) and it's a different make drive will all 500GB be exactly the same size, or is there a bit of variation, and will that create any problems? Is a bitwise image gonna be 500GB or is there any compression in the image? I don't have spare 500GB anywhere, but I do have a spare 80GB for the winclone backup...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

dd if=/dev/disk0 of=/dev/disk1

Will clone both Mac OS X and Windows and the partition tables from your internal disk to an external without needing any temporary space. The only assumption is that the new drive has the same number or more of sectors than the old drive.

B

 

[balamw]

So in Winclone there's an option to set the type of image, and if I use .dmg it should be ok? I'll make sure I restore before I delete the old one!

Use Winclone 2.2 with DMG format and turn compression OFF was the recommendation from the developer.

If I use dd (I'll go and google it in a sec) and it's a different make drive will all 500GB be exactly the same size, or is there a bit of variation, and will that create any problems? Is a bitwise image gonna be 500GB or is there any compression in the image? I don't have spare 500GB anywhere, but I do have a spare 80GB for the winclone backup...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

dd bs=1024 if=/dev/disk0 of=/dev/disk1

Will clone both Mac OS X and Windows and the partition tables from your internal disk to an external without needing any temporary space. The only assumption is that the new drive has the same number (or more) of sectors than the old drive.

B

 

[Piplodocus]

Thanks balamw (and everyone else)!

So if I have 2 internal drives can I clone from one internal drive that's disk0 and the OS is currently running off of, to another internal that's disk1 using:

dd bs=1024 if=/dev/disk0 of=/dev/disk1

Or:

dd bs=1024 if="/source drive" of="/destination drive"


I take it that since it's bitwise it doesn't need any NTFS drivers etc loaded, just copies the entire drive, EXACTLY: all partitions/GUID table/200MB start partitions/permissions/everything?

Is it just that command straight or do I need to "sudo" it or anything?

What's the easiest way to count the number of sectors on each drive? Is that in disk utility somewhere? What if the source one has a few less? Can I shrink the win7 partition a tiny amount so there's a little bit of empty space on the end that won't be copied, or is it a straight up not possible? If so should I shrink with Win7 or Disk Utility, or does it not matter?

Thanks again!

 

[balamw]

I take it that since it's bitwise it doesn't need any NTFS drivers etc loaded, just copies the entire drive, EXACTLY: all partitions/GUID table/200MB start partitions/permissions/everything?

Is it just that command straight or do I need to "sudo" it or anything?

What's the easiest way to count the number of sectors on each drive? Is that in disk utility somewhere? What if the source one has a few less? Can I shrink the win7 partition a tiny amount so there's a little bit of empty space on the end that won't be copied, or is it a straight up not possible? If so should I shrink with Win7 or Disk Utility, or does it not matter?

Thanks again!

dd bs=1024 if="/source drive" of="/destination drive"

is the general idea. As you suspect, in order to access /dev/disk? you probably need admin rights (sudo) and for the file system not to be mounted. The easiest way to deal with that is to boot from your Mac OS X install disc or a Linux live CD. You would get warnings for either/both of those.

Maybe best, just to use a Clonezilla live CD. http://clonezilla.org/

B

 

[Piplodocus]

How long is this "dd" supposed to take. It's 500GB and its USB, but it's been over 26hrs so far!?!

what's the bs=1024 bit do?

 

[Piplodocus]

From the OT in another post:

OT: But you can make dd talk by sending it signals from another terminal. http://linuxcommando.blogspot.com/2008/06/show-progress-during-dd-copy.html

B

...doesn't work.

But...

You can use:

ps -ef | grep dd

Gives me:

[Computer Name]:~ [Username]$ ps -ef | grep dd
    0    35     1   0   0:04.97 ??         0:12.74 /usr/libexec/hidd
    0   228   224   0 103:57.59 ttys000  108:21.69 dd bs=1024 if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk2
  501  2151  2147   0   0:00.00 ttys002    0:00.00 grep dd

Not sure what it means or what to do with it though!

 

[balamw]

[Computer Name]:~ [Username]$ ps -ef | grep dd
    0    35     1   0   0:04.97 ??         0:12.74 /usr/libexec/hidd
    0   228   224   0 103:57.59 ttys000  108:21.69 dd bs=1024 if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk2
  501  2151  2147   0   0:00.00 ttys002    0:00.00 grep dd

Not sure what it means or what to do with it though!

Part of that is because the grep took away the header that tells you what the columns are.

  UID   PID  PPID   C     STIME TTY           TIME CMD

The second column is the PID (process ID) for your dd task (228). You need this information for the next step.

You can get dd to give you information by sending it a signal. According the the man page for dd on the Mac, that should be SIGINFO. So running

kill -SIGINFO 228

would cause "the current input and output block counts will be written to the standard error output in the same format as the standard completion message."

Unfortunately the link I provided used USR1 instead of SIGINFO and used pgrep and watch which are not available by default on OS X. Sorry!

B

 

[Piplodocus]

Cheers!

It's done 312GB in 27hrs? Seems a bit slow!

Says it's copied 312919502848 bytes transferred in 101872.437674 secs (3071680 bytes/sec). 3MB/s? What happened to a SATA 7200rpm drive copying to USB2's (theoretical) 480Mb/s; that seems painfully slow!

 

[balamw]

Cheers!

It's done 312GB in 27hrs? Seems a bit slow!

Says it's copied 312919502848 bytes transferred in 101872.437674 secs (3071680 bytes/sec). 3MB/s? What happened to a SATA 7200rpm drive copying to USB2's (theoretical) 480Mb/s; that seems painfully slow!

You could probably have made it go faster with a larger block size (bs) but I didn't want to do something that might have created another problem just to gain speed.

Let us know when you swap the drives.

B

 

[Piplodocus]

Update: I only ever got around to cloning the MacOS drive. That seemed to work ok!

I'm just finally doing the one with Mac OS AND Win7 on. So we'll see how well windows likes it.

Other things to note: If you leave the "bs=xxxxx" out completely I believe it'll go faster and just copy block by block.

I found a little GUI for dd online. Shows you drives by doing a diskutil list when you press a button, and you just put the source and destination in a box. It didn't seem to work though. I think because it didn't "sudo" it.

Also don't forget to unmount the destination first (but not eject if it's a USB drive) or it says it's in use/denied!

 

[Piplodocus]

For some reason the "kill -SIGINFO" doesn't work today.

I do "ps -ef | grep dd" in a 2nd window.

That tells me (from the 2nd column) that the dd command's PID is 371.

I then do "kill -SIGINFO 371". I get "-bash: kill: (371) - Operation not permitted"

I can sudo it then it doesn't complain, but nothing happens. Oh hang on! Ignore me! It says how far it's got in the dd terminal window, which was on the hidden terminal tab!