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Looking for a Mac disk imaging backup tool like Norton Ghost

M

midimanmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 13, 2012
8
0
Hi, I want to be able to take a disk image of my MAC Mini.

Is there a way that I can do this? In the Windows world I use Acronis True Image or Ghost.

For example.

I would like to erase my OSX, re-install it, add the applications and then take an image of it.

So that if I ran into any problems, I would have a complete image that I could restore from

I know I can restore the OS by going through the recovery option, but then I have to put all my apps back on and restore my data.

I would prefer to take an image of everything.

Thanks
 
hwojtek said:
On Mac you have this built-in with Disk Utility.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks I will give it a go with disk utility.

So I take it once I have created the image with DU.

I can restore the machine by going through the recovery console and selecting restore from image. Then browsing to where I saved the image?

Thanks
 
GGJstudios said:
Carbon Copy Cloner will make a bootable clone of your drive. You can easily restore any or all items from that drive, or simply boot from it.
Click to expand...

Thanks I will check it out.

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hwojtek said:
On Mac you have this built-in with Disk Utility.
Click to expand...

Wow it's slow though.

I could have backed up my Windows PC in under 20 minutes with Ghost.

Still if it works it's better than nothing.

I work in a large company and we are starting to get some MACs in. But we couldn't use this built in feature to re-image the machines.

The MAC world really needs something like Ghost.
 
GGJstudios said:
Carbon Copy Cloner will make a bootable clone of your drive. You can easily restore any or all items from that drive, or simply boot from it.
Click to expand...
AND CCC will also clone the Recovery partition,:cool: which I believe is not possible with any other utility.
Your statement "The Mac world really needs something like Ghost." shows you haven't checked CCC out yet, it is well worth the price. Just a personal opinion, based on the fact that it has saved my ar$$ a couple of times. I have no connection with the company producing CCC, just a very satisfied customer. Give it a try.
 
davidlv said:
AND CCC will also clone the Recovery partition,:cool: which I believe is not possible with any other utility.
Your statement "The Mac world really needs something like Ghost." shows you haven't checked CCC out yet, it is well worth the price. Just a personal opinion, based on the fact that it has saved my ar$$ a couple of times. I have no connection with the company producing CCC, just a very satisfied customer. Give it a try.
Click to expand...

But if I was to erase the disk and install OSX from a DVD. I assume I could re-create the recovery partition?

Or I could put in a Lion DVD into a machine with no RP, and get the same options.

Like how you can put a Windows DVD into a PC and select repair. In order to get the recovery console options.

Thanks
 
GGJstudios said:
Lion was never available for sale on a DVD. That's why there's a recovery partition.

OS X: About OS X Recovery
Apple - OS X Recovery restores your Mac with a few clicks.
Hands on with Mountain Lion's OS X Recovery and Internet Recovery | Macworld
Click to expand...

Ahhh ok I see.

But can't your order Lion on a bootable flash drive?

To be honest I need to mess up because that's the only way you learn. But let me get a intact copy of my disk inc the partition before I start playing around it lol.

I've never had to re-install the MAC OS, so I need to see how you do things in the MAC world.

When it comes to Windows I'm the recovery king lol.

It's good to learn because my MAC backup and recovery skills are dire lol. And I get a lot of customers coming up to me with their MACs issues.
 
Last edited:
You could probably use CCC to clone the hard drive the way you want it to an external hard drive...then use that external hard drive to image computers whenever you need to. Might even work if you put it on a USB stick, but I haven't tried it that way.
 
midimanmac said:
The MAC world really needs something like Ghost.
Click to expand...

It does. As mentioned already: use Disk Utility (come with OS X) to create a bootable clone on another hard drive. Then to deploy: 1) boot the client machines into recovery mode (Lion or ML) or from a compatible Boot DVD (pre-Lion) and use Disk Utility to restore the image to that machine.
 
midimanmac said:
Hi, I want to be able to take a disk image of my MAC Mini.

Is there a way that I can do this? In the Windows world I use Acronis True Image or Ghost.

For example.

I would like to erase my OSX, re-install it, add the applications and then take an image of it.

So that if I ran into any problems, I would have a complete image that I could restore from

I know I can restore the OS by going through the recovery option, but then I have to put all my apps back on and restore my data.

I would prefer to take an image of everything.

Thanks
Click to expand...

midimanmac, there is also Deploy Studio. this allows you to make a copy of an existing Mac and copy it over to another Mac so that all of the user names and such are all the same on a group or just more than 1 Mac.

Deploy Studio is free and it will also create a Windows image from one Mac partition that you can push to other Macs and make them dual-boot. You first need to setup your windows partition using bootcamp and install Windows on that partition.
 
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