Macbook Pro backup before repair

[mightyduck]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I would pick on the top level one.... you are blowing evethign away, and it will create the container structure for you and put a APFS volume within that.

You are looking for something like this... in the erase dialog panel.

Thanks, man. Any reason not to format the clone drive? It’s 2 TB and the drive I am cloning only has about half a terabyte on it.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by mightyduck

Thanks, man. Any reason not to format the clone drive? It’s 2 TB and the drive I am cloning only has about half a terabyte on it.

Not that I can think of. You want to do this. exFAT is not going to help you. But to be clear... for all I know CCC may automatically want to create an APFS container if it sees exFAT on the drive... I'm not sure exactly what it will do in that case but I just wanted to make sure you got started from an ideal starting position.

Having a clone drive larger than the drive you are cloning is very good. With CCC set up how I said it will never delete stuff on the clone drive, even if you delete it on the MBP and then make a CCC update... so the clone will keep slowly growing in size, with stuff you have deleted hidden away out of sight, will never get smaller until it gets near running out of space and then CCC may prune old deleted stuff. Even with all that extra stuff hidden there the clone will still boot and be usable as if it was the original drive.

As with previous HFS+ you can live change the "partition" sizes on a disk later on if you want to, e.g. add another partition for other purposes etc. But with containers you can do other party tricks. It uses over provisioning.... so that multiple partitions can be bigger than they initially consume on disk, and they all share the same free space so you don't need to worry about getting partitions perfectly sized ahead of time.

[mightyduck]

Thanks. I meant to say "is there any reason not to partition the clone drive?".

[JFreak]

APFS changes that a bit. You can create a "container" that may grow to a terabyte but only consume a gigabyte to begin with

[mightyduck]

Originally Posted by JFreak

APFS changes that a bit. You can create a "container" that may grow to a terabyte but only consume a gigabyte to begin with

It didn’t format as APFS for some reason, although I chose that. It formatted as Mac OS Extened (journaled). That is apparently the recommendation for spinning platter disks, although it says either are acceptable. But it won’t partition.

The backup works as a boot volume, though. But when it’s mounted not as boot volume , the applications don’t appear. I’m not sure what’s going on with it.

I know that I was trying to not blow away an entire 2 TB drive for a 500Gig backup.

Any ideas on how to do it again? I was choosing APFS and trying to partition before running ccc, it wouldn’t do it, so I figured I would just format it APFS, make the clone, and then add a volume, but it somehow turned into MacOS Extended (journaled) and it won’t partition. The “hidden” volume is there, though, btw.

[Darryl Ramm]

I know that I was trying to not blow away an entire 2 TB drive for a 500Gig backup.

What does that comment mean? What *exactly* did you do? Why are you worried about the size of the disk and partitions? As I've said several times you can change all that later. Please stop asking about partitions and partition sizes and either do what is suggested or tell us *exactly* what you have done. What exactly is on that clone drive now? Can you post a screenshot of Disk Utility showing all the drive containers/partitions.

What I wanted you to do is get a APFS partition on the drive. If you ended up with HFS+ it's no big deal. I am fully aware of all the different recommendations for what filesystems to use for what.

No Applications. What *exactly* does that mean? You Have to explain stuff to us clearly.

What exact Applications do not appear and how exactly do they not appear. Where/how are you looking at stuff? Are you looking in /Applications in the Finder? Using Terminal? Talking about applications appearing in the Dock? On the desktop?

In Terminal.app (do you have Terminal.app?) while booted from the clone type the following commands and paste the output here.

mount

ls -l /Application

Could you log in OK as the same user when booted off the clone drive as when booted off the internal drive? Or did it look like you were doing a clean macOS install setup?

[mightyduck]

More angry / aggressive response from you, man. ^^^ Its unnecessary. If you read what I wrote pretty much all your "questions" would be answered. You are kind of shooting from the hip.

FWIW, you appear to have been wrong about a few things, although your presentation makes it look as though you believe you could not be.

Anyhow:

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

What does that comment mean? What *exactly* did you do?

It means I do not want the entire 2TB dedicated to one small backup. That should be pretty easy to understand.

I did "exactly" what you said to do, to the extent that it was possible to do it.

As I've said several times you can change all that later.

Well, apparently not.

Please stop asking about partitions and partition sizes and either do what is suggested or tell us *exactly* what you have done. What exactly is on that clone drive now? Can you post a screenshot of Disk Utility showing all the drive containers/partitions.

Please stop being a hot head and trying to order me around. Maybe let some of the other cooler heads jump in and help. You fought with everybody before the thread was locked, and it looks like you are set to go at it again. I see this as a constant on this forum. You getting overbearing. "Scolding" people, disrespectfully, for allegedly not providing "proper information" for your "analysis". Enough. Not saying you don't provide information, btw, so that's good, and more than some do, but its the "tone" and the "I'm running the show" vibe.

What I wanted you to do is get a APFS partition on the drive. If you ended up with HFS+ it's no big deal. I am fully aware of all the different recommendations for what filesystems to use for what.

. Yeah, right.

No Applications. What *exactly* does that mean? You Have to explain stuff to us clearly.

I think what I wrote it very clear. You are having a hard time understanding perhaps.

What exact Applications do not appear and how exactly do they not appear. Where/how are you looking at stuff? Are you looking in /Applications in the Finder? Using Terminal? Talking about applications appearing in the Dock? On the desktop?

Enough with the b.s. minutia

In Terminal.app (do you have Terminal.app?) while booted from the clone type the following commands and paste the output here.

mount

ls -l /Application

Could you log in OK as the same user when booted off the clone drive as when booted off the internal drive? Or did it look like you were doing a clean macOS install setup?

Don't worry about it, man. If no one else wants to help because you are monopolizing the thread, then I will try a different forum. I have a working clone drive, its just weird that it won't format as APFS, or allow partitioning.

Amybody else? JFreak? Sardi?

[JFreak]

I think you need to format the whole drive as APFS to begin with, then you have the master container which can have several other APFS containers in it. It is just the same as partitioning, but APFS has introduced new terminology which causes confusion.

Also very confusing you can have a dozen 2TB containers (partitions) on 2TB APFS drive, as long as the used space combined fits in the master container; it is shared among all of its volumes.

Just try formatting it again, perhaps there is some fluke that requires you to "erase" your existing partition before you succeed to format APFS.

[mightyduck]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I think you need to format the whole drive as APFS to begin with, then you have the master container which can have several other APFS containers in it. It is just the same as partitioning, but APFS has introduced new terminology which causes confusion.

Also very confusing you can have a dozen 2TB containers (partitions) on 2TB APFS drive, as long as the used space combined fits in the master container; it is shared among all of its volumes.

Just try formatting it again, perhaps there is some fluke that requires you to "erase" your existing partition before you succeed to format APFS.

Well, weirdly, I did format the drive as APFS to begin with. I mean that's what I chose in the options. I did it right, but it turned into something else. I did it several times and it would never let me "partition" it, nor did it give the dialogue box for adding a new APFS volume.

When erasing / formatting I chose APFS and GUID partition map. That's consistent with the internal disk.

This has me annoyed and / or amused, so I'm actually going to erase the drive and do it again to see if I missed something.

[JFreak]

If it is APFS already, things should be pretty straight-forward. If it is something else, like HFS+ that's what I meant. Don't remember what I was doing wrong but one time I was multitasking too much and had some trouble formatting APFS the first time. Strange things happen when you don't pay attention.