Restoring from bootable clone

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As part of the precautions I am advised to take before I turn in my iMac for the 1Tb HD replacement recall, I will be making a bootable clone on a separate external hard drive, using either Super Duper or Carbon Copy Clone (haven't decided yet! Any thoughts?). I presume the iMac will be returned to me with the new HD empty, i-e nothing on it. My question is this.
a. How do I restore form the bootable clone?
b. Will it restore EVERYTHING, and put it back as it was before.
c. Once I have finished restoring from the bootable HD, how do I make my subsequent
boot be from the new internal HD, as usual?

Also what is the best way to "clean" the old drive before I taker it in?

Thanks for your help.

Kevin
 

bobtomay

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I prefer SuperDuper!. However, if you have 10.7 or 10.8 would recommend CCC as it also creates the recovery partition.

You would boot to the clone and clone it back to the internal drive.
Yes, that's why it's called a "clone".
Shut down, disconnect the external and reboot the machine.

??What version of OS X do you have? If 10.7 or 10.8, I'd just boot to the recovery partition and format the drive.
 
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If you have a Bootable USB of the OS SuperDuper! does a admiral job. I have the registered version and couldn't be happier.

EDIT ~ And it was Harry below that put me onto SD and with his many vast years of Mac's i flowed his great advice and went that way as well. Have never looked back.
I no now that CCC has become a pay App as well, but not sure what the extra features out. CCC and SD both have downloadable non $ versions but for piece of mind and a few bucks it well worth it in the end.
 
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Likewise but be aware SD does not clone the Recovery Partition. That is why one needs the Lion/Mountain Lion installed on a USB thumb drive. If you don't have that consider CCC.
 

bobtomay

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And always boot to the clone after you have made it to verify it is working, all your stuff is there and it is functioning properly.
 
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And always boot to the clone after you have made it to verify it is working, all your stuff is there and it is functioning properly.

Ok folks, thanks for all your help! I just did a clone to an External 1Tb Hard Drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. To test it, I then went into System Preferences / Startup Disk, selected the External HD, and did a restart. Checked a number of applications and documents; everything was as I had left it. So now I am ready to take my imac in for its HD replacement. However, I just noticed something. When I do a Get Info on the Mackintosh HD (internal) I get Capacity - 999.86, Available - 854.81. So I must have used up 145.05 gb. When I do the same on the External HD with the cloned info, I get Capacity - 999.86, Available - 876.76, with a resultant usage of 123.10 gb..If it is a CLONE, should the numbers not be EXACTLY the same? Why am I missing the 21.95 gb? Anything important?
Kevin
 
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Have you ever installed BootCamp on a separate partition? Go into Disk Utility and check out the drive contents. When you get the iMac back it may well have Mountain Lion OS X.8.2 installed. Hook up the external and when it appears on the desktop, go into Utilities and use Migration Assistant to transfer everything over. Be aware large applications like some Adobe and Microsoft Office may have to be re-activated.
 

bobtomay

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It will not have cloned the sleep image file - mine is typically > 4GB, nor does it clone virtual memory that is in use which could be another few GBs.

I have not delved into exactly what is not copied, but I've been using SD! for over 6 years (would guess CCC does similar) and appears to me that the only things it does not copy are the items related to your current boot session that are deleted when you shut down anyway.
 

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It will not have cloned the sleep image file - mine is typically > 4GB, nor does it clone virtual memory that is in use which could be another few GBs.

I have not delved into exactly what is not copied, but I've been using SD! for over 6 years (would guess CCC does similar) and appears to me that the only things it does not copy are the items related to your current boot session that are deleted when you shut down anyway.

Right as usual sir. CCC behaves the same way. This FAQ response gives a few reasons for the file sizes not matching.
 

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