Mavericks and Bootable Clone Failure - Ideas?

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
I am currently running Mavericks 10.9.1 on my 2008 MB Pro w 8GB of ram. I decided it was tinge to "clone" my boot drive so I download the trial of Carbon Copy Cloner (3.5.4) I formatted an existing 1 TB drive and ran CCC. The clone appears to go smoothly but the result isn't bootable. The external drive does not show if the Option key is held down during boot up nor does the Mac boot from that drive if it is selected in the startup pane.

Additional Data:

The initial clone was to one of the four partitions on the external drive. (Didn't work)
Have also tried cloning to a single partition on the same drive (Didn't work)
Disk Utility says external drive is formatted Mac extended, journaled, with GUID partition type.
External drive is in one bay of a two bay enclosure

Any thoughts/suggestions I am checking their site but haven't found anything on point so far. Also tried an SD clone with no luck.
 

chscag

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
65,248
Reaction score
1,833
Points
113
Location
Keller, Texas
Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
Disk Utility says external drive is formatted Mac extended, journaled, with GUID partition type. External drive is in one bay of a two bay enclosure

I've had this happen to me several times using CCC, and each time it was because the external hard drive was not setup correctly. Double check that the drive partition scheme is actually set to GUID. I don't think the two bay drive enclosure has anything to do with it not being bootable, nor the drive being partitioned.
 
OP
S

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
Disk Utility is telling me that the partition is GUID and IIRC Drive Genius is saying the same thing. I'll check tomorrow to be sure. I didn't think that the partitions or enclosure affected things but I wanted to be sure in case they had changed something. The fan on the enclosure is louder than I'd like (especially when it first starts) but that seems to be the only issue.

There are two other things I am going to try and check tomorrow:

1. Tech Tool reported some bad blocks on the boot drive earlier today. Ran a Disk Repair using Disk Utility but need to re-check that drive.
2. I'll Probably set either Tech Tool or Drive Genius to run an integrity check the external drive as well.
 

chscag

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
65,248
Reaction score
1,833
Points
113
Location
Keller, Texas
Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
If CCC was unable to render the drive bootable because of bad blocks, it would have told you so. Also, don't waste your time using Disk Utility to detect and repair bad blocks, it just isn't robust enough to do anything about them. Even to the point that sometimes it will tell you all is OK and it is not. Use Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior.

You can't repair bad blocks anyway, all you can do is hope that Disk Warrior or whatever software you're using can move the data away from the bad blocks and then lock them out from use. You may be looking at a drive which is starting to go south....
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
Do you have a lot of other drives attached to the machine? If so, you might try disconnecting (physically) some of them. I have observed that if there are too many devices attached, OSX doesn't display them all as candidates from which to boot. I haven't investigated to see if it was a one-time or repeating event as I figure if I HAVE to boot to recover my internal drive, I'll disconnect everything anyway.
 
OP
S

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
Thanks. I thought about the problem using DU after I posted that. I started running Tech Tool Pro about 3 a.m. this morning. I got up for a few minutes about 7:00 a.m. and checked on things. The Mac refused to wake from sleep. That could be because TTP really shows the system down while checking for bad blocks. Only thing that bothers me though is that it also refused to awaken a couple of seeks ago when I left the Windows VM running to update XP. Same refusal to awaken.

I too suspect a failing drive hence the desire for a clone. Shame too the drive is less than two years old. I thought about getting an SSD and Data Doubler combo but I'm not sure I want to spend that much right now. Especially on a machine of this age.:)

I could pool that dough, along with the hefty moderator stipend, and have a top of the range Mac Pro in a decade or so.
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
25,564
Reaction score
486
Points
83
Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
For what it is worth Sly abandoned CCC and went to SD couple of years ago whilst CCC was donationware. The only thing is SD does not manufacture the Recovery partition hence a need for the operating system on a USB thumb drive.

And no pinching' my posts buck lol!!
 
OP
S

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
@MacInWin Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think I've experienced that as I usually don't have that many connected at a time. Just tried your suggestion though and got the same results. There were two external drives both connected to the same drive bay but I was still unable to boot from the drive. I think I am going to try re-cloning with just that drive attached.

@harryb2448 SD produced the same behavior when I tried it a few days ago. Thought I mentioned it in the first post but looks like I didn't.

The machine has been performing well except for that rare wake from sleep problem/ I've also had issues with the Finder not wanting to empty some files suggesting they are in use when they shouldn't be (some haven't been opened by anything in weeks). Usually happens when I am deleting from my network storage (TC or Iomega EZ Backup).
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
25,564
Reaction score
486
Points
83
Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Back to failing hard drive suggestion.
 
OP
S

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
That's what I am afraid is happening. Since I can't seem to get a good bootable clone here's my plan of action. I'm hoping to complete it before the current drive fails:

1. Take the drive that was supposed to house the clone and install a minimal Mavericks install on it. .
2. Back up the remainder of the boot drive using CCC (Time Machine if CCC fails)
 
OP
S

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
This puzzle gets worse by the minute. Last night and today I tried re-downloading Mavericks and installing it onto a drive in that dual bay enclosure. The first time I tried "refreshing" the OS on the SD clone. The second time I tried installing Mavericks straight to a partition on that drive. Neither method has yielded a bootable clone.

I missed the opportunity to save the download both times so if I try again it will mean yet another download of Mavericks.

Edit: Tried again this morning with the same results. I did manage to save the file this time so no need to re-download. I am going to try a drive in a different enclosure. I have another drive in an enclosure. Unfortunately, if you insert a drive in it that has content on it you must format the drive in order to see it in the enclosure.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top