How to Clone Hard Drives for Macs

Creating a clone of your Mac's hard drive is a good idea for everyone. In case something happens to your computer, you should have a bootable back-up copy of your hard drive so you will not loose any data or work you had on your Mac. Luckily, Intel Macs running on Panther or later have the handy Disk Utility program that allows you to clone your Mac's hard drive to an external source very easily if you do not already have Time Machine.

Things You'll Need

• Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
• External hard drive with Firewire support

Instructions

1. Plug your external hard drive to your Mac and turn the external drive on.

2. Open Disk Utility in your Applications/Utilities Folder.

3. Select your hard drive from the list on the left side of the window.

4. Click on the "Restore" tab.

5. Drag your hard drive into the "Source" field.

6. Drag your external hard drive into the "Destination" field.

7. Click "Restore." A clone of your hard drive will be copied onto your external hard drive.

Tips & Warnings

• An external hard drive that connects to your Mac with a USB cord can hold a copy of your hard drive, but you cannot boot up from that hard drive if your computer crashes.

• Clone your hard drive every month to be safe.

References

• Midwestern Mac: Backup Strategy for Mac OS X Using Disk Utility

Resources

• Apple Support: Time Machine 101