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User profile for user: peterspaints
peterspaints Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Monterey external boot problems. Help needed.

I have the question about making time machine restores bootable. ( Or how to make an external drive your boot disk with the files from a time machine backup). There is a thread that is closed that addresses that need but discussions are referring to older OS. Now that we are in Monterey, and both Super Duper and CC Cloner have newer versions and features I'm having a lot of trouble doing this.

I have tried a couple of things. I used Terminal for the first time and was pleasantly surprised I was able to make a Monterey boot disk doing this. But when I tried to add a TM backup to it, it wasn't bootable. I suppose each time you add the TM backup it copies it on the disk erasing what is there. I'm not sure where to turn and I will appreciate your thoughts on this.

One final note, the reason I need this is that I bought a 2020 iMac with a flash drive of only 500 MB. I didn't consider that any of my backups would need around 15 Gigabytes of space to be restored on to the HD. I have a 2 TB External Disk that I want to use as my boot disk.

Thanks in Advance, Sammy

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 6, 2022 9:35 AM

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User profile for user: etresoft
etresoft
User level: Level 9
51,038 points

Posted on Oct 6, 2022 9:52 AM

peterspaints wrote:

One final note, the reason I need this is that I bought a 2020 iMac with a flash drive of only 500 MB.

Do you mean 500 GB?

I didn't consider that any of my backups would need around 15 Gigabytes of space to be restored on to the HD.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. You do need a certain amount of working space to either backup or restore. If your backup is way bigger than 500 GB, you can move your home directory to an external drive and then manually restore the entire thing from your backup. This will restore the all-important "Library" folder containing your e-mail and lots of other settings. You can still use Time Machine to restore your just apps and "other files" from backup.


Then, you can export your old e-mail that is "On my Mac" to a more stable location. Turn on iCloud Drive Desktop and Documents, and/or archive your other big files to some other location until you get to the point where your home directory is only about 300 GB.

I have a 2 TB External Disk that I want to use as my boot disk.

No. You don't want to do that. What is the point in spending a lot of money for a super-fast new iMac and then slowing it down to external hard drive speeds? You are just wasting your money. Identify the 300 GB of files that you really need on a daily basis and copy those over. Leave the rest on the external disk where you can eventually forget about them.

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User profile for user: etresoft
etresoft
User level: Level 9
51,038 points

Oct 6, 2022 9:52 AM in response to peterspaints

peterspaints wrote:

One final note, the reason I need this is that I bought a 2020 iMac with a flash drive of only 500 MB.

Do you mean 500 GB?

I didn't consider that any of my backups would need around 15 Gigabytes of space to be restored on to the HD.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. You do need a certain amount of working space to either backup or restore. If your backup is way bigger than 500 GB, you can move your home directory to an external drive and then manually restore the entire thing from your backup. This will restore the all-important "Library" folder containing your e-mail and lots of other settings. You can still use Time Machine to restore your just apps and "other files" from backup.


Then, you can export your old e-mail that is "On my Mac" to a more stable location. Turn on iCloud Drive Desktop and Documents, and/or archive your other big files to some other location until you get to the point where your home directory is only about 300 GB.

I have a 2 TB External Disk that I want to use as my boot disk.

No. You don't want to do that. What is the point in spending a lot of money for a super-fast new iMac and then slowing it down to external hard drive speeds? You are just wasting your money. Identify the 300 GB of files that you really need on a daily basis and copy those over. Leave the rest on the external disk where you can eventually forget about them.

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Monterey external boot problems. Help needed.

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