Backing up from Monterrey12.0.1

[maw_walker]

No worries! I was curious myself. I think imaging is faster to restore but I have never had to. I’ve actually never even had to use time machine to restore, except for the few times I’ve gotten a new Mac. For me, installing an operating system is easy so I only care about my data. I do see the point of imaging though: I think it’s faster to restore and possibly less work but I’ve never done it so can’t say for sure.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

Thanks! I tried, but support site has closed registration for new users, so Nanian is "unavailable" at his ShirtPocket discussion forums site. So I'm still wondering what I should do about this warning message concerning HSF+ and APFS formats.

I sent an email this morning on an issue with updates and SSL certificates and Dave emailed a reply and solution within 2 hours. I have always been impressed with the speed of his replies and his general helpfulness.

 

[DanL]

Really? As far as I know, since the introduction of the dual volume (system and data) setup in macOS Catalina, clones from SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are no longer bootable. The quickest way to test them is through System Preferences -> Startup Disk. The cloned drives do not show up in the selection, nor can you see them from the selection with an Option keypress on startup.

For that matter, Time Machine drives are no longer on the list of boot drives either. My solutions for doing a full restore is by reinstalling macOS from Recovery and migrating data from Time Machine or from SuperDuper/Carbon Copy Cloner clones; or you can install macOS from an external installer disk or memory stick.

On the contrary, SuperDuper DOES still do bootable backupts. The procedure is a little different though, and you can read about it in Dave's blog. Yes, it is pretty silly that System Preferences-Startup Disk doesn't show such boot options, but Power+Boot does. So SystemP Preferences->Startup Disk is NOT a way to test it. Power+Boot is where you hold the power button in to get boot options, and replaces the Option+Boot strategy we used to use. Option+Boot doesn't do anything anymore, so don't be deceived

 

[TonyAguila]

On the contrary, SuperDuper DOES still do bootable backupts. The procedure is a little different though, and you can read about it in Dave's blog. Yes, it is pretty silly that System Preferences-Startup Disk doesn't show such boot options, but Power+Boot does. So SystemP Preferences->Startup Disk is NOT a way to test it. Power+Boot is where you hold the power button in to get boot options, and replaces the Option+Boot strategy we used to use. Option+Boot doesn't do anything anymore, so don't be deceived

That’s weird. Maybe it’s because of the hardware. Boot+Option still brings up the list of startup volumes for me. Your Power+Boot (press and hold the power button) does an SMC reset on mine.

I did further tests with SuperDuper. I cloned a macOS 12.1 Beta (21C5021h) system to an SSD APFS container but it would not boot. However, cloning to a hard drive APFS container makes it bootable. The problem is it takes forever to start up and work from a spinner—not viable.

I have had an opportunity to familiarize myself with SuperDuper but decided that Carbon Copy Cloner is still the better option for my needs.