Mac mini drive clone with superduper won't boot

[gixxerfool]

I wanted to upgrade my 2008 mini's 120G internal drive to a 1Tb SSD hybrid. I checked several resources to clone the drive to the new with minimal fuss.

-I installed my new drive into an external enclosure.
-formatted the drive with a single partition of 1Tb Mac OS extended (journaled)
-I ran superduper and cloned the new drive from the old one.
-I shut down the machine and started and held option and selected my cloned drive as the startup disc. Worked as expected. Everything in tact
-I swap the old drive with the new.

Now when it boots it gives me a file folder with a flashing question mark. I booted with an install disc and opened disc utility. The drive has been renamed and it has two partitions. One is the same size as the drive I cloned, but it's in MS DOS FAT as a master boot record and the partition had been renamed. I did this twice with the same results.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance guys.

 

[philipma1957]

I wanted to upgrade my 2008 mini's 120G internal drive to a 1Tb SSD hybrid. I checked several resources to clone the drive to the new with minimal fuss.

-I installed my new drive into an external enclosure.
-formatted the drive with a single partition of 1Tb Mac OS extended (journaled)
-I ran superduper and cloned the new drive from the old one.
-I shut down the machine and started and held option and selected my cloned drive as the startup disc. Worked as expected. Everything in tact
-I swap the old drive with the new.

Now when it boots it gives me a file folder with a flashing question mark. I booted with an install disc and opened disc utility. The drive has been renamed and it has two partitions. One is the same size as the drive I cloned, but it's in MS DOS FAT as a master boot record and the partition had been renamed. I did this twice with the same results.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance guys.

So you have a 2008 2.0 c2d machine? with 2gb-4gb of ram? what is the os snow L, L, or ML?


My guess is the os is trying to turn your hdd into a fusion drive since it is part ssd. (a seagate I assume) try this hdd instead.



http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Travelst...=UTF8&qid=1381756888&sr=8-1&keywords=hgst+1tb

 

[gixxerfool]

Yes. It's a 2008 Mini C2D with 4g ram and I'm running snow leopard. It is a seagate drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ The drive has been renamed and it has two partitions. One is the same size as the drive I cloned, but it's in MS DOS FAT as a master boot record and the partition had been renamed. I did this twice with the same results. ]]

This may seem like an irrelevant question, but...
What make is the _external enclosure_ that you used to create the clone?

 

[gixxerfool]

[[ The drive has been renamed and it has two partitions. One is the same size as the drive I cloned, but it's in MS DOS FAT as a master boot record and the partition had been renamed. I did this twice with the same results. ]]

This may seem like an irrelevant question, but...
What make is the _external enclosure_ that you used to create the clone?

It's a newer technology mini stack.

 

[jbarley]

I installed a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive in my late 2012 mini without any problems.
The only difference in my upgrade routine to yours is that I used Carbon Copy to clone my original drive over to the new Seagate.
Even on my late 2012 mini running Mountain Lion there was never an issue with the OS trying to create a 'Fusion Drive' for me.

 

[gixxerfool]

I installed a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive in my late 2012 mini without any problems.
The only difference in my upgrade routine to yours is that I used Carbon Copy to clone my original drive over to the new Seagate.
Even on my late 2012 mini running Mountain Lion there was never an issue with the OS trying to create a 'Fusion Drive' for me.

That's my next attempt. Is there anything I'm missing otherwise in my process? Thanks for the reply.

 

[jbarley]

That's my next attempt. Is there anything I'm missing otherwise in my process? Thanks for the reply.

You did not mention it, so I will.
When you partition the hybrid drive did you select and set the partition table to "Guid"?

 

[gixxerfool]

You did not mention it, so I will.
When you partition the hybrid drive did you select and set the partition table to "Guid"?

Yes. It was on that by default. The first time I didn't. The second I double checked it.

 

[jbarley]

Something else to try, go to the SuperDuper website and click on support, now explain your problem to Dave Nanian the author, he has always responded quickly to any problems I had with SD.

 

[Fishrrman]

More suggestions and thoughts....

Try CarbonCopyCloner instead of SuperDuper.
You can download CCC for free, and use it free for 30 days.

Try a DIFFERENT enclosure.
I would suggest you spend $25 for a USB3/SATA "docking station".
These are _VERY_ useful devices to have around when working with drives and doing things like you're trying to do now.

To see what's available in docks, go to amazon.com and enter "usb sata dock" in the text search box -- you'll get many hits

I would suggest one of these:
http://plugable.com/products/USB3-SATA-U3
http://plugable.com/products/pss-dd1
http://plugable.com/products/pss-sdh1
(No financial interest - just a paying customer here)

Try the following procedure:
- Take OLD drive out and put into enclosure
- Put NEW drive into the Mini
- Boot to the external enclosure (hold down option key at startup to bring up startup manager)
- Once booted from the OLD drive in the external enclosure, intialize NEW drive inside Mini to single Mac partition, GUID partition table, journaling enabled (case INsensitive)
- Do a _CLEAN_ system software install to NEW drive inside Mini
- DO NOT try to copy your old OS "over from" the OLD drive in the external case.
- When installation is finished, disconnect external and try to boot Mini on its own.

What happens now?
Do you get a good boot?
Do you get to the "create your new account" screen?

IF you DO get a good boot, try this next:
- Create a new account (for lack of a better word, call it a "test" account). The idea here is to get a working account on the NEW drive in the Mini
- Go to software update and update the OS to current specs
- At this point, RE-connect the OLD drive in the external enclosure
- Use Migration Assistant to migrate over your existing account, apps, data, prefs, etc. from the OLD drive.

Granted, this is a "roundabout way" of getting things done, but the point here is to find a "process that works", when the one you've already tried doesn't....

 

[gixxerfool]

More suggestions and thoughts....

Try CarbonCopyCloner instead of SuperDuper.
You can download CCC for free, and use it free for 30 days.

Try a DIFFERENT enclosure.
I would suggest you spend $25 for a USB3/SATA "docking station".
These are _VERY_ useful devices to have around when working with drives and doing things like you're trying to do now.

To see what's available in docks, go to amazon.com and enter "usb sata dock" in the text search box -- you'll get many hits

I would suggest one of these:
http://plugable.com/products/USB3-SATA-U3
http://plugable.com/products/pss-dd1
http://plugable.com/products/pss-sdh1
(No financial interest - just a paying customer here)

Try the following procedure:
- Take OLD drive out and put into enclosure
- Put NEW drive into the Mini
- Boot to the external enclosure (hold down option key at startup to bring up startup manager)
- Once booted from the OLD drive in the external enclosure, intialize NEW drive inside Mini to single Mac partition, GUID partition table, journaling enabled (case INsensitive)
- Do a _CLEAN_ system software install to NEW drive inside Mini
- DO NOT try to copy your old OS "over from" the OLD drive in the external case.
- When installation is finished, disconnect external and try to boot Mini on its own.

What happens now?
Do you get a good boot?
Do you get to the "create your new account" screen?

IF you DO get a good boot, try this next:
- Create a new account (for lack of a better word, call it a "test" account). The idea here is to get a working account on the NEW drive in the Mini
- Go to software update and update the OS to current specs
- At this point, RE-connect the OLD drive in the external enclosure
- Use Migration Assistant to migrate over your existing account, apps, data, prefs, etc. from the OLD drive.

Granted, this is a "roundabout way" of getting things done, but the point here is to find a "process that works", when the one you've already tried doesn't....

Thanks so much for the suggestions and help. I was about to try a different enclosure. Someone else had recommended CCC as well. I connected the developer of SD and he didn't really help with my problem. I will try your method next and see if that works instead.

Something I noticed, not sure of the relevance, if I put the new drive in the enclosure, disk utility sees the single partition as it should. If I put the new drive in the mini and boot holding C with the install disc and opening DU it sees it with the two partitions. One that mirrors the original drive setup as a MBR and the remainder of the 1Tb as Mac os extended journaled.

Like i said I don't know if it's relevant, just something I noticed.

 

[Negritude]

It's obvious that this drive has not been properly formatted and partitioned. If you can still see any trace of the original MBR partition, then you did something wrong. You need to go back to square one and completely wipe out all existing partitions on the new drive. You need to remove the partitions explicitly, and not just format. You need to make sure that there is only a single GUID partition on that drive.

It could also be that this type of drive is somehow incompatible with the drive controller in your 2008 mini. That's an old computer in tech terms, and there may be something that is preventing it from reading the hybrid drive correctly.

One other thing to try is to put your old drive into the enclosure and the new drive into the machine, then see if you can boot from the external drive and then run the format and clone that way, preparing the new drive while it is installed in your machine internally.

 

[gixxerfool]

More suggestions and thoughts....

Try CarbonCopyCloner instead of SuperDuper.
You can download CCC for free, and use it free for 30 days.

Try a DIFFERENT enclosure.
I would suggest you spend $25 for a USB3/SATA "docking station".
These are _VERY_ useful devices to have around when working with drives and doing things like you're trying to do now.

To see what's available in docks, go to amazon.com and enter "usb sata dock" in the text search box -- you'll get many hits

I would suggest one of these:
http://plugable.com/products/USB3-SATA-U3
http://plugable.com/products/pss-dd1
http://plugable.com/products/pss-sdh1
(No financial interest - just a paying customer here)

Try the following procedure:
- Take OLD drive out and put into enclosure
- Put NEW drive into the Mini
- Boot to the external enclosure (hold down option key at startup to bring up startup manager)
- Once booted from the OLD drive in the external enclosure, intialize NEW drive inside Mini to single Mac partition, GUID partition table, journaling enabled (case INsensitive)
- Do a _CLEAN_ system software install to NEW drive inside Mini
- DO NOT try to copy your old OS "over from" the OLD drive in the external case.
- When installation is finished, disconnect external and try to boot Mini on its own.

What happens now?
Do you get a good boot?
Do you get to the "create your new account" screen?

IF you DO get a good boot, try this next:
- Create a new account (for lack of a better word, call it a "test" account). The idea here is to get a working account on the NEW drive in the Mini
- Go to software update and update the OS to current specs
- At this point, RE-connect the OLD drive in the external enclosure
- Use Migration Assistant to migrate over your existing account, apps, data, prefs, etc. from the OLD drive.

Granted, this is a "roundabout way" of getting things done, but the point here is to find a "process that works", when the one you've already tried doesn't....

I didn't have a chance to get to this until last night. This worked perfect. First time out. I just formatted and installed SL fresh. Then I used migration assistant to brig everything over. Took just as long as it did with SD and CCC.

Thanks again.