The details:
Creating the bootable macOS installer drive:
support.apple.com
It doesn't have to be a USB flash, thumb drive, like it says many places. It can be created on any APFS volume on any type of drive. I know people who need access to bootable installers across many, many versions, can have dusins of them on the same portable drive. After all, they don't take up much space, 10-15GB, and APFS volumes are nice in that they don't need to have their sizes set like partitions do, they use free space on the drive dynamically. (Edit: Correction: I forgot; as the Apple Support guide says; the USB bootable installer needs to be in MacOS Extended format, HFS+, so it can't be created on a APFS volume, it must be made on a HFS+ partition with a fixed size (if you don't use the whole drive). 30GB is OK.
Creating a backup of the Data part of the disk:
Create a TM backup.
Or create a new, empty APFS volume on an external disk, and make a disk image (.DMG) of your Finale drive in Disk Utilities:
Personally I use the .dmg method, because I haven't use TM in years, but also because I find restoring from dmgs easier and maybe more reliable than restoring from TM backup.
If the new mac (that was shipped with Sonoma or earlier, remember) has a later (or earlier) version of macOS installed, you proceed with installing Sonoma from the bootable installer. The disk will be erased and Sonoma installed and now have two volumes; (let's say it's called MacHD) the MacHD volume, that is unwritable and contains the OS, and the MacHD - Data that will eventually contain all user data, apps and so on. (these two volumes are in what's called a "volume group" and that's why it shows up a just one drive; "MacHD". It shows a combination of the two; both apps from the system volume and apps you install yourself on the "- Data" volume will appear in the Apps folder f.ex.)
This is basically the reason for this process being more convoluted than before, when we had a disk with a system folder that we could just copy and restore. The new "signed system volume" cannot be modified by other means than via macOS installers. All in the name of safety and security.
In this state, with the system installed, and the "- Data" volume pretty much empty, if you boot up the mac it will start with the "Hello" screen, like it was new, and you'd have to create a user etc. Instead, you restore the "- Data" volume with the .DMG you created from the Finale drive (using Disk Utilities in the recovery boot). The Disk is now pretty much a clone of that old drive, and when you boot it up you'll see all the familiar things and settings as before.
If you created a TM backup, the way to restore is to start the mac, "Hello", go thru the setup assistant ant tell it to restore from a TM backup when you get that option.
I'm sure I forgot something, but that's about it.
Bottom line; as long as you have the Sonoma bootable installer and a copy of the data (TM or .DMG), perhaps several copies in several places, you will be able to recreate your Finale disk on any Sonoma-compatible mac at any time in the future.
Creating the bootable macOS installer drive:
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system.
It doesn't have to be a USB flash, thumb drive, like it says many places. It can be created on any APFS volume on any type of drive. I know people who need access to bootable installers across many, many versions, can have dusins of them on the same portable drive. After all, they don't take up much space, 10-15GB, and APFS volumes are nice in that they don't need to have their sizes set like partitions do, they use free space on the drive dynamically. (Edit: Correction: I forgot; as the Apple Support guide says; the USB bootable installer needs to be in MacOS Extended format, HFS+, so it can't be created on a APFS volume, it must be made on a HFS+ partition with a fixed size (if you don't use the whole drive). 30GB is OK.
Creating a backup of the Data part of the disk:
Create a TM backup.
Or create a new, empty APFS volume on an external disk, and make a disk image (.DMG) of your Finale drive in Disk Utilities:
Create a disk image using Disk Utility on Mac
Use Disk Utility on your Mac to create a disk image.
support.apple.com
Personally I use the .dmg method, because I haven't use TM in years, but also because I find restoring from dmgs easier and maybe more reliable than restoring from TM backup.
If the new mac (that was shipped with Sonoma or earlier, remember) has a later (or earlier) version of macOS installed, you proceed with installing Sonoma from the bootable installer. The disk will be erased and Sonoma installed and now have two volumes; (let's say it's called MacHD) the MacHD volume, that is unwritable and contains the OS, and the MacHD - Data that will eventually contain all user data, apps and so on. (these two volumes are in what's called a "volume group" and that's why it shows up a just one drive; "MacHD". It shows a combination of the two; both apps from the system volume and apps you install yourself on the "- Data" volume will appear in the Apps folder f.ex.)
This is basically the reason for this process being more convoluted than before, when we had a disk with a system folder that we could just copy and restore. The new "signed system volume" cannot be modified by other means than via macOS installers. All in the name of safety and security.
In this state, with the system installed, and the "- Data" volume pretty much empty, if you boot up the mac it will start with the "Hello" screen, like it was new, and you'd have to create a user etc. Instead, you restore the "- Data" volume with the .DMG you created from the Finale drive (using Disk Utilities in the recovery boot). The Disk is now pretty much a clone of that old drive, and when you boot it up you'll see all the familiar things and settings as before.
If you created a TM backup, the way to restore is to start the mac, "Hello", go thru the setup assistant ant tell it to restore from a TM backup when you get that option.
I'm sure I forgot something, but that's about it.
Bottom line; as long as you have the Sonoma bootable installer and a copy of the data (TM or .DMG), perhaps several copies in several places, you will be able to recreate your Finale disk on any Sonoma-compatible mac at any time in the future.
Last edited:
