Let’s dive into this mess, shall we?
So, first things first, cloning. It’s basically making an identical twin of your hard drive. Think of it like photocopying your entire brain – you want everything, including the memories (aka, your operating system) to be exactly the same. And you’re probably doing this to an external drive, maybe a fancy new SSD. Good move! But stuff goes wrong, doesn’t it? Because, you know, computers.
One thing I noticed in all the stuff I read is that you CAN’T clone *from* your main drive *to* it at the same time. Seems kinda obvious, but hey, we all make mistakes. It’s like trying to give yourself a haircut while looking in a mirror – you’ll probably end up looking like a poodle that’s been through a blender. So, yeah, gotta boot from another drive, like the MacOS Recovery mode, and use Disk Utility. That’s the “easy” way, they say. Easy for who, I ask?
Now, the *big* question: why isn’t your clone booting? Well, there could be a million and one reasons. Maybe the cloning software you used was a bit wonky. Maybe the external drive isn’t properly formatted. Heck, maybe a cosmic ray zapped your data during the transfer (okay, probably not, but it *could* happen!).
I gotta say, sometimes the “experts” act like it’s so simple. “Just clone your drive!” they say. “It’s a perfect one-to-one copy!” Yeah, right. Perfect until it isn’t. I remember one time I tried cloning, and it *seemed* to work, but then half my apps were missing. Seriously, where did GarageBand go? Did it run away to join the circus?
Another potential problem is related to that SSD upgrade. I saw someone complaining online that their old HDD was running at 100% all the time. That’s a bad sign! Could be your old drive is just plain dying, and maybe that corruption transferred over to the clone. Food for thought.
Honestly, troubleshooting a non-booting clone is a bit of a black art. You might have to try different cloning software (Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! seem to be the popular choices), or try reformatting the external drive and starting from scratch. And always, *always* check the logs for errors! I know, logs are boring, but they might give you a clue.
The whole point of a clone is to have a backup, a safety net. But if your safety net has holes in it, well, you’re gonna fall through. So, test your clone *before* you need it. Boot from it, make sure everything works. Save yourself the future headache.
And honestly? Sometimes it’s just easier to do a clean install of macOS on the new drive and then manually copy over your important files. It takes longer, yeah, but it can be less frustrating in the long run. Plus, you get to start fresh, like spring cleaning for your computer.
