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Backup Mac OS X EL Capitan dual boot w Windows [GPT]

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Nov 5, 2012
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Motherboard
Gigabyte H77-DS3H
CPU
Intel Core i7 3770
Graphics
MSI Gigabyte GTX 1050 2GB + Intel HD 4000
Hi all,

I recently completed my build which includes an acer travelmate laptop running windows x and el capitan. The steps I followed for the installation:
Format the whole disk as hfs with gtp partition style and then created two partitions, one hfs and one exfat.
I installed mac on the hfs partition. Then I booted the windows installer and formatted the second partition as ntfs. Then booted again to windows installer and installed windows. I config chimera for legacy boot. Now my computer has three partitions:
EFI Partition | \
Mac Partition | = GPT Partition Style
Windows Partition | /

Does anybody know how to backup the whole disk to a restorable image ?
I have tried a sector-by-sector backup with easeus todo backup but when I restore it, it messes up something with windows and I can only boot to mac. (I think it says something about restoring mbr even though it is a gpt disk) ? Will clonezilla or aomei make any diferrence ? I cannot try to backup and restore using them beacuse if it fails like easeus todo backup I will have to reinstall windows...
 
Hi all,

I recently completed my build which includes an acer travelmate laptop running windows x and el capitan. The steps I followed for the installation:
Format the whole disk as hfs with gtp partition style and then created two partitions, one hfs and one exfat.
I installed mac on the hfs partition. Then I booted the windows installer and formatted the second partition as ntfs. Then booted again to windows installer and installed windows. I config chimera for legacy boot. Now my computer has three partitions:
EFI Partition | \
Mac Partition | = GPT Partition Style
Windows Partition | /

Does anybody know how to backup the whole disk to a restorable image ?
I have tried a sector-by-sector backup with easeus todo backup but when I restore it, it messes up something with windows and I can only boot to mac. (I think it says something about restoring mbr even though it is a gpt disk) ? Will clonezilla or aomei make any diferrence ? I cannot try to backup and restore using them beacuse if it fails like easeus todo backup I will have to reinstall windows...
Your best bet for a mixed OS X/Windows drive is a similar SSD/HDD and boot Linux Live distro to use the terminal command line dd if (your HDD) of (your backup HDD) to make a bit by bit copy. Note this is not the exact command - a little research on your part will get you to it. Also be aware dd (disk duplicator) is also known as disk destroyer if you get the order backwards as there is nothing to prevent you from copying a blank drive to your working drive.
 
Thank you for your reply, I know about the command dd but this will copy the disk as you said while I prefer a backup image. If I have to use the dd command that would mean I will need to buy a new harddisk to backup there, and use that disk only for this purpose. If I decided to do this would it be a problem to use a 250gb disk to backup a 240gb disk ?
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your reply, I know about the command dd but this will copy the disk as you said while I prefer a backup image. If I have to use the dd command that would mean I will need to buy a new harddisk to backup there, and use that disk only for this purpose. If I decided to do this would it be a problem to use a 250gb disk to backup a 240gb disk ?
Consider that you need a separate HDD/SSD to store the system image anyway, so why not make it a clone? What you could do is to use the Win10 imaging tool to create a recovery image, but it would only be for the Windows files - it would not include any other OS files. You would need a separate image for the OS X partitions and the Linux partitions, using the tools in each OS to create the images.
 
Consider that you need a separate HDD/SSD to store the system image anyway, so why not make it a clone? What you could do is to use the Win10 imaging tool to create a recovery image, but it would only be for the Windows files - it would not include any other OS files. You would need a separate image for the OS X partitions and the Linux partitions, using the tools in each OS to create the images.

I like to have my os installed on ssds and backup on 500gb,1tb hdds which I already have bought. However it seems there is no other way.
 
I like to have my os installed on ssds and backup on 500gb,1tb hdds which I already have bought. However it seems there is no other way.
You can create an image of OS X and an image of Windows, but there is no way I know of to use an app to create an image of OS X and Windows on the same drive. Another reason it is better to have separate drives for each OS you are running.
 
I tried the disk clone option with clonezilla (disk-to-disk) to clone the 240gb ssd to a 500gb hdd. Mac boot from the 500gb disk but windows dont. I tried to boot windows with supergrub but said there was an error with bcd. I booted windows recovery dvd and run the following commands: bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /scanos, bootrec /rebuildbcd, on the last command I chose Y since it detected the windows installation but then it failed with message 'the requested system device cannot be found'.
 
I tried the disk clone option with clonezilla (disk-to-disk) to clone the 240gb ssd to a 500gb hdd. Mac boot from the 500gb disk but windows dont. I tried to boot windows with supergrub but said there was an error with bcd. I booted windows recovery dvd and run the following commands: bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /scanos, bootrec /rebuildbcd, on the last command I chose Y since it detected the windows installation but then it failed with message 'the requested system device cannot be found'.
Most cloning apps like CloneZilla do not clone the non-OS partitions - i.e. it will clone the C partition, but not the RETools partition, the MSR partition, the EFI partition or the recovery partition if you have one.
 
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