Save Unibeast USB stick to file

[KZh]

Hi everyone.

I managed to install my 1st hackintosh around a month ago, and would like to format my USB stick to use it for something else.

But I'd like to save it before, in case of emergency, you know

Is it possible to clone it, for example into an image file, and restore it easily if needed ?

I'm not sure, especially because of the hidden partition ...


Thank you, and have a nice day.

 

[Feartech]

Hi everyone.

I managed to install my 1st hackintosh around a month ago, and would like to format my USB stick to use it for something else.

But I'd like to save it before, in case of emergency, you know

Is it possible to clone it, for example into an image file, and restore it easily if needed ?

I'm not sure, especially because of the hidden partition ...


Thank you, and have a nice day.

best to buy a new usb stick, keep that somewhere safe in case you ever need it

 

[KZh]

Of course that can be a solution, but an USB stick can crash, and I don't want to restart all the road from the beginning

Do you know a way to save it ?

Thanks

 

[KZh]

Sorry to insist, but nobody have a clue how to copy it on a file ?

Please, friends

 

[dakishimesan0]

Here are a few things you may try:

1. Use Disk Utility to create an image of the "Install macOS..." volume of the Unibeast USB drive, and then mount the EFI partition of the Unibeast USB drive and copy/save the files in the same location as your volume image. Then later down the road, you can restore the image to a blank USB drive, mount the EFI partition and overwrite the contents with the back up EFI you made. However, I have had mixed results with this technique due to macOS being finicky about restoring to certain drives.

2. Use a bootable utility like a Linux live CD or Clonezilla. In the case of the latter, there are built-in tools to image any kind of drive including all partitions.

3. If you have access to a Windows machine, here are several options you might consider. I think most of these make a bitwise copy of the drive and so are capable of imaging non-NTFS file systems.
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/make-fu...d-usb-flash-drive-and-mp3-players-by-imaging/

 

[dakishimesan0]

They also discuss this, including Clonezilla step-by-step, in this thread.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/drive-cloning.203712/

 

[utof]

I used a Live bootable USB with Ubuntu. (Always good to get a live Ubuntu on a spare old 2GB USB thumb, like to fix EFI entries with efibootmgr, mount /EFI partition to repair Clover or some efi files, and many other things...)

Once Ubuntu session launched, plug your Unibeast USB thumb and go to to Disk Utiliy, then select "create a disk image" for that USB disk.

Then choose where you want to save this .img file, and keep this file with a good care.

Later when you want to restore this disk image to a USB thumb, then you can use Etcher https://etcher.io/ (it works on Linux/Mac/Windows).

I do confirm it works perfectly, as I've made a backup file of my Unibeast USB thumb as file, and then I've restored it several times.

 

[KZh]

Thanks, I will test soon.

Too bad there is no software that can do that, directly from macOS by the way ...

Have a nice day

 

[utof]

I even did a complete backup of the whole disk of my macos install (a 256GB SSD) with this method on an external disk (1TB HDD), just in case... As I did lots of tests on it, so if I mess something during my experiments I could just restore the whole disk exactly as it was. But to restore a whole SSD/HDD I prefer to use the "Restore Disk Image" feature of Ubuntu Disk Utiliy (Etcher is good only for removable media like SD cards and USB keys).

 

[KZh]

I understand.

I will certainly do it too, but first, I want to save my installation stick