So I had been using Carbon Copy Cloner and even Time Machine in the past, but since upgrading to m1 and Ventura I’m lost. Is there any way to clone your user and restore it in the event you need to erase and restore the system due to issues, or are you only able to restore files…and forced to re-install all your apps again?
You can clone the Mac operating system to an external hard drive, erase the machine in macOS Recovery Mode, and then restore the Mac from the external hard drive. Here is how to do it;
-
Launch Disk Utility. To do this, you can use Spotlight Search to find and launch the application. Simply press the Command + Space bar at the same time and then type in Disk Utility. It will then show up as one of the results.
-
When Disk Utility is launched, select the backup drive used as the target drive and click Restore on the top menu bar.
-
Disk Utility will display a new window with a drop-down menu labeled Restore from. Select your Mac SSD (normally APPLE SSD XXX) from the drop-down menu as the source drive., then click Restore to begin the cloning process.
-
Boot into macOS Recovery mode and go to Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities window.
-
Select the Mac hard drive from the device list and click Erase. Follow up on the instructions to complete the erasure.
-
When the erasure is done, you can restore your Mac from the external hard drive.
-
Turn off your Mac and connect the external hard drive to your computer.
-
Turn on your device and boot it into macOS Recovery mode.
-
Select Disk Utility and click Continue in the macOS Utilities window.
-
Select your hard drive.
-
Click on the Restore tab at the top of the Disk Utility window.
-
Select your external drive next to Restore From.
-
Select your Mac’s hard drive next to Restore and click Restore.
-
Once the backup has finished restoring, restart your computer.