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Cloning an image using Thunderbolt and Disk Utility (post–El Capitan)
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hdiutil: create failed – error -5341
Usually if I have an .app I want to import into Munki, I just use munkiimport nameofapp.app, and Munki automatically creates a read-only disk image (.dmg) with the .app inside. For some reason, with the mBlock.app, I kept getting a 5341 error. I tried this workaround, but I still got the same error. What worked…
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Restoring a Mac partition to its full size
Usually, when you add a new partition to a Mac using Disk Utility, you can then just (minus sign) delete the new partition and Disk Utility will automatically expand your first partition to take up the free space. Occasionally, Macs will act weird and not fill up the free space and, more importantly, not let…
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Still waiting for root device on an iMac
I’ve had fairly good luck cloning Macs using Disk Utility and a Thunderbolt cable. Recently I ran into one stubborn one that wouldn’t boot up properly after the re-image. It went straight to a flashing Do Not Enter symbol. That was a bit confusing. Was there a physical connection problem with the drive? I could…
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Restore Failure: An error (32) occurred while copying. (Broken pipe)
The problem If you are Cloning an image using Thunderbolt and Disk Utility (or even using Firewire instead of Thunderbolt), you may come across this error message: I’ve actually never experienced that with Thunderbolt (not saying it can’t happen), but I’ve had it happen twice using Firewire. At first I thought it was the cable…
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How many times do you have to write zeros or random data to a drive to securely delete data?
Conventional wisdom says that you need to do many passes of zeros, ones, combination of zeros/ones, and then random numbers in order to securely erase a drive so that its data cannot be recovered. But is this true? The folks at HowToGeek make a good case for one pass of zeros being enough: HTG Explains:…
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Fix for disk erase failed couldn’t unmount disk
If you’re trying on a Mac using Disk Utility to erase a hard drive and it won’t unmount, giving you an error similar to Disk erase failed. Couldn’t unmount disk, then you may have to force an unmount through the terminal. Launch up Terminal.app (through /Applications/Utilities or through a Spotlight search). Then paste in the…
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Cloning an image using Thunderbolt and Disk Utility
Why would you do this? It’s fast. Over Thunderbolt, cloning a roughly 30 GB (of used space) image takes only a few minutes. Minimal additional cost. Sure, you probably paid money for your Macs, but this method uses only included software… and one US$40 cable. No external media or extra setup. You don’t have to…