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Old 05-09-2021, 06:05 AM
Guy Kuo Guy Kuo is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 12
Yes. It's definitely only happening on my 10,1 Macbook Pros (mid 2012 and early 2013). My newer machines are able to boot from USB with a FileVaulted Catalina Clone. This USB/Filevault booting issue with 2012's was also reported for Mac Mini's.

I posted the issue here to save some poor soul from having to figure out the issue the hard, long way. It was a couple days of cloning, filevaulting, and smart updating, attempted booting with three different versions of SuperDuper before I discovered the clones were actually OK post Filevault encryption. The Macbook Pro 10,1 machines are simply incapable of booting from Filevault encrypted USB drives. I have not tried with thunderbolt drives.

SuperDuper 3.3.1 is creating Catalina 10.15.7 (build 19H1030) clones just fine via erase and copy. Also, smart update works on the FileVaulted clones. One just cannot boot from them due to some weird limitation of the Apple hardware or firmware of that age.

I had some ASR failures happen near end of system files copy with SD 3.5 b2, but it might have been due to multiple keychain entries of the same name for external drives.

If I didn't have to carry some of my backup drives on a regular basis, I'd be somewhat OK without whole disc encryption. Unfortunately, FileVault encryption is the bare minimum I need. So, I can't run around without FileVaulted clones.

If I need to do a full recovery, I'll just have to use a bootable, unencrypted "tool" volume that has SuperDuper, boot off that, and use it to copy back the FileVaulted clone. Less convenient, but still doable.
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