Clone won't boot

[dnanian]

As you know, you can use "Backup - all files" with "Smart Update" to copy the entire data volume to a drive and then install the OS over it, if you'd like to try that. I can't see how it would cause a problem with a separate partition.

[sdsl]

Originally Posted by gbdoc

I don*t want to risk messing up my external drive which is partitioned for a clone + Time Machine)

Just a random editorial comment -- putting a clone and a Time Machine backup on the same physical drive is not a resilient backup strategy. If a power surge takes out both your Mac and the physical drive, you lose everything. I have seen external drives fail with first one partition won't mount rapidly followed by the other one becoming inaccessible. Much safer to put the clone and the Time Machine backup on separate drives. Then you would feel more secure about installing a clean system on one of those physical drives as you would still have a good backup on a separate device in case something went amiss.

[dnanian]

Yes, as I recommend in my own "best practices" post, you want both software and hardware redundancy.

[gbdoc]

I*ve been bugging you about creating a bootable clone. Now I*ve done it, and even more: I also wanted to offload Windows stuff from my MBAir M2 which was filling up onto an external drive and use it via Parallels Desktop. Now I've done it and it all works.

Just FYI, so you can advise others:

I got an OWC Envoy Express and fitted it with a 1 TB OWC Aura P12 Pro (very fast, very easy installation; also fast, customs-free delivery from OWC's Belgian branch), on which I created 3 volumes, Windows, Stacks (for sundry stuff, no programs), and a bootable clone (which boots nearly as quickly as my Mac). That last was a little tricky. I first make a clone with SuperDuper!, after that, I installed OS Ventura 13.1 on that volume, then I had to allow that drive to boot, administrator privileges, and a little back and forth, but it finally works. Now I have a 1.5 TB MBAir rather than just my built-in 512 GB, at an additional price of *225.00. And if I ever need to have to even more external storage space (I don*t think I will), Aura P12 Pro*s come in up to 8 TB.