Next all you have to do is plug the drive in to your system, install the cloning utility, and then configure it to create and maintain the clone.Ĭloning the system will copy all of your data and applications to the external drive, which means the size requirements for the drive will be higher than if you create a designated diagnostics drive. My recommendation here is Carbon Copy Cloner because of its abilities to regularly and automatically update the clone disk with changes you have made to your system. To create a clone, your diagnostics drive will need to be at least the same size as the amount of space used on your current drive (check this by getting information on your boot drive and checking the 'Space Used' section) and you will then need a reputable cloning utility. Keeping all of your installed programs up to date will ensure that the clone also contains updated versions as well, so if a problem happens with your system and you need to boot to the clone, you will be able to run with fully updated software. If you have diagnostics and hardware management tools installed on your system, then setting up a regularly updated clone will allow you to boot to the clone and run your diagnostics programs on your main boot drive if needed. This is perhaps the easiest method of creating an alternative boot device.

Therefore, if you are looking to create a diagnostics drive for your system, first go out and grab an adequately sized flash drive or external hard drive (either USB or Firewire are preferred, though any locally mounted drive will do), and then you can use the following options: These days alternative boot options are fairly cheap, fast, and reusable, and while boot DVDs can be used, they are not configurable and offer little benefit over using the alternatives. While some people may wish to create a boot DVD disc, doing so may be more of a hinderance than using alternative means. There are several approaches to doing this, and some have their benefits over others. In OS X creating an alternate boot device can easily be done, with no need to configure system files or jump through any hoops. Given how difficult it was to load and reload operating systems, this type of feature came in rather handy, but while current operating systems can be loaded and configured much easier, having an alterate boot source is just as important (if not more so) to have around. One of the convenient features in early versions of Windows (yes, Windows) was the ability to easily create an MS-DOS boot disk out of any floppy disk, which could then be used to troubleshoot certain problems with the system.

Create os x boot disk