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Bootable Backup Script Template

The Bootable Backup script template is for making backups of your entire boot volume, such that if your hard drive fails, you can boot directly from the backup drive and continue working immediately, allowing you to restore/reinstall when convenient.

Synk automatically includes and excludes portions of the operating system that should and should not be included in a bootable backup, and performs the "blessing" of the backup copy so it's recognized by the system as bootable.

If you encounter a failure, connect the backup copy to the computer, and turn the computer on while holding down the "option" key on your keyboard. Select the backup copy from the menu that appears to boot from it. You can also swap over to boot from it anytime (say, for testing) from a running computer via System Preferences > Startup Disk.

This script template may be chosen when you create a new script.

Setup you MUST do:

Synk at the very least needs to know where you want the backup copy to be stored. To be bootable, this destination must be an internal or external drive directly connected to your machine, formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), using a GUID partition table, with ownership enabled. Don't worry if you don't know what this means! We'll walk you through it and it'll just take a minute.

Need more guidance? See Specifying Locations.

Recommended setup:

At this point, you're generally in good shape! Synk uses sensible defaults, so the remaining settings are probably already what you want. Try turning on the script to begin the mirroring. If you want to approve Synk's actions before it takes them, to make sure you have it configured the way you want, you can use the Preview Proposed Actions setting.

Many other settings are available if you want to further customize the way the script works. See Script Settings.

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