This procedure provides command line instructions for restoring from full disk image backups made via the Linux-based command line program, ddrescue.

Procedure

Backup Location and Paths

Backups made with ddrescue will be located on their respective backup servers. For backups of Mac systems, look in the Mac Backups folder on the network. For PC Backups, look in the PC Backups folder. Sometimes, due to space considerations, you may find backups for Windows computers inside the Mac Backups folder and vice versa. Please check both locations if you’re having trouble finding the backup image.

Regardless of the source operating system, the backup should be named like 12345lastname.dd:

• 12345: The PCID of the device that was backed up
• lastname: The last name of the owner of that device
• .dd: The file extension

There will also be a 12345lastname.log file accompanying the .dd file. This is used in the backup process and has nothing to do with restoring the backup -- please ignore this file.

Mac - Mounting the backup as an image

This procedure can be performed on the customer’s computer or on a Shop iMac. If done on a customer’s computer, the restore can be completed directly from the raw disk image as if you had plugged in a shop drive with a copy of the customer’s data. If done from the Shop iMac, you will need to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the raw disk image to a shop drive, then connect it to the customer’s computer.

1. Locate the image in Finder
2. Open Terminal
3. Type the command: hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount filename
   1. Replace filename with the full path to the backup image. There are two ways to accomplish this:
      1. Delete filename and then drag and drop the backup image from Finder onto the Terminal window. This will paste the full path into your command.
      2. Delete filename and type out the path. Use the Tab key for autocomplete to reduce the chance of typos. For example, type /Vol and hit Tab to autocomplete /Volumes/. Note that if you are using this method, spaces must be preceded with a backslash () otherwise the command will fail.
   2. Example, for a file called 12345lastname.dd in the Mac Backups folder: hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount /Volumes/Mac\ Backups/12345lastname.dd
4. Open Disk Utility and mount the disk manually. It should be at or near the bottom of the list in Disk Utility.
5. Proceed to clone or copy the disk as if it were the original disk for the customer.

Windows - Mounting the backup as an image

This procedure should only be performed on a shop PC. Otherwise, follow the “Restoring the backup to a shop drive” section below.

1. On a Shop PC, install OSFMount.
2. Open OSFMount
3. Click “Mount new…”
4. Select the image file from the server and click Next
5. Select the partitions to mount. This will usually be the NTFS partition where Windows is stored, typically the largest partition on the disk. You can select multiple partitions if needed. Click Next.
6. Leave the rest of the options on default. Click Mount.
7. OSFMount will attempt to mount the partition. If successful, you should be able to double click on the device in the main window of OSFMount to open the partition in Explorer.
   1. If not, proceed to the “Restoring the backup to a shop drive” section.
8. Either copy the files directly to the customer’s new drive (such as a flash drive or external hard drive) or assign the Work Order to the Remote Team so they can set up a network transfer. You will need to have remote sessions on both the shop computer on which you performed these steps and on the customer’s computer.

Restoring the backup to a shop drive

It is possible to easily and accidentally overwrite the source file. Please defer to Jesse for restoring .dd images to a shop drive for the time being.