Time Machine is great for everyday backups and simple file restores, but it only gives you the ability to restore your system after reinstalling OS X. But what if disaster hits, and you don't have this kind of luxury? A full clone of your Mac’s hard drive can really help get you back up and running in a matter of minutes. Read on to find out how to make a bootable clone of your Mac's main hard drive and come back from a data disaster.

What You Need:

>> External drive as large as your internal drive (USB or FireWire)
>> Carbon Copy Cloner (free)

1. Erase and Format Your Drive

To begin, connect your external drive and open Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities/). Once opened, click on your drive in the sidebar, and click on the Partition tab.

Ensure that “1 Partition” is selected from the drop-down menu labeled “Partition Layout". Next, specify a name, and select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” from the Format drop-down menu. Finally, click on the Options button near the bottom of the window.

In the new dialog, ensure that “GUID Partition Table” is selected, and then click the OK button. This setting will enable the disk to be booted from.

Click the Apply button to apply the partition changes; you will be prompted to accept the changes by clicking on the Partition button in a pop up dialog. After a few minutes, the drive will be reformatted, and the partition changes will be applied.

2. Clone that drive!

To start the cloning process, open Carbon Copy Cloner. In the Source drop-down menu, select your Mac’s hard drive (usually Macintosh HD), and in the Destination select your external drive that we just partitioned.

To begin cloning, click the Clone button. This will start the file copy process that, depending on the used space on your Mac’s drive, could take a while.

You will get a completion dialog when the file copy process has finished. When you see this dialog, you know that your external drive contains a complete clone of your Mac’s drive. You will want to repeat this Carbon Copy Cloning process ever so often in order to keep the clone up-to-date.

3. Boot, Boot, Boot

When your Mac’s internal drive fails, simply plug in your external drive with the clone on it, and boot your Mac while holding down the Option key. When you see the external drive show up in the list, click it and your Mac will boot into the external drive copy of Mac OS X.

With a clone, you can get back up and running a few minutes, giving you extra time to get your Mac's internal drive fixed and operating normally again.

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