Howto: Securely Backup, Clone, Exchange, Upgrade your FAT SD card on a Mac

asantisquana said:

I just upgraded to a larger SD card for my phone and thought that a little howto on this topic might be useful for some of you.
So here is a simple guide for Mac users who want to backup, clone, exchange or upgrade their SD cards without having to manually copy file by file or worry about losing configurations etc.

Backup:

1. Mount the SD card on your Mac by connecting via USB or directly inserting the SD card into a card reader
2. Open 'Applications' -> 'Utilities' -> 'Disk Utility'
3. In 'Disk Utility' you should see your SD Card and it's FAT partition in the list on the left. Select the partition you want to copy and select 'New Image' on top of the window
4. Specify name and location for the image and press enter
5. Wait until it is done
6. Congratulations, you now have a backup of your SD card

Clone / Exchange / Upgrade (Requires Backup):

1. Mount your new SD card on your Mac by connecting via USB (through recovery) or directly inserting the SD card into a card reader
2. Open 'Applications' -> 'Utilities' -> 'Disk Utility'
3. In 'Disk Utility' you should see your SD card and it's FAT partition on the left. (3.b If necessary make a backup of your new SD card and/or format it)
4. In the menu bar click on 'Images' -> 'Scan Image for Restore...' and select the image (Backup) of your old SD card
5. After the Image has been scanned it is ready to be restored to your new SD card. Still in 'Disk Utility' right click on the new SD card in the list on the left and select 'Restore'.
6. Drag and drop or select your previously scanned image as the 'Source'. Drag the SD card from the list on the left into the 'Destination' field. If you want to you can select to erase the destination before restoring but it shouldn't be necessary.
7. Klick on 'Restore' and wait until it is done.

That's it

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