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@nicnilov
Last active August 5, 2023 09:04
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Attach and mount a macOS system drive raw image
===
Create a raw image
===
# Find the drive identifier
diskutil list
# Unmount the cached drive representation
diskutil unmountDisk <disk>
# Use the raw drive representation for higher speed. The cached one is extremely slow with dd.
# See for details: https://superuser.com/questions/631592/why-is-dev-rdisk-about-20-times-faster-than-dev-disk-in-mac-os-x
sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk<n> of=<path to image file> bs=32m
===
Mount the raw image
===
# Attach the raw dd image as a device
hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage <path to image file>
# Or use -nomount to create the device but not mount the volumes
hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount <path to image file>
When mounting a macOS drive image with FileVault encryption, the Data volume will not be automatically mounted.
To mount an encrypted volume:
# Find out the volume UUID
diskutil apfs list
# Unlock and mount
diskutil apfs unlockVolume <volume UUID>
===
Clean up
===
Unmount a volume:
hdiutil detach <volume>
Detach the drive:
hdiutil detach <disk>
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