Q: Creating a Mavericks Bootable Install *DVD*
I have performed this procedure:
Creating a bootable OS X installer in OS X Mavericks
to create a bootable Mavericks installer on USB stick. I then discovered that my 2008 Mac Pro doesn't suppoort booting from a USB stick. Booting with the option key, the USB stick doesn't show up in the list of bootable media (it does show up on my MacBook Pro though, so the procedure did work).
I'm not sure how to think this procedure could be adapted to burning a bootable installer DVD - that since a DVD isn't an ordinary read/write volume like a USB stick (you can't just "write" a DVD like a USB volume; you have to "burn" it). Anybody have any thoughts on that?
Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), 8x2.8GHz, 2560x1600 Cinema HD
Posted on Oct 1, 2014 10:58 AM
Thanks for the suggestion, and yes, I do in fact have the factory Snow Leopard disk.
The AppleCare folks I chatted with, a few weeks ago when I had a problem that seemed to be a bad Mavericks update, but actually turned out to be a video-card failure, confirmed my expectation that I could do that. The downside is that they said that I'll have to waste the drive, install from Snow Leopard, upgrade to Mavericks, and then restore from a full backup or from Time Machine. That, since there are various files that have been updated for Mavericks and could cause problems even for short-time use with Mavericks.
So I'm thinking that'll be "plan B," in the event of disaster. "Plan A" will be to hook up the MacPro in target-disk mode and install it from the MacBook Pro.
In the meantime, I think I need to do any or all of the following:
- Periodically, make sure the TM backups are going as usual, and also, that I can restore from TM, every now and then. I recently had a disk problem with my TM disk that didn't cause any problems for backups, but it just hung forever when I tried to restore anyting.
- Once every couple months or so, do a full backup via Disk Utility (it's an almost-full 2TB RAID, so it takes about a day and a half to backup!).
- Keep the ol' DiskWarrior maintence of the drive and its TM disk going, once a month or so.
- Investigate the feasibility of installing an internal System Disk separate from the RAID, preferably a SSD.
- Start saving up for replacement Mac Pro system!
Posted on Oct 13, 2014 10:58 AM