Cannot create disk image in Disk Utility

Try it again and after it fails open "Console" and post what it says...

I have same problem. I am trying to make an image of my hard drive onto a firewire lacie drive I have just purchased. Console reads:
Creating Image “MacBook Image.dmg”
Unable to create “MacBook Image.dmg”.
Resource busy.

Drive is preformatted for OSX and I have confirmed I can manually copy files to it.
Any ideas please.

Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Do you want to create an image or make an exact bootable copy?
The latter is best. In case of catastrophic failure of your internal drive you could boot directly from your external....

If your Macbook is a 80GB or whatever... and your lacie is a 300GB use the partition tool to make two partitions before you clone your MacBook.........!!!!!!

Try this. Open disk utility and highlight your MacintoshHD(the one you want to copy). In the options inside the window(FirstAid-Erase-RAID-Restore) choose restore.

For the source--The Top field--Drag the highlighted MacintoshHD to the source field.

Destination Field--Drag the image of your lacie drive(Thats also in the side bar below your MacintoshHD) to the destination field. click restore....

Options below--erase before you restore!!!!
This will duplicate your Macbook on that drive

Thanks but I think I have worked it out. Drive Utility does not let you make an image of the drive you have booted up from. I have now done it with superduper. Hope this will be better implemented in OS10.5.

That is what I use. But it can be done from the Restore option in disk utilities. Even while using your start-up disk.
But, Superduper seems to be faster.

Cheers, Glynn

Glynn;

You're a genius - THANK YOU!!!!

I just wanted to backup my HD before I upgraded to tiger again .. had my main HD go flakey on me and had to resort to my back up jaguar drive - You're a genius and this worked for me .. as I got the device busy message as well. I figured it was because I was on my start up drive, but didn't have the extra OS drive anymore to switch start up disks to do this.

Thanx so much for your answer!!!

Try this. Open disk utility and highlight your
MacintoshHD(the one you want to copy). In the
options inside the
window(FirstAid-Erase-RAID-Restore) choose restore.

For the source--The Top field--Drag the highlighted
MacintoshHD to the source field.

Destination Field--Drag the image of your lacie
drive(Thats also in the side bar below your
MacintoshHD) to the destination field. click
restore....

g4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I'm using disk utility 10.5.8 to make copies of a few personal DVD's.
I had no problem creating an image on 5 out of 7 disks .. and then burning copies .. on TWO disks.. I'm getting . "I/O errors" at the end of the disk imaging utility and the disk image is not created ... .the disks are practically brand new .. and clean.. Has anyone had this problem? I tries to checksum the disk as well... it went all the way to the end .. then I got the same I/O error message. thanks for any info on this.