Formatting a bootable DVD

Question

Formatting a bootable DVD

What format and partition scheme would I use (with Disk Utility) if I wanted to create an image for a bootable DVD?

Message was edited by: BoySetsTheFire

MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Sony Vaio, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 10, 2008 7:13 PM

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Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jun 10, 2008 7:30 PM in response to BoySetsTheFire

if you are talking about creating a backup copy of the leopard install DVD you need to make a disk image of it using disk utility and choose DVD/CD master for Image format. then burn it. You'll need a dual layer DVD for to burn to.

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Answer 2

Jun 10, 2008 7:48 PM in response to V.K.

For image format, I only see read/write, sparse, and sparse bundle. I don't see DVD/CD Master.

And what would I select for the partition?

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Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jun 10, 2008 7:53 PM in response to BoySetsTheFire

your source has to be a DVD. select a DVD first. then when you click on "new image" the only options for the image format are read/write and DVD/CD Master. there are no other options to choose.

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Answer 4

Jun 11, 2008 3:56 AM in response to V.K.

That helped, and I was able to create a boot DVD. But I still have not achieved my objective, so i should explain that next. I have DVDs that will boot my machine, such as DiskWarrior, Data Rescue, etc. I would like to create a single boot DVD that will contain all those apps, and others such as Disk Utility.

Using one of those DVDs, I created a .cdr image, removed the existing application from the applications folder and put in an application of my choice. Then I burned the image onto a DVD. The DVD booted my machine, but only had Startup in the menu and the window that opened showed the startup choices. I could not access the application I had placed into the applications folder.

Any help here would be appreciated.

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Answer 5

bdmarsha

Level 4

2,580 points

Jun 11, 2008 4:13 AM in response to BoySetsTheFire

I cannot answer your question about accessing your own apps on the optical disk. However, I would suggest making a bootable flash drive using DasBoot. It will do what you want and your Mac will boot much faster from it than from an optical disk. A 1 GB drive will provide plenty of space for Diskwarrior and a couple other utilities. If you need to boot PowerPC Macs, then you need a Firewire flash drive, which is a bit more expensive.

bd

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Answer 6

Jun 11, 2008 4:39 PM in response to bdmarsha

Good idea, unfortunately DasBoot no longer works with the new 10.5.2 or 10.5.3. But my Data Rescue disk has the new startup files, so it's just a matter of transferring them to a disk or flash drive. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Message was edited by: BoySetsTheFire

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Answer 7

Király

Level 6

10,025 points

Jun 11, 2008 4:55 PM in response to BoySetsTheFire

Creating bootable DVDs in Mac OS X is not an easy task. A Mac OS X install has to have writable disk space somewhere in order to boot, and a DVD of course is read-only. So a RAM disk would need to be set up.

There is a utility called BootCD that did exactly what you want, but the last version of OS X that worked with it was 10.3. The developer was never able to get it working properly under 10.4 (I was one of his beta testers) and AFAIK, it is now abandonware.

Your best bet will to get an external hard drive, install OS X and your utilities on it. Better yet, get a cloning utility like SuperDuper and use it to maintain a bootable clone of your main HD on the external. Then you can boot into it any time you want and run utilities on your main HD. And, you'd have a nice backup as a bonus.

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Answer 8

Jun 11, 2008 6:53 PM in response to Király

Thanks - good advice. Actually, I have two external firewire clones kept current with CarbonCopyCloner. They have all my utilities on them, naturally.

But I wanted to learn how to do this so that I could set up a small, portable flash drive (USB) just for the convenience (and the fun of learning how). I'm not even sure you can boot a new MacBookPro from USB.

Because Apple has now released the startup files, and Data Rescue has a working boot DVD, I figured I would look into it again.

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