System Image Utility 2: create NetRestore Image, failure at Preparing Image

The ' fsck_hfs -fry /dev/disk4s2' is supposed to defragment the disk to make this whole thing work. If that part fails, the rest of it is irrelevant. 😟

My apologies, I guess that's what I get for putting up info I received from someone else without actually trying it myself first.

Honestly, looking at the man page, I don't see the point of using the -shadow at all. The disk has been converted to read-write, which should allow the fsck_hfs to do its job. I'd just remove all of the -shadow references and try that.

Yes, based on what I gave you, this would make sense. Given that I don't see any point in using the shadow file though... I'd simply try:

hdiutil attach -mount suppressed "System.dmg"

and then try the fsck_hfs on the returned device.

I just wanted to add that I am in the same boat on this, fsck_hfs reports that volume can not be repaired.

I posted a different thread ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2190436&tstart=0) thinking that it may have been a different problem.

Message was edited by: UNH-MacJedi

Hey guys, i've been in the same boat for the past week and finally got a workaround. Here are the steps:

1. Create the 10.6.x image from a 10.5.8 client using Disk Utility.
2. Copy the .dmg over to the tool you use to restore(I use DeployStudio, so i just copied it to my Master image folder).
3. Perform restore.

I think a possible issue that i noticed with 10.6.x image creation was that the dmg(6.06GB) size was nearly half a gig less then the dmg(6.55GB) i created using 10.5.8 Disk Utility. I guess 10.6.x disk utility never finishes creating the image(DeployStudio would stop around 80%~), so you are left with a corrupted dmg file or missing files.

10.6 has filesystem level compression active on portions of system tree. I'm kind of surprised that you can even successfully image a 10.6 disk from 10.5.

Out of curiosity, what do you all have installed on your source volumes? I've built images from sources ranging from about 5GB-9GB in size with no problems.

That's odd because i wiped out the same iMac last week and performed a FRESH install of 10.6 updated to 10.6.1 with no extra addons and the NetRestore image creation failed with the same exact error message that everyone is experiencing here. The only way i have gotten this to work was with 10.5.8 Disk Utility.

Brian, what iMac model did you create a successful 10.6 image on? I am using the latest model(E8135 2.66GHZ Core 2 Duo w/ Nvidia 9400) shipped by Apple in summer 09.

Message was edited by: droque

I'm using a MacPro, not an iMac. My last few attempts were
- a clean install of 10.6 (on a 40GB partition)
- run software update & install all
-> Successfully built image
- added iLife & iWork
-> Successfully built image
- run software update & install all
-> Successfully built image

Then the issue may lie with the iMac's. Has anyone created a successful 10.6.x image on an iMac 10.6.x client using SIU or Disk Utility?

Message was edited by: droque

Bob, if that were true then i should of been able to create a NetRestore image with a fresh install of 10.6 with nothing touched but it failed the exact same way as my normal image. I believe the issue is caused only on the iMac models. I've yet to find anyone who has successfully created an image on the latest iMac model.

Brian,

I followed your instructions to the t and was able to successfully convert the image to rw format, preform the filesystem check, fix the catalog, convert back to udzo (compressed format), and pass the asr checksum w/o errors. How exactly does the SIU skip the "source image creation" stage? I renamed the image i had to System.dmg but it failed at exactly the same stage with the same error log.

Here is the output I received in terminal after command completion:
__

myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# hdiutil convert "FlexImage7.2.dmg" -format UDRW -o "FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg"
Reading whole disk (Apple_HFS : 0)…
...
Elapsed Time: 32m 19.965s
Speed: 78.5Mbytes/sec
Savings: 0.0%
created: /private/var/root/Documents/FlexImage7.2/FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# hdiutil attach -mount suppressed -shadow "FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg"
hdiutil: attach: missing image argument
Usage: hdiutil attach [options] <image>
hdiutil attach -help
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# hdiutil attach -mount suppressed-shadow "FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg"
hdiutil: attach: unknown "-mount" argument
Usage: hdiutil attach [options] <image>
hdiutil attach -help
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# hdiutil attach -mount suppressed "FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg"
/dev/disk2
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# fsck_hfs -fry /dev/disk2
** /dev/rdisk2
Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491~1).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
** Rechecking volume.
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking catalog hierarchy.
** Checking extended attributes file.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 284405 instead of 249070)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 87292 instead of 75136)
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 37444237 instead of 36755745)
Volume header needs minor repair
(2, 0)
** Repairing volume.
** Rechecking volume.
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking catalog hierarchy.
** Checking extended attributes file.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** The volume MacHD was repaired successfully.
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# hdiutil convert -format UDZO "FlexImage7.2-rw.dmg" -shadow -o "FlexImage7.2.dmg"
Preparing imaging engine…
Reading whole disk (Apple_HFS : 0)…
...............................................................................
(CRC32 $8E8551D5: whole disk (Apple_HFS : 0))
Adding resources…
...............................................................................
Elapsed Time: 3m 17.557s
File size: 4581662317 bytes, Checksum: CRC32 $9E258D31
Sectors processed: 311909984, 12540465 compressed
Speed: 31.0Mbytes/sec
Savings: 97.1%
created: /private/var/root/Documents/FlexImage7.2/FlexImage7.2.dmg
myserver:FlexImage7.2 root# asr imagescan --source "FlexImage7.2.dmg" --filechecksum
Block checksum: ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
File checksum: ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
asr: successfully scanned image "/private/var/root/Documents/FlexImage7.2/FlexImage7.2.dmg"

___

Note: I initially had my images stored in ~/Documents/, but was unable to get the hdiutil convert -format UDRW command to complete until I isolated the image I was working on in its own directory ( in my case ~/Documents/FlexImage)! In fact I read this thread 4 times and was not made aware of this detail until my colleague pointed it out to me!

Brian thanks for the info I know we must be close--if only i can make siu recognize the fixed image and skip that initial image creation like you said looks like this is a valid solution!

Error Log:
Create NetInstall Image
Initiating NetInstall from Restore Media.
created: /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP800/FlexImage7.2/System.dmg
Checksumming partition of size 63 blocks...done
Catalog file is too fragmented for restore.
Try "fsck_hfs -r" on writeable copy of the image volume
unable to get UDIF info from "/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP800/FlexImage7.2/System.dmg" - Bad file descriptor.
asr: image scan failed - Bad file descriptor.
Script is done.
NetInstall creation failed.
Image creation process finished...
Stopping image creation.
Image creation failed.