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Level 1

87 points

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

Two new Intel iMacs running 10.6.1.

Booted source machine in target mode. Created image on external FireWire drive. In SUI, selected the source, and chose NetRestore Image.

The created image:

-rw-r--r--@ 1 root staff 9882697406 Sep 30 12:07 System.dmg

--

System Image Utility 2 (SIU), v. 10.6 (438).

Left pane
Sources
Macintosh HD 1 http://that is how SIU interprets the \"Macintosh HD\" mounted volume of the machine I'm imaging (i.e., I'm sure it adds \"1\" to make the name unique).

Right/main pane
Netrestore of master LLCimage
√ Creating Image from Source http://i.e., success
Preparing Image for Restore http://i.e., failure
Creating NetRestore Disk Image http://i.e., failure
Creating Bootable System http://i.e., failure
Copying Source Image http://i.e., failure
Creating NetBoot System http://i.e., failure
Finishing up http://i.e., failure

--

Log:

Starting image creation.
Workflow Started (2009-09-30 10:15:01 -0700)
Starting action: Define Image Source
Finished running action: Define Image Source
Starting action: Create Image
Starting image creation process...

Create NetInstall Image

Initiating NetInstall from Restore Media.

created: /Users/LLC/Desktop/20090930_0948/NetRestore of Macintosh HD 1/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 "/Users/LLC/Desktop/20090930_0948/NetRestore of Macintosh HD 1/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.

ACTION ATTEMPTED:

$ sudo fsck_hfs -r System.dmg

System.dmg is not a character device

--

Repaired permissions on source, made sure machine running SIU would not go to sleep, same failure.

Bob

2009 iMacs, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 30, 2009 12:42 PM

41 replies

Oct 30, 2009 9:12 AM in response to uzumaki_slug

In order to skip the original image creation, SUI needs to find System.dmg in the location that it would otherwise create it.

Pulling from your log, it looks like you tried to create this:
-> /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP800/FlexImage7.2/System.dmg

Thus, your location was "/Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP800" (really? how did you get that?) and you named the image "FlexImage7.2". To get SIU to "find" your existing image, simply copy it into the "FlexImage7.2" folder and re-run the exact same image build. You'll probably see a message to the effect of "this folder already exists" but that's OK, it won't actually delete it.

Nov 18, 2009 10:54 AM in response to Brian Nesse

Here's a little script I wrote to do this... it worked for me.
The input parameter is the full path to the disk image needing defragmenting.
The resulting image (defraggedImage.dmg) is built in the same folder.

---------
#!/bin/sh

output=`hdiutil attach -mount suppressed -shadow /tmp/imageShadow "${1}"`
theDevice=`echo "$output" | awk '{print}' | grep 'Apple_HFS' | awk '{print $1}'`

fsck_hfs -fry $theDevice
hdiutil detach $theDevice

hdiutil convert -format UDZO "${1}" -shadow /tmp/imageShadow -o "`dirname "${1}"`/defraggedImage"
rm /tmp/imageShadow

Nov 22, 2009 5:48 AM in response to Brian Nesse

Hello,

I had the same problem as you did with a new MacBook Pro. Partition 1 as my admin and imaging system, partition 2 as the system to be deployed later on other macs. Could it be SIU is very picky about the state of the file system on both partitions?

My observation: Sometimes Mac OS X just doesn't react at all (black screen for more than 60 seconds beyond my patience. Not as stable as some fanboys make you thing it is). So after a hard reset I booted into console mode with "alt" "cmd+s" of each partition and made a "fsck -fy" and "mount -uw /" to repair both filesystems without a hassle.
Bam! SIU works.

Sorry I have to rant: You can say about MS want you want. But at least their deployment utilities are more corporate grade than Apple's. And: Isn't a journaled filesystem main purpose to prevent things like these we have here?

Bob222 Author

Level 1

87 points

Dec 1, 2009 11:23 AM in response to Percy Pricksworth

I just tried again using SIU 10.6.2 (and OS X 10.6.2), and everything appears to have worked. I realize others in this thread may have slightly different issues, but I'm going to mark my question as answered. Thanks for everyone's help.

Bob

Dec 9, 2009 6:09 PM in response to Bob222

So I was having the same issues as everyone else without any luck with the tips. To make work I used Carbon Copy Cloner to create a dmg of the drive where I built the OS, then mounted the DMG and made the image using SIU from the dmg. What's odd is I wasn't able to make that process work on a client with admin tools, only on the server itself.

Dec 10, 2009 11:57 AM in response to Jesse Cole

Never mind, only worked once and the install wouldn't complete on the machine.

Jan 11, 2010 5:21 AM in response to Bob222

Good morning. I was shown this topic after helping a colleague get past the failure of creating an image with SIU. For weeks I was crashing with the setup below. SIU would fail or even worse my machine with restart in the middle of the process.

Setup:
10.6.2 workstation
System Image Utility 2 10.6.2(439)
NetBoot/SP0 folder created in the proper place

Latest image of machine on FW drive with all updates and tweaks that I would like.

The one variable I changed that I have since been able to create my NetRestore image is I completely removed McAfee virus scan/Spyware/EPO from the machine doing the imaging. Disabling it does not work, as it can't really be disabled, but complete removal has allowed me to make and tweak my NetRetore images as I used to.

I hope this can help someone.

Feb 26, 2010 7:10 AM in response to why a new alias?

If this works sir..... You will be my hero.. It wouldn't be the first time McAfee has jacked stuff up with my imaging.... Trying this now..

Mar 5, 2010 6:43 AM in response to PuppyStomper

nope.... 😟

Mar 8, 2010 2:14 PM in response to PuppyStomper

So, not sure if anyone got this from Apple Support, but here is the workaround they gave me for fsck errors with NetRestore.

Mount your image machine via firwire, or create a RW .dmg of your image and run the following on it before creating your NetRestore image in System Image Utility.

The Netrestore issue may be resolved by running the command:
sudo fsck_hfs -fry /dev/partitionid
(you can get the partition id of the TDM volume in the Disk Utility Get Info window for the volume)

mamunoz

Level 1

0 points

Mar 31, 2010 10:44 AM in response to Bob222

10.6.3 Seems to resolve the issues with this.

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