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User profile for user: Steven Garner
Steven Garner Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Disk Utility Ghosting

I am wanting to ghost an exact installation/configuration of Mac OS X 10.4 eventually to a DVD. I took an external 30 GB Firewire drive (TOSHIBA MK3017GAS Media) on my PowerBook G4 and made 3 equal partitions.

On partition 1 I installed Mac OS X Installer, so that I could install OS X directly from the hard drive volume to other hard drive volumes. The procedure worked flawlessly for this as outlined at:

http://guides.macrumors.com/InstallingMac_OS_X_10.4_withoutDVD

On partition 2 I installed a working copy of OS X, updated, Xcode tools added, and configured with Webmin, PHP, MySQL, Asterisk, SNORT, MapServer, Apache, BIND, and CHROOTED OpenSSH, which I want to duplicate on multiple servers. I then made a new compressed disk image from disk (no encryption) using Disk Utility version 10.5.3 (198.5), saving the image to partition 3.

I then erased partition 2, and used the Restore function of Disk Utility to attempt to restore the disk image to partition 2. It came back with "An error (16) occurred while copying. (Resource busy)". I then attempted to scan the image for restore - On the Restore panel it states "You can prepare a disk image for restoring by selecting 'Scan image for Restore' from the Images menu. This allows a volume to be checksummed after a disk image is restored." It came back with "Unable to scan "diskls14.dmg" - internal error".

Somewhat flummoxed, I ran Disk Utility First Aid on the entire Firewire drive, and it came back with "Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk. 1 HFS volume checked. Volume passed verification." Indeed I could not unmount the volume or eject the drive from the desktop. After restarting the computer, I repeated everything doing Disk Utility First Aid first (which came up clean) - after repeating EVERYTHING above, I got the same error messages, including the "Could not unmount disk" error.

Any suggestions? Should Disk Utility be able to do this, or is it outside its scope? Other postings on here regarding ghosting suggest using FireWire target disk mode ( http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583), which I cannot do as I would need my PowerBook G4 configuration to be the one I want to replicate. And other postings suggest NetBoot alternatives with the Mac OS X Lab Deployment Workshop ( http://www.bombich.com/mactips/workshop.html).

Steve Garner

1.5 GHz PowerBook G4, 1 GB DDR SDRAM, External 30 GB TOSHIBA MK3017GAS Media Firewire drive, Mac OS X (10.4.5), Disk Utility Version 10.5.3 (198.5)

Posted on Feb 25, 2006 11:47 AM

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12 replies
User profile for user: a brody
a brody
User level: Level 10
82,981 points

Feb 27, 2006 10:05 AM in response to Steven Garner

Welcome to Apple Discussions!

For situations where you don't have a DVD drive and have Tiger supported computer, your best option is the Media Exchange Program on http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/ 's right hand side. If you are not in the U.S., supply the country code to the URL to find that Exchange Program, such as:

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/upgrade/

For network based installs, you may want to check the Mac OS X server discussion:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=313041&tstart=0

A lot of those utilities you mention aren't commonplace for installation of regular client installs, though there is a PHP and MySQL client for Mac OS X client, and Personal Websharing will begin an Apache server.

As far as ghosting, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you need. The error during verification sounds like data corruption, or directory integrity issues.
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User profile for user: m fukami
m fukami
User level: Level 3
785 points

Feb 27, 2006 12:19 PM in response to a brody

it does sound like a directory corruption on the external drive and while disk utilities might fix it, it might not. for directory issues I use disk warrior which works most of the timeand when it doesn't that disk is usually toast...

as to ghosting, there are not as many simple solutions to this issue as there are on the windows side but 2 of the packages I use are as follows.

netrestore which is very good but a bit slowish on the creation side by mike bombich. this is what i use for my school network since I am moving toward a pc support model, if i can't fix it in 10-20 minutes I wipe the machine and restore to a common config.

and superduper, which I use at home for a more versatile package.

both programs will make a restorable image from a working install. once that is done both will allow you restore to a disk or partition from another booted partition or drive.

for a complete wipe and install to a single partition I like netrestore since it allows you to rename the computer and a few other items after the restore and before a restart
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User profile for user: Steven Garner
Steven Garner Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Mar 3, 2006 2:54 PM in response to Steven Garner

I really appreciate your responses to this one and all. I have looked at the drive with a number of utilities from Disk First Aid to Norton, and it comes up clean on all volumes. To eliminate the drive from the question, I tried the same process on a completely different system - a Blue & White G3 with two SCSI drives, and lo and behold I got exactly the same error result!

Taking my investigation one stage further I tried to use the Disk Utility application to restore a partition on either computer from a disk image of the Mac OS X Install DVD from the other computer, inputting the source in the format http://ipaddress/disk.dmg, and I got a different error on restore: "Restore Failure. An error (-536870206) occurred while copying."

Maybe this systemic error is because I am doing something wrong every time. I had created the disk image file in Mac OS X 10.4.5 using Disk Utility 10.5.3:

- select the "2.5 GB MATSHITADVD-R UJ-825" icon in the list of volumes on the left-hand side of Disk Utility (and NOT the Mac OS X Install DVD)
- select "Disk Image from disk 1..." from the "New " pull-out menu of the "File" menu of the Disk Image application.
- select "Image Format" as "Compressed" and "Encryption" as "none"
- save the the disk.dmg file in /Library/SebServer/Documents, and turn on Apache (Personal Web Sharing), so that I could access the disk image file from the Restore pane of the Disk Utility application of the other computer.

What am I doing wrong here? How are you supposed to use the Restore with a disk image from a web server capability of Disk Utility? Is it supposed to be a full image or a sparse image? Is it in fact supposed to even be a .dmg file?
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User profile for user: a brody
a brody
User level: Level 10
82,981 points

Mar 3, 2006 3:54 PM in response to Steven Garner

Norton is not safe to use with Mac OS X. In fact it has been a utility like Russian Roulette with luck ever since Mac OS 8.1. Get rid of Disk Doctor and Speed Disk.

On many systems it has chronically damaged hard drive directories with only a way that Disk Warrior can solve it. And some not even Disk Warrior can solve it.

Use Prosoft Data Rescue if your data is not backed first, then try repairing with Disk Warrior. If your data is backed up, try repairing with Disk Warrior. And if it doesn't work, then recover from your backup after an erase and install.

Remember when erase and installing, never to leave third party peripherals or drives connected, as in some situations, that cause also the drive to permanently disappear if it doesn't have a firmware update.

Please read my FAQs:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html

Disclaimer: Reference to links I make to my Macmaps.com website are a for your information only type reference. I do not get any profit from this page, and it is open to the public.
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User profile for user: BigBadBo
BigBadBo
User level: Level 1
35 points

May 9, 2006 10:52 PM in response to a brody

I am trying to do the exact same thing at the moment: install an OS X upgrade to a Powerbook with a bum DVD drive. The logic behind the whole theory of creating an installer disk image on a FW drive makes sense and seems like it SHOULD work, a la MacOSX Hints article: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051227162152292&lsrc=osxh

However, having partitioned, used NetRestore to do the image file and so on, I get these annoying 'Resource Busy' error(16) errors. Even if I relaunch everything, attempt to unmount everything, I can't get it to work. In COnsole, my log file claims it 'The image "Mac OS X Install Disc 1.dmg" is already mounted and cannot be used.'

Is there some way of unmounting a disk image? Is that really the problem here?
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User profile for user: BigBadBo
BigBadBo
User level: Level 1
35 points

May 10, 2006 3:50 PM in response to BigBadBo

Just to put this one to sleep from my perspective, I found that I needed to create the whole disk image again from scratch, close all programs associated with the .dmg file, launch Disk Utility and then do the Restore without making a mistake. If it has to do it twice, it won't work. But do it right the first time and it'll go through the process properly. One thing that stuffed me up the first time as well was that one partition was MacOS Standard instead of MacOS Extended, which didn't work right and caused an error.

Aside from that, my OSX install disc 2 comes up with the same error to do with not being able to create a .dmg whether I use NetRestore or Disk Utility to create it. Faulty disc? I also couldn't get it to install on a G4 Powerbook in the end for some reason, but that's another issue!
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User profile for user: a brody
a brody
User level: Level 10
82,981 points

May 10, 2006 6:12 PM in response to BigBadBo

Bigbadbo,
If the solutions in this thread don't apply to you, please click on the Post New Topic at the beginning of the board:

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=752&start=0

First off, you'll get a wider audience who may be able to solve your problem. Secondly, responses to you won't confuse the original poster with solutions that don't apply to them. And thirdly, you'll know for certain whether or not a response applies to you.
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Disk Utility Ghosting

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