User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Creating a Mavericks Bootable Install *DVD*

I have performed this procedure:


Creating a bootable OS X installer in OS X Mavericks


to create a bootable Mavericks installer on USB stick. I then discovered that my 2008 Mac Pro doesn't suppoort booting from a USB stick. Booting with the option key, the USB stick doesn't show up in the list of bootable media (it does show up on my MacBook Pro though, so the procedure did work).


I'm not sure how to think this procedure could be adapted to burning a bootable installer DVD - that since a DVD isn't an ordinary read/write volume like a USB stick (you can't just "write" a DVD like a USB volume; you have to "burn" it). Anybody have any thoughts on that?

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), 8x2.8GHz, 2560x1600 Cinema HD

Posted on Oct 1, 2014 10:58 AM

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28 replies
User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
140,249 points

Oct 1, 2014 11:06 AM in response to mr88cet

I then discovered that my 2008 Mac Pro doesn't suppoort booting from a USB stick.

That's news to me.


Did you have this USB stick plugged into a USB on the chassis itself, not on a display or other Hub? USBs on a Hub do not come active until later in the boot-up process.


--------


The process originally proffered for creating a Bootable DVD for 10.7 Lion still works for 10.9 Mavericks -- it has just become less popular because it takes at least 15 minutes to copy the data before you can start the Install. I made such a (dual Layer) DVD for 10.9, and it works fine, but it sure is slow to get going.

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User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Oct 1, 2014 11:36 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

This particular Mac Pro is pretty old – 2008. It also has a soft RAID, and since Snow Leopard, Mac OS does not support ... I forget what it's called: that second bootable disk partition for diagnostic purposes – containing disk utility, for example ... on soft RAIDs.


Anyway...


So, I gather you would expect above procedure to work for a DVD? The reason why I would not necessarily expect it to work is that DVDs to have to be burned, last I heard at least, in a single continuous "spiral grove," so to speak, so there needs to be an organized, one-time burn of the information going onto it. I wouldn't expect to be able to write to a DVD the way I could to a "hard disk" type of medium. So, maybe this program can see that destination volume is a DVD, and therefore know to perform the burn of the medium?

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
140,249 points

Oct 1, 2014 11:51 AM in response to mr88cet

There was a very telling demo when the early CD drives became part of the standard equipment for Macs. Steve jobs collected a bunch of files into a folder and then burned them "automatically" to a CD. The audience went wild with delight, and Steve said something like, "Don't applaud for that, that is the way it should work. So YES, your Mac kows the difference between an optical drive and a "regular" drive, and does the right thing when appropriate.


But that is completely beside the point for this procedure, because the DVD is burned deliberately from one Icon in Disk Utility in one operation (not from a collection of files).

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
140,249 points

Oct 1, 2014 11:55 AM in response to mr88cet

If you are attempting to put a 10.7 Recovery_HD (the replacement for the Installer/Utilities DVD) onto a RAID drive, you are correct that it will not be installed on a RAID-ed Boot Drive.


I strongly question the need for RAID-ing your Boot Drive in the first place. It makes more sense to me to move your data files off to a different Data drive, and RAID that Data drive. There is extremely little benefit to RAID-ing in the Boot Drive.


User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

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User profile for user: The hatter
The hatter
User level: Level 9
61,031 points

Oct 1, 2014 12:28 PM in response to mr88cet

you can create an installer volume on any disk drive partition. But it needs to be about 16GB and using a DVD today is just rarely done and maybe not successfully even then - even though the term "DVD" might be used in some placed. Heck people still say "CD" for the old installer DVDs (OS X has not used or been able to fit on a CD or series of CDs since 10.3 at least if then)


And flash drives of 16GB are cheap easy to use (slow) but can be reused again, a small partition on any drive, even your TimeMachine drive - just shrink and add the partition there - work and is faster and easy to use. Just use DiskMaker and use the tip sheet on Anandtech.com that goes in depth or MacWorld - just Google, lots of "How To" out there.


RAID is perfect - - for scratch, sometimes. For system? No, there you want an SSD for just your system and apps, and darn cheap as well as blindingly fast.

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User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Oct 1, 2014 12:46 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

(Well, 10.9, not 10.7, but anyway.)


As far as I can tell, it can't boot from any external drive, or at least not external USB drives (or at least not a USB stick). I haven't tried Firewire drives for that purpose yet, though. When I boot with the option key down, only internal drives show up. Booting "C" doesn't catch it either.


As for not booting from the RAID, that occurred to me, and that would be fine, but the RAID and the CD/DVD are the only internal drives I'm not immediately sure if there are any drive bays or controllers left on which to install another internal drive; I'd have to check...

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User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Oct 1, 2014 1:07 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

So, in Creating a bootable OS X installer in OS X Mavericks, the shell command that does the job is:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app


so, /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app is writing to the target volume. I don't see Disk Utility being involved...


Another question that comes to mind is, if the target volume is a DVD, how would the target volume be named? That is, what would the argument of the --volume switch in that command be. I just tried inserting blank CD into the drive, and I don't see any evidence of it:


Last login: Mon Sep 29 22:35:03 on console

Big-Mac:~ mr88cet$ ls /Volumes

Big Raid TM Backup

Big-Mac:~ mr88cet$ ls /Volumes

Big Raid TM Backup

Big-Mac:~ mr88cet$


Oh, perhaps you're suggesting that I can create a volume name for the DVD in Disk Utility, which will then appear in /Volumes? I just stuck a blank CD into the drive and popped up Disk Utility, and I don't right off see way to do that, but perhaps I'm missing it?

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User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Oct 1, 2014 1:15 PM in response to lllaass

(To clarify, the Mac Pro is working now, but I'm trying to ... improve my odds should something go wrong again in the future.)


But, yes, I was able to access it from the MacBook Pro in target disk mode when it died a week or two ago (fixed now).


So, I suppose what you're suggesting is that, if it should require a new Mavericks image installed, I could:

  • Boot up the Mac Pro in target disk mode, connected to the MacBook Pro,
  • Boot up the MacBook Pro from the USB Mavericks installer USB stick that I successfully created using Creating a bootable OS X installer in OS X Mavericks, and tell it to install on the Mac Pro's disk?

Assuming that the installer gives me the option to tell it which disk to install on, which seems likely, then OK, I'd think that would work...

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User profile for user: mr88cet
mr88cet Author
User level: Level 1
52 points

Oct 1, 2014 1:52 PM in response to lllaass

I have no idea why it doesn't show up on the Mac Pro when it does on the MacBook Pro, but no doubt about it: I've tried it several times and it definitely doesn't show up.


What I do see, booting with the option key down, interestingly, is either two or four disks representing the RAID (it's a 4-disk, no-parity-drive RAID - never seen it appear as a single drive), and if a bootable DVD is there (e.g., my DiskWarrior DVD), it shows up too. At least when it showed up as 4 disks, when I select any of the four it boots from the RAID, when it shows up as two drives (which I've only seen once) only one of the two works.

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Creating a Mavericks Bootable Install *DVD*

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