[HOWTO] - Make a Mac OS X Utilities Boot CD

fryke

fryke

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There's a utility called 'Boot CD' which offers just that. You can get it from http://www.charlessoft.com/ - it's free.

The application, once started, asks for the name of the CD, size of the CD-R you're going to write on and the RAM-Disk the booting OS should create.

Then you can add some (not too many) utilities. I usually add Apple's own harddisk utilities, the Terminal application and any harddrive utilities I've bought, such as DiskWarrior, Norton etc.

BootCD then creates a disk image that you can burn either in Toast, DiskCopy (Jaguar) or DiskUtility (Panther).

ATTENTION: BootCD 0.5.4 is not yet Panther compatible.

You can then boot from this new CD and use the disk utilities to perform tests & reparation on your harddrive.
 
Bob, could you give more details on how to make a bootable CD with Disk Utility. I could not find anything in the Help or the menus.
 
You need to use one of the applications mentioned to make a bootable CD.
 
I used BootCD and it worked fine on Panther, the latest version does. Granted the original post in this thread is over a year old. :)
 
Yes, the current version of BootCD is Panther compatible. A word of warning. The bootable CD's will require you to hold down the 'C' key upon booting for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. YES, you read correctly. Do not assume that you are NOT booting, as you are simply doing so at a glacial pace. It is absurdly easy to over-estimate elapsed time. Take a peek at an (external) clock before you attempt to boot. Also I suggest that you thorougly read the documentation. In past versions you had to log in as "root" with a password of "bootcd" but I think that the recent versions are set to auto-login.
 
I just read today that the latest version of BootCD breaks 10.3.9 so if your using .9 beware, or at least verify my memory first.
 
Before you try anything with Carbon Copy Cloner under Tiger beware. I have seen numerous reports recently that it is not yet Tiger safe. Hopefully that will come son. It's one of my most used utilities
 
In my experience CCC just doesn't actually _clone_ anything. No harm done. Just needs an update in order to actually run.
 
Just to keep this thread up to date, the latest version of CCC works fine in Tiger.
 
pedz said:
Bob, could you give more details on how to make a bootable CD with Disk Utility. I could not find anything in the Help or the menus.
Click to expand...
I'm not Bob, but since he never responded to your request, I can tell you how to do it.

The Restore tab in Apple's Disk Utility (OS X 10.3 and 10.4, but not
10.2) works almost exactly like Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes an exact
bootable clone of your disk. The only options are to erase, or to leave
alone the data on the destination disk, and to do a checksum integrity
test of the data being copied.
However, this feature does not offer syncronization of files, to update
your clone, or any other way to do an incremental backup, other than to create another entire clone of your drive and erase the old clone.

The way you use Disk Utility to create a clone of your drive is to boot
from the install CD/DVD, launch Disk Utility, select the volume you wish to copy, click on the restore tab, drag the source from the left-hand panel into the source block, drag the target volume into the destination block, and click on the restore button. Disk Utility will copy the source onto the
destination. Unfortunately, this takes 2-3 times longer than using CCC
or SuperDuper.

More info:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031030154346917

http://pinkmutant.com/articles/trouble101.html

http://www.hmug.org/man/8/asr.php
 
To Make a DVD Image of your Tiger disc;

Step 1. Insert the retail Mac OS X Install DVD into your drive.

Step 2. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).

Step 3. In Disk Utility, you will notice a white pane on the left hand side. In the pane, select the Mac OS X Install DVD by clicking on it once.

Step 4. Click New Image on the Disk Utility toolbar.

Step 5. A dialog box will appear. Give the new image a name. 'Mac OS X Install'. Select the destination where you wish to save it. Leave Image Format at Compressed (default) and Encryption at None (default).

Step 6. Click Save to begin creating the image.

Step 7. Once your image has been created DO NOT mount it. Leave the image alone and proceed to the next section.


Burning the Image

Step 1. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).

Step 2. Click Burn on the Disk Utility toolbar (upper left).

Step 3. Navigate to where you saved the DVD image created in the previous section. Click on the image file, then click the Burn button. Do not drag and drop the image file into Disk Utility during this step.

Step5. Insert a DVD when prompted and proceed to Burn it. (use good quality media)
 
What a mess!
We are encouraged to upgrade to Tiger for one reason or another.
Then you find you can no longer do the things you used to do with your current applications/utilities/sharware whatever.

I too found the need to make a bootable CD,
found/downloaded BootCD and then
later found out that it doesn't work with Tiger.

NOW WHAT?

Disk Utilities tells me my HD needs repairing.

The Mac OS supplied with my iMac G5 is 10.3.5
booting from this to do the repair results in an "Invalid Leaf Count" error.
Can't find anything about this in Mac help!!
but eventually I find something (elsewhere) that says that this is a false error report when using Mac OS X10.3 Disk Utility under Tiger.

But I know there is/was a problem
because a few days ago I was greeted with a new dock (all my stuff/additions were missing), my itunes playlist file was gone and one desktop notebook file empty???
I went down the single user path, creating more havoc and problems on the way, unleashed the "hurricane force' fan effect known as error "2FANS5/8/"
Tried the Hardware Test etc etc and after it passed that ran disk utilities again only to re-encounter the "Invalid Leaf Count" error message.

So this Tiger is causing a bit of havoc.

All I can think of is to downgrade to a pre-Tiger OS,
which brings me to my real Q.
Is there a QUICK and SIMPLE way of doing this?
or do I have to re-install 10.3.5 again and then work upwards?

Then I THINK I should be able to boot off the BootCD, and carry out the necessary disk repairs
BUT BUT BUT
I also think the problems re-appear once I upgrade to Tiger again!!
arrrh!!
suggestions please?
 
Did you install Tiger from a full retail version DVD or from an update DVD/CD? (i am not even sure if an upgrade Disk was even released for Tiger)

If you installed from a full retail version Tiger install Disk, you should boot to the Tiger install Disk to repair the HDD - why would you use the Mac OS X 10.3.5 Panther version recovery disks to repair the drive of a mac running Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger?
 
Not really sure what kind of disk it is.
I purchased it in a legit Mac store in Malaysia last October,

The disk label says
Mac OS X Tiger
Includes Xcode 2
CPU Drop In DVD
and its about 2.6BG
on loading the disk its' name is Mac OS X Upgrade

I was under the impression it was an UPGRADE DISK
that's what I recall the salesperson telling me and as a result I've never really tried to boot from it.
But after this I'll give it a go.

The disk label also says it's part of a hardware bundle and not to be sold separately.

Anyway, I also recall it was much much cheaper than the full retail version.
 
Sounds like you may have bought pirated software - but i could be mistaken.

Buy the full retail version of Tiger and install it - that should solve your
problem(s)
 
Well you never really know do you!!
anyway I tried booting from it as I said I'd try
and to my big big surprise... I could
so I did the usual stuff and ended up with the final reassuring all clear message.

You know if it wasn't for your question, I was stuck with the thought that I couldn't boot from my tiger disk.
Ofcourse, I look at the whole process as educational, how else would I have spent the time to use/learn about single user mode etc etc, tiger bugs and fixes, but more importantly it brought me to this group. cheers xris
 
FLASH1296 said:
Yes, the current version of BootCD is Panther compatible. A word of warning. The bootable CD's will require you to hold down the 'C' key upon booting for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. YES, you read correctly. Do not assume that you are NOT booting, as you are simply doing so at a glacial pace. It is absurdly easy to over-estimate elapsed time. Take a peek at an (external) clock before you attempt to boot. Also I suggest that you thorougly read the documentation. In past versions you had to log in as "root" with a password of "bootcd" but I think that the recent versions are set to auto-login.
Click to expand...


I've made a boot CD from this and it does take a while to start up but once the apple shows up on screen the computer is already committed to starting up from the boot CD or your hard drive. If I remember correctly that happened fairly quickly but from there the little trilling fan thing could go for a while. Should the boot cd not be seen by your Mac you'll quickly revert to whatever was happening with your hard drive.

Last I read Norton will not work with BootCD. Something about Norton not being self contained but throwing components of itself into different parts of the hard drive.
 
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