[olePigeon]

At work we're trying to backup our system software for our XServe and the G5, one using OS X Server and the other using normal Panther.

We made disk images and were trying to make working copies so we can file the originals away. When we try using Disk Utility it says that there's not enough space on the disks, even though there's plenty of space to spare. We tried mounting the disk images and drag the volumes over to the CD-R, it makes a folder inside of the disk and doesn't work right. So we tried draging the volumes onto Toast and burning it that way. Seemed to work fine, except when we try to boot from the CDs it says that the directory "etc/password" doesn't exist and stops booting.

Is there some special way to burn our CDs so they work?

Thanks.

[Kate]

Try BootCD a utility that sorts this out. Or try using CarbonCopyCloner to make a bootable copy of a working system. It also creates images. Both can be found at http://www.versiontracker.com or at http://www.macupdate.com .

[tooki]

Whoa whoa now. What are you trying to do: copy the installer discs, or clone the hard disks?

To copy discs, use Disk Utility (Panther). (If you need instructions for Jag, say so -- they're a tad different.)

See the disc in the list? If you can, click the CD drive name itself. If you can't, click the name of the mounted disc right below that. Then click "new image" in the toolbar. Type in the name you want to save the disc image as, and choose "DVD/CD Master" as the format. Press save and it will save the image.

When it's done reading, it will keep easy access to the image in the list. Click the new image once, and then press Burn in the toolbar.


As for copying a bootable hard disk: CCC is not necessary in Panther -- Disk Utility has Restore functions built in.


tooki

[olePigeon]

We were trying to make backup CDs of our Panther Server install CDs. I actually found a program called FireStarter that can do it. Turns out the CDs are 743MBs in size, 3MBs over the limit that Disk Utility can burn. So I used FireStarter to copy the CD to a .bin file (with a checksum text file), then I had it burned to a CD with "Overburn" enabled.

Seemed to do the trick. The CDs are bootable now and everything's working.

I'd recommend FireStarter to anyone else. It's the best utility I've found for making backups. It even has the option to switch byte order while burning if you want to back up PS2 games.

I'm gonna try it on my Diablo II disk and see if it works with that.