Disk Utility: Create Image from Volume Without Unused Space

I'm trying to create a disk image from a mounted volume (flash memory in a video camera) but I don't want to write to it later, it's just for archiving. The problem is that the size of the original volume is 16 GB, so every image I create is huge, even if there is less than a 1 GB used.
For example, I only have two short clips on there, about 1.1 GB used. When I create a new .dmg from the volume, the file is 5.28 GB and when I mount it it tells me the size of the volume is 15.3 GB. Clearly I understand why this is happening, it's creating a bit for bit copy of the original volume, but I don't need all that space since I'm never going to write to it.
In disk utility it won't let me resize the image (it's grayed out). What do I do?

I actually don't understand why this is happening (when I do this the created disk image only uses the space it needs) but you can get around it as follows. First create a blank read/write disk image to the size you want and then restore the memory card to that image.

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Disk Utility: Create image fails with input/output error

Starting to create an image and saving it into an external hard drive (MacOS extended Journaled).
It starts after less than 60 secs it comes out with an error : Failed to create the image (input/output error)

If you don't mind I'd like to discourage you from backing up a drive onto a disc image file no matter where you plan to save it. Disc image files can be very problematical when it comes to trying to restore the backup. Furthermore, you cannot boot from a disc image. If the disc image file becomes corrupted then you have no backup.
I would like to propose that you think about a better way to backup your drive. You can clone the drive to your backup drive. It's easy to do using Disk Utility's Restore feature. A clone backup is not only bootable but you have direct access to all the files on the backup.
In order to make a bootable clone open Disk Utility. Select Disk Utility Help from the Help menu. Search for +duplicating a disk+. Click on "Duplicating a disk" at the top of the list of articles. Follow the directions.

Disk Utility create image error - "Invalid Argument" - on USB drive.

I wanted to use a USB 2.0 drive that I share with a Windows machine to backup my son's iBook. I divided the drive into two partitions and formatted the iBook backup partition as FAT32. I attempted to create a read-only disk image on the USB drive in order to backup the iBook, but it does not complete successfully - it terminates with an "Invalid Argument" error. I also tried creating a read/write disk image and that terminates with an error "File or Folder not found." Anyone have any tips or clues as to what may be the problem?
iBook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I figured out my problem to some extent. I was not creating an empty image, but was trying to create a disk image without selecting a folder. Once I selected create an empty image from the File menu I did not get the error and was able to create an empty image on the USB drive.

Disk Utility - Create Image Fails

Hello all -
I'm trying to make an image of one of my hard drives as a back up. I've followed the instructions in Disk Utility help, but when I click "Save" to try to create the image I get a failure message "Unable to create <Disk Name>. (Resource Busy)".
I've tried saving to the destination with a new folder, that did not solve the problem. No other applications are running and both the source and destination disks are mounted and appearing on my desktop. The source is a USB connected drive, destination is a firewire drive, and I can read and write to both the source and destination disks.
Anyone have any idea what this failure message means and how to correct the problem? Thanks - Randy

If you don't mind I'd like to discourage you from backing up a drive onto a disc image file no matter where you plan to save it. Disc image files can be very problematical when it comes to trying to restore the backup. Furthermore, you cannot boot from a disc image. If the disc image file becomes corrupted then you have no backup.
I would like to propose that you think about a better way to backup your drive. You can clone the drive to your backup drive. It's easy to do using Disk Utility's Restore feature. A clone backup is not only bootable but you have direct access to all the files on the backup.
In order to make a bootable clone open Disk Utility. Select Disk Utility Help from the Help menu. Search for +duplicating a disk+. Click on "Duplicating a disk" at the top of the list of articles. Follow the directions.

Disk Utility RAID of 2 volumes, one drive mistakenly erased. Recoverable?

Thanks for any help.
I have a Mac Pro.
It has 2x 750GB drive formatted in Disk Utility as a RAID volume (striped).
I erased one of the volumes by mistake.
I know I can recover the data from the erased drive, but it will be useless without the other drive. So how would I go about restoring the data in such a way that it is recognized as the other half of the RAID volume again?
Thanks for any help.

The commercial "SoftRAID" ($149) http://www.softraid.com
... is able to convert Apple RAID to its own format, AND has had excellent success for others in recovering in some situations.
They have excellent support so email them; a demo; and good PDF guides for download are worth a read.

DISK UTILITY -- "New Image" problems

Maybe I don't get how this works. I used an external USB drive to back up my MacBook Pro, making an image un=sing Disk Utility "New Image." THis seems to have worked fine. When I attach the external drive and double click on the DMG file it open and I seem to have access to all contents.
Today I tried to make a second "New Image" on the same drive of my iMac24" and everything runs and makes a DMG file, but when I click on this one I get a msg saying the disk image "couldn't be opened" with the reason given being "no mountable file systems."
Does this make perfect sense to somebody?
Have I completely misunderstood the use and practice of the "new image" in Disk Utility?
Thanks.

Hey. If you want to make a DMG image of your iMac, you will need to boot off the install DVD and use Disk Utility from the DVD. To create the DMG is the same process: Select the "Macintosh HD" icon on the left hand side list of Disk Utility, click the "New Image" button, leave "Image Format" as "Compressed" and its up to you for Encryption, I always leave it as "None".
Select to save your DMG image on the external hard drive and click save. Once the image is done, click on "Image" on the menu bar and click on "Scan Image for Restore...".
That's it!
Good luck

How to insert cropped images from photoshop without the white background

Basically all I want to do is take a peice of writing from a video and insert it into another video. To do this I've took a screenshot of the font from the video and imported it into photoshop. I've then cropped/cut/took the the peice of writing I want, letter by letter. I want to be able to insert it into another video, but whenever I attempt to do it, I have the default white background of photoshop. Is there anyway to insert an image from photoshop, without taking the background with it, or even insert a layer from photoshop straight into final cut pro? Sorry if this is confusing.

I don't think so. I cropped the letters, put them each an individual file, removed the background, saved them as a TIF then tried to import them onto Final Cut Pro, but a white background still appeared in the TIF file. Basically I just want to make the background transparent I believe.

Disk Utility fails to create image from double layer DVD

I burned a double-layer DVD using iDVD. It plays fine on the mac and on set-top DVD players. However, when I try to create an image of the DVD using Disk Utility, I get "Can't create image 'name.cdr' (input/output error)". I've tried re-burning the original disk, but it gets the same error when trying to create an image. I've also tried each of the image types, all with the same result.

I was having similar problems, although I don't think my issues was related to a double-layer DVD. What worked for me was selecting File > New > Disk Image from Folder. Select the DVD in the file open/save dialog with the same options you used before (e.g., DVD/CD master, etc).
HTH
- Dave

Disk Utility create encrypted disk image hangs

I'm trying really, really hard to backup my data but apple is not making it easy for me.
I need my files encrypted for an offline backup. Time machine only allows home folder to be encrypted, and due to my home folder being on my SSD drive I cannot fit my files all in there, not by a long shot.
Using Disk Utility, I choose "new disk image from folder", and select "read only", 256-bit encryption. Some of the folders worked. However some will just hang for hours on "Creating Image, copying...". I can see at the destination the dmg file has stopped incrementing larger. It has reached the full size of the folder approximately. Does apple fail at some file types? I already ran disk repair several times to no avail. I don't know what else to try, it just doesn't want to work. All I want is an encrypted backup, that any OSX install can retrieve without any special software involved. Sometimes I'll get a very unhelpful error message "Operation not supported". Whatever that is supposed to mean. Google was no help so hoping for some insights here.

Create an encrypted sparse disk image instead of from folder, mount it, and then drag & drop your files into ii.

Disk Utility: Creating a new blank image receiving "file too large" error.

Hello All!
I'm trying to create a 10GB non-encrypted, non-compressed RW blank image via the disk utility. The DU runs for a few minutes then barfs out "file too large" error. I have over 30GB free on my HDD. I tried with a smaller size of 6GB to no avail. Also tried unsuccessfully to create from a file (about 4 GB). My ultimate goal is to create a case-insensitive image to run an extremely important program needed for high priority work productivity (i.e. WoW). Thanks in advance for any advice! You will be my new best friend if you help me resolve this. =D
Hollie
"There are only 10 types of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Hi Hollie, and welcome to the forums!
Have you created images before successfully?
Is this to/on your boot drive, or an external drive?
Have you done any Disk/OS maintenance lately?
We might see if there are some big temp files left or such...
How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?
OmniDiskSweeper is now free, and likely the best/easiest...
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/
WhatSize...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13006/
Disk Inventory X...
http://www.derlien.com/
GrandPerspective...
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Disk Utility - create ISO Data DVD image for burning?

Which are the exact options in Disk Utility that I need to select, in order to create an ISO DVD Data image that will be readable by PCs and Macs alike?
I have looked on the web and in the help but am none the wiser due to lack of an explanation of the options
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled),...,MS-DOS (FAT)
Partitions:Single partition - Apple Partition Map,...,Single Partition CD/DVD with ISO data
If you cannot point me in the direction of some decent documentation, please just tell me which options I need to select to create an ISO Data DVD
Thanks

Try this link.
Basically, you can drag a folder into the list on the left. Then, with the folder selected, click New Disk Image from the toolbar at the top (not sure of the exact wording, but it's something along those lines). Make sure to select ISO from the pop-up menu.
Also try this article to convert a DMG to ISO.

Disk utility - create disk image

Creating image works with most disks, but not with DVDs made with my TIVO
With TIVO disks, a shell of about 32 K with no content is produced within a few seconds. Same result with all settings of the utility.
Is there an incompatibility here?
Thanks for any help on this.
kajz, Portland OR
G-5, dual 2.0 PowerPC Mac OS X (10.4.7) iLife6, 2.5 G of RAM, 40 G of free disk space

Does Disk Utility show the correct info (Format, Used, Number of Files, Number of Folders) at the bottom of the window when the DVD is selected? Does it shoe one volume on the drive? Do all the VIDEO_TS files show up (with correct sizes) in Finder? If you have the MPEG-2 Playback Component for QuickTime you should be able to play the .VOB files in the Preview window of Get-Info (Cmd-I).
If Finder shows thing OK, you can drag the VIDEO_TS folder onto DVD Imager
<http://lonestar.utsa.edu/llee/applescript/dvdimager.html> to create a disk image file.

Disk Utility - Create encrypted disk images super sloooow

Trying to create encrypted disk images via Disk Utility on my iMac (i7 8GB) is super-slow in 10.8. It worked quite fast in 10.7, but now it's super-slow and doesn't even seem to ever finish.
I've tried re-installing 10.8 with no difference.
Anyone else having trouble with this? Even a small dmg (~200MB) doesn't seem to work.
Unencrypted images seem to work OK (if not a little slow).
I realize that the encryption process will be slower but something is definately wrong with 10.8 disk utility in this regard. I have 1TB+ free space. I have tried with another user account as well.
My task was: (new disk image, read-write, 128bit encryption)
2012-09-03 08:59:59 -0400: Initializing…
2012-09-03 09:00:00 -0400: Creating…
2012-09-03 09:03:28 -0400: Copying… <<< seems to be stuck here...

Good morning,
Have you tried using Disk Utility from within the recovery mode? (Hold down CMD and R when booting)
I used to have this problem but creating them this way really improved the time.
Give it a go...
Rob

Disk Utility create new image question

In the side bar of Disk Utility, it lists the devices and then, indented, the names of the disks. If I want to create an image of an existing DVD, does it matter whether I choose "Upper Superdrive" or the disk title?

Also, can someone explain the difference bewteen a read-only image and a master image?

Cannot repair disk errors for OSX boot volume using Disk Utility while booted from different disk

I have tried three times to repair my boot volume (OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard) permissions using Disk Utility while booted up on a different volume (running Snow Leopard 10.6.4). After hours of Disk Utility reporting that it HAD fixed the problems, an immediate click of "Verify permissions" immediately results in the apparently same continuous stream of permission errors.

Then better luck next time around. Here are some ideas for then:
How to Install Lion Successfully - You must have Snow Leopard 10.6.7 or 10.6.8 Installed
A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.3.) if DW cannot fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the backup volume. Source means the internal startup volume.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade to Lion:
Purchase the Lion Installer from the Mac App Store. The download will start quickly. Lion is nearly 4 GBs so a fast internet connection is essential. Download time could run upwards of 4 hours depending upon network conditions and server demands at the time.
Boot From The Lion Installer which is located in your Applications folder.
Follow instructions for installation.

Disk Utility: Create Image from Volume Without Unused Space

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