Archiving Vs. Disk Image

Greetings,
When does one want to Archive a Project versus creating a Disk Image?
Also, once a Project is either Archived or a Disk Image created, is it 'safe' at that point to purge the original file(s) from which the Archive or Disk Image was created?
Thank you!

Hi GLT
Welcome to apple discussions. I create a Disk Image so I can lower the burn speed using Roxio Toast. Lower burn speeds tends to improve or insure the best playback possible on a DVD. Once that's completed and I have as many copies as I need then I purge said project from the system. If I need an additional copy at a future date then I use Toast again for an exact copy of the completed DVD.
Archiving is useful for backing up or transferring an iDVD project to another computer. Tends to be very time consuming also since the files are often massive.
You can archive your iDVD project to back it up or transfer it to another computer. This is useful in an environment with several computers, such as a computer lab, where only certain computers contain a SuperDrive for burning DVDs.
Hope this answers your question.
SDMacuser

Similar Messages

Remove user account and archive as disk image error

Hi guys, I'm having some troubles removing a user from a MacBook running 10.6.6. I want to remove the user and archive their home folder as a disk image (in case I ever need to get access to some of their files in the future). I know it's a fairly straightforward process, I've done it before. I log in as admin, go to system preferences, accounts and then select the account and press the "-" button to remove it. I select the "Save home folder in a disk image" option, and click okay, but all I get is the following error message -
"Unable to delete the user account xxxxx
An error occurred while backing up the user's home folder."
No details as to the error, but the console logs give me this info:
7/02/11 5:28:46 PM [0x0-0x52052].com.apple.systempreferences[756]
2011-02-07 17:28:46.418 writeconfig[763:903] DIHLDiskImageCreate failed: 999 (options:{
I've done this many times before, without a hitch - this one is really giving me grief, so any help would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Matt

Does Disk Utility give your hard drive a clean bill of health?
In any case, I wouldn't try to archive a user's data this way anyway. Far too often I have seen disk images fail to mount with the "no mountable filesystems" error, leaving all the data inside of them irretrievable. It's a much better idea to archive the data into a disk image, and then test that the image correctly mounts, before deleting the user account.
This Terminal command will make a disk image of the user john's home folder and save it in /Users/Shared:
sudo hdiutil create -srcfolder ~john /Users/Shared/john.dmg

Why archive AVCHD as disk images, versus .MOV or .MP4?

I get an interesting array of responses to this everywhere I ask...but most of all I'm curious about the opinions of folks who specifically use FCPX for editing, so I'd greatly value your feedback.
Like many folks who have been shooting AVCHD for a while, I now have many years worth of footage from a variety of cameras stuffed into my backup/archive workflow. For all those years, I've been keeping perfect disk images (generally non-compressed, read-only .dmg files created in Disk Utility right off cards and cameras) of every single one of those AVCHD shoots. In the early days of the format, when support was far, far more twitchy and frustrating than it is today, I felt it made sense to have a little "healthy" paranoia.
These days, however, I wonder if this isn't a colossal waste of time and storage space?
Here's the thing about this method...nothing ever gets deleted. You end up sucking every little take, every borked shot, every mishap, into your diskspace, cloud storage, tape library, or whatever you use for archival, forever. When I stop to think objectively about this, it seems nuts. I mean, if I did this with photography, my photo library would be 2x to 3x its current size and full of garbage. It would also be hard to navigate, which come to think of it is a major annoyance with all my AVCHD disk images. I keep them well organized, but still, having to mount them to look through videos (and then having to climb down into the "STREAM" subfolder each and every time) feels like a hassle.
I wonder if I should just go back, bust open those old disk images, use something like ClipWrap or Media Converter to repackage all those .MTS clips in something more portable (like Quicktime or MP4 containers) and just keep around the ones I actually want? There's no quality loss in doing so, and the video/audio content would continue to be usable in both FCPX and pretty much any modern multimedia software, right?
My question is what, if any, good argument is there in 2012 for keeping complete disk images of AVCHD?

Hi Neil,
Sorry about all the frustration.
Why does GB output an iMovie generated video podcast as .mov and Final Cut export to iPod as .m4v?
I don't have the newest GarageBand, so can't really say. But I do know that Final Cut will export a movie in different formats. If you choose the default setting for the iPod, you will get a high quality file, but it will be HUGE! Takes a long time to download, and takes a lot of server space.
This isn't too much of a concern if you have just a few movies and they are short, but if you make many long movies, it's a big problem. We produce a movie every week that's about 40-45 minutes long, so we use the QuickTime .mov as well as the MP4 export from Final Cut Express and encode them as H.264 using settings we've refined to make the file size small. Last week's 38:33 minute talk was 61.1 MB for our large 480x360 .mov video, and 35.5 MB for our 320x240 .mp4 videocast.
The extension on a H.264 file could be .mov (our large video) or .mp4 (our videocast). .m4v can also be H.264 (the default iPod QT setting).
The encoding (like H.264) is the most important part - you want to make something that looks good, sounds good, and streams well.
Hope this is helpful.

How can I use my Mac G3 (OS 9.2.2) to make Windows disk images and compress them into Windows stuffed archives?

I have a collection of old Windows diskettes, 800 K and 1.4 MB. I want to make disk images (or whatever is the Windows equivalent) and compress them into Windows stuffed archives. I want Windows users to be able to download them, expand the stuffed archives, extract the disk images, and use the softsare on old Windows computers. I need to do the work on a Power Macintosh beige G3 Tower using OS 9.2.2. What software can I get to do it?

To Jan, Greetings
Thank you for your message and for your suggestions.
Is WinZip a Mac application that makes compressed files that can be opened on a Windows computer? If so, then do you have any notion where I could find a version old enough to run on OS 9.2.2?
I noticed that DropStuff 6.0, which I use on my G3 Tower, has an option to make compressed files that are self-extracting on Windows. Do you know if that works? I suppose that I could make such a file and then find somebody with a Windows computer to test if for me.
Yes, I could (shudder) get an old Windows computer somewhere, learn to use it, and do the project that way. Do you know if the old versions of Windows include disk image programs and file compression programs? Or, would I need to buy some old software?
Thank you for the information about the size of the diskettes. As you've probably noticed, I don't know very much about Windows things.
Sincerely,
Frontiersman

Unable to place disk image in Camera Archives

The Final Cut Pro X manuals show that one can import a disk image of a movie into Final Cut Pro X by opening the camera archives. I have made a disk image file (.img) from an iMovie 6 project file. (The video appears as a VTS file in the Video TS folder.) How do I get it to appear in my camera archives file so that I can import it into Final Cut Pro X?

That's a disk image for an authored DVD. You can't. It's in an MPEG-2 that's not supported for production only for delivery. You would need to use something like MPEG Streamclip to rip it.

Trying to archive to a sparse disk image, but everything is different...

I've only created one sparse disk image (a bundle image) a few months ago. I just went to create another one in Disk Utility, and the pop-up window for creating one looks entirely different.
I don't see the options for size, format, partitions, or the name any more. Am I doing something wrong? Or have they changed the way you create these?
I'm attaching a few screen captures. The first is from a tutorial that shows the pop-up the way it used to be when I'd click the "New Image" icon in Disk Utility. The next is the way it looks now. The last is the Disk Utility error message I get when I try to create an image now.
I'm lost on this. Where are all those options? How do you choose between a sparse disk image and a sparse disk bundle? Why is Disk Utility unable to create the image (see the error message below)?

Hi Tom--
Once again, you have the answer. I was clicking the "New Image" button that you see at the top in the first two images I posted. That's what they did in the tutorial, and it worked fine. But it seems the only way I can get the window with all the options is to go to File, New, Blank Disk Image as you show in your picture. I have no idea why mine works differently than the one in the tutorial. Very frustrating.

Disk Utility doesn't finish creating new disk image - naming issue??

Recently I upgraded to Snow Leopard and carried along an empty disk image created in OS 10.4.11. I use these for archiving data on read-only DVDs and password protect the images.
In the earlier OS, I found the practical limit for the dmg was 4.3 GB, containing 4.27+ GB of data (anything larger failed when attempting to burn data DVDs). Today, when I looked at my empty dmg file, the OS 10.6.6 Finder showed it to be larger both inside and outside (just under 4.7 GB inside I think - didn't write it down). I suspected that it may be corrupted or at least not give correct directory information, so I deleted this dmg as a precaution and tried to make a new one with the old size by selecting custom size within Disk Utility. Now every time I try to create a new dmg this it stalls at about 100 MB.
The image format panel has several additional settings in OS 10.6 . There are two places for names - in the "Save as" field above and in the "Name" field below. (Haven't yet found any documentation where the reason for this is explained or which lists possible name limitations. The Help info appears to be identical to what was in 10.4) I've tried making both names the same, but it still stalls
Disk Utility settings:
Save as __Diskname
Name in lower field __Diskname (have also left it blank no difference)
Custom 4.3 GB
Mac OS Extended (journaled)
128 bit encryption
single partition
read/write format* (also tried CD/DVD master - no difference)
* All files are not necessarily added at once so I'm pretty sure I want this to be read/write
Message was edited by: James Kilgore
In case this isn't obvious I mean read/write formatting on the hard drive, but when burned the format will remain the same whether or not the disk used is rewritable

Hi Michael,
Did you reformat it HFS+ or something else?
Some USB2 Flash Drives Write at a disappointing USB1 speed, but Read at USB2 speeds.
From what I can find, that isn't one of them and should take maybe an hour & a half to transfer 30 GB to it. Of course if write speed IS USB1, then you could expect 2 days or more.
I'd stop it. Reformat it, then make the Image on the HD and try transferring it.

Managing Events and/or Projects With Disk Images

I came across this method of managing Events and Projects a while ago. I finally got around to giving it a try. Personally, I really like this method.
It's simple.
It keeps things very well organized.
It's easy to open only the project or events that you want.
It's easy to consolidate and back up once you're done.
It takes some workload off FCP X by not having to always open up all your Events and Projects.
So, I thought I would share this for those of you who were not already aware of it.
This is my workflow: (based on the link below)
I create a Disk Image (named for the Event/Project).
(Note: There are two places to create the name, I use both, keep them the same)
I open up FCP X.
I typically put only one Event on this Disk Image.
I then reference whatever Media I need in this Event.
I usually don't bother to copy the media. (except when I'm done and I archive it)
You can create multiple Events, if you feel the need for additional organization.
Then I create however many Projects I need.
(since Projects equates to Sequences from prior FCP versions)
I have a unique Disk Image for each Event/Project that I work on.
To use them ...
First, always make sure FCP X is not running.
Locate the Disk Image in finder.
Double click on the Disk Image and it will Mount on your desktop.
(assuming it's not already mounted on your desktop)
Open up FCP X and it will load the Event(s)/Project(s) in the Disk Image.
If you don't want to work on an Event/Project in FCP X (make sure FCP X is not open), in Finder, simply Eject the Disk Image.
Now when you open FCP X, it won't be there.
Its not gone, but since it's not mounted on the desktop, FCP X simply doesn't see it.
To get it back (obviously quit FCP X first) simply double click the Disk Image in Finder and it remounts.
Open FCP X and you can see it's back.
You can open (double click to mount) as many Event/Project Disk Images as you want.
Just make sure you mount and un-mount disk images when FCP X is not running.
If find this to be a great workflow.
Many thanks to Steve Martin of Riple Training for posting this method.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_managing_disk_image_martin.html

Re the final commercial spot. What I am getting at is if all my media is optimized and therefore in ProRes, and I export in ProRes using the current settings, then shouldn't the media needed to rebuild the project be the same or close to what an exported Quicktime would have been?
Perhaps the notion of "used clips only" is not what it says then. I took that to be the "media managed" feature otherwise why is that wording there. I guess "used" actually refers to all of the media for the project and associated events rather than just for the project. This is misleading because the DUPLICATE operation and menu prompt only appears as a result of requesting an action on the project item.
There are aliases in my original event folder, but before I started this process tried to get FCPX to consolidate media for the project and it already was according the app. Truth is, some of the media is outside of the FCPX required folders. So it's strange that it says it's consolditated, but it's not and yet in duplicating the project it moves the references to the new volume only to point back to the old volume.
So my next question would be: Is there no feature to back up only what's needed to rebuild the final project (edit) reliably. Moving the project moves everything. According to the FCP manual, it seems using the Duplicate feature is the way I should be archiving. However if by "used clips only" FCP X means all media and refrerenced events, then I guess there's nothing for me in here. However then, whey would there be an option (after choosing duplicate project) an option to Duplicate Project and referenced events. If "used clips only" means all media, then there's no difference between the 2nd and 3rd Duplicate Project options.
Thanks Tom.

How do I convert TC sparse bundle to disk image?

Ok, this question could be cross-listed under a number of threads, so I had to just pick one...
A few months ago, the HD in my MB was clearly dying, so I replaced it with a larger, faster drive. All good, until I realized I had been close to maxing out my Time Capsule before I upgraded my MB's HD, so I upsized that, too.
Fast forward 2 months.
I have a weird problem where iPhoto events start going dark. The database had these previously imported files listed, but the files themselves were nowhere to be found! The event in iPhoto showed black squares where the images used to be, but even looking in finder... No pics!
I want to go back into my old (saved) HD that I pulled from my Time Capsule. I stuck it in an external USB enclosure, and hooked it up. I told Time Machine to use it as the backup, but after it 'verified' it, it didn't show me the archived files. It does show a 'sparse bundle' in finder, which I understand is similar to a disk image. So is there a way to convert the sparse bundle to a disk image? Do I need to plug my old TC HD back into the TC to get to that archive?
Help! Among the lost photos are ones from a trip to Australia and my grandmother's memorial service. I need to get these back!
Thank you in advance.

tgilk wrote:
I've already done the TC surgery once before and the hardest thing was loosening the adhesive on the rubber pad / gasket on the bottom of the unit. After that, I completed the HD replacement in about 15 minutes... piece of cake. There's actually a good tutorial on AppleFritter. But I digress...
It's not too much of a digression. Remember that if you are just firing up the Time Capsule with the old hard drive, you don't have to reassemble it. Just swap out the plugs from the old drive to the new and turn it on. A true PC geek never runs with the cover on.
However, messing around with adhesives and thermal paste introduces a new element of risk. If you know the dates that have good data, and you are comfortable merging the newer photos back in, accessing the data via the Finder on an external enclosure would be faster and safer.
So, can I turn the TM backups off and still enter 'TM' to browse through the backups on the drive? I've ID'd the specific dates of my missing photo events, so as long as I can get into the backup, I will know just what folders to search for in the 'Originals' folders in the backup.
Yes. That is probably one of the most important and least known tips about Time Machine. You can still use it even if the backups are turned off. Furthermore, if you ever start to have problems on your machine, you should turn off Time Machine to avoid further corruption of your backups.

Can I do a disk image of my old system before installing Leopard?

On my MacBook Pro, I am thinking of doing a disk image of my entire drive on a 500 Mb external drive, then doing an "Erase and Install" of Leopard, and then doing a Migration Assistant from the external drive, to pull my prefs, files and apps over to the new OS.
Is this a good idea, and if so, how do I duplicate my entire system on my external drive?

Yes you can - in fact it is highly recommended
Most people like either carbon copy cloner (CCC - http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html - the one I use) or SuperDuper - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html - SuperDuper did not have a Leopard version last time I looked although it is not critical since you will do the clone under Tiger
Once I had a good clone, I simply did an upgrade on my external drive (in retrospect it would have made more sense to upgrade the internal drive) and it has been fine
Others have prefered using archive and install
Still Others have done an erase and install and used migration assistant (some have had trouble with that too) and some have moved their data over and reinstalled all their applications (remember iLife is NOT on the Leopard disks so have to be either migrated or reinstalled after an erase and install
My suggestion (certainly NOT universaly agreed to) would be to make your clone, test it and then upgrade your internal drive - after a while (I am still waiting after a month) if all is well you can erase the external and use it for TM - if you have problems then you can either move the clone over to the internal and archive and install or erase and install - and at any time you can boot on the external back to Tiger if you want to or need to
LN
Message was edited by: LarryHN

Disk Utility Error 61 when attempting to create disk image on external driv

I would like to make occasional archive backups of my three macintosh computers. I bought a new Western Digital 2TB drive for this purpose, and formatted it as Mac OS Extended. Trying to do a disk image backup using Disk Utility, I follow the directions:
- Startup from an install DVD.
- Start Disk Utilities and select "Restore"
- Drag "Macintosh HD" into the Source box
- Click on "New Image" and select compressed and 128-bit AES encryption
This leads to the error message: Unable to create "....." (error -61)
I have enocountered this problem both with my iMac G5 and a MacBook, both running Leopard.
Does anyone know what this error means, what I am doing wrong, and/or if there is another way to create disk image backups? Help!

1. For reasons I don't know disc images seem to become more fragile the larger they get. They also can be subject to file corruption that affects the entire disc image, whereas file corruption on a clone would only affect certain files.
2. You cannot put multiple clones on the same volume. Each clone must be on a separate volume, but you can have multiple volumes on a single drive simply by partitioning the drive accordingly. Of course you need a drive large enough to accommodate each clone. Each clone should be to a space equal to the capacity of the cloned drive.
3. I'm not a big fan of TM, although I must confess it has become more reliable since it's release, especially with Snow Leopard. However, there are many backup utilities that can create clones, perform incremental updates, and archive changed files. See the following:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
Silver Keeper
MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Disk Utility "Unable to create" Disk Image "error -39"

I am trying to create a disk image using Disk Utility of my wife's user area for backup. Everytime I try, I get the same result. Disk Utility spends several hours creating the archive, then at the very end it generates an error message and terminates the process. The error message is always "unable to create "user" - error -39".
The problem follows her data and not her computer. I backed up her user to an external drive and did the image creation on another computer. Same result.
When I do the same on my computer, the process completes fine.
What problem is Disk Utility having? Where can I find the meaning of Disk Utilitility's -39 error?
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I am still experimenting. To narrow the problem, I decided to create individual disk images of the folders in the User folder. The first one I tried was 7 GB and worked fine. Overnight, I tried one that is 13 GB. It failed with an out of room message on the startup disk! The startup disk has 17 GB free. Nothing should have been written to the startup disk!
This time, I configured Disk Utility to read from the startup disk and write to an external disk. The destination disk had more than enough space. But, I ran out of space on the source. It appears that Disk Utility is writing all or a portion of the compressed file to either the startup or the source disk and running out of room.
Previously, when I created the image of my user folder (instead of my wife's), the source was my user folder on the startup disk and the destinaion for the image was on an external disk. The difference I see is that my startup disk has enough free space for the entire compressed image file.
In my first attempt that gave me the -39, both the source and the destination disks were external. So maybe Disk Utility is creating the image on the source and at the end copying it to the destination. This would explain the difference in the error messages.
I'll try to confirm all of this in the next few days and report my findings.

Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

OK, it's very bad computing to use a backup disk for anything but a backup. The reason being is if/when the HD crashes you will have lost not only all your backup but the data files. While I commend you for wanting redundant backup, you really need separate EHDs for doing so. Format each EHD using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using the GUID parttition. When you connect, OS X will ask if you want to use that drive as a Time Machine backup drive, select yes and then let it backup. On the second EHD format the same way however do not use TM as a backup, this time I'd suggest an app such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of the internal HD. Leave both EHDs connected and TM will backup new or changed files automatically on a hourly basis. The clone you will need to set to backup on the schedule you want. For example I have my SuperDuper EHD set to backup only changed or updated files at 2AM every day.
The advantage of a clone is that if the computers internal HD crashes you can boot from a clone and continue working, TM will not do that but it's great for keeping an archive of all files. So if you want a version of a file from many months ago, TM will help you locate and restore it.

Can't read any file within a disk image

A year ago I created a disk image with a few thousand files in as an archive. Periodically I open it and access the files.
Now when I open the dmg, I see all the folders and files, but none of them are usable. No application can open them, for example opening a jpg in Preview yields the message " The file “Picture 1.jpg” could not be opened. It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize. " I get similar meesages from Word, Acrobat, etc. for their files. Basically it appears that every file in the dmg is corrupt.
I have run Disk Utility Repair which said no repair needed; I have run DiskWarrior which found and fixed problems; neither made a difference.
Any suggestions? Running 10.6.8.
Thanks

Sorry that I'm late to this party, but in case somebody else comes by this thread, this is the way to measure the voltage from the 20V plugs:
http://www.kawakami-ca.com/images/20v_dc_plug.jpg
Ray Kawakami
X22;X24;X31;X41;X41T;X60;X60s;X61s;X300;X301;Z60m;Z61t;Z61p;560Z;600E;600X;T21;T22;T23;T41;R50;A21p;A22p;A31 and A31p
Not a Lenovo employee; just a volunteer helping out here
All personal links to PC-Doctor software removed 8/2012 by mfg request

Disk image mounting and disk utility oddities on Xserve running OS X Server

I continue to run into an odd problem on one of my server setups. It is a 1.33 GHZ Xserve running OS X Server 10.4.11. There are four ATA drive installed (two of which are mirrored using Softraid 3.6.6). There are a total of 6 Firewire drives on the Firewire 800 Bus. Three of those are used for sharing out files and the other three are for various backups.
What happens is that I sometimes run into an issue where dmg files will not mount. There are no error messages and nothing in the log, they just don't open. Likewise I am unable to launch Disk Utility, it just spins and spins never displaying the drives, again nothing in the logs, no crashreporter. I have also found out that the same thing happens in System Profiler when I try to get a list of drives on either the ATA bus or the Firewire bus. Mind you they all show up on the desktop. Likewise I have had no luck getting them to list or run permissions or the like from the diskutil commandline. Now I am able to mount actual drives. When I swap out the offsite backup drive it mounts the new drive just fine. However... when I eject the drive and it has disappeared from the desktop and then I remove it... I get the removal error.. you didn't put the drive away properly message.
Now there are no disk related events showing up anywhere in the logs. The only other oddity that I can see is that my rsync backups tend to generate a ton of zombie processes. I get zombies of cron, sh, rsync, and mail.
It is just a pretty straightforward shell script
/usr/local/bin/rsync -E --archive -eahfs --delete /Volumes/Files/Shared\ Items/ /Volumes/Backup\ Files/Shared\ Items/
Running in cron with it set to email the logs.
Now this does all clear up when I reboot the server... but it also doesn't reboot cleanly. It closes down all of the applications, login window and the like and then hangs on the shut down portion. Eventually I have to power it off manually. I've done the normal Volume checking on the main drives and they come up with 0 errors.
Hoping someone might have some ideas before I end up having to backup and reinstall the whole thing.

Also when I try to open the disk image file I get the following error in the log.
xserve kernel[0]: disk10s10: media is not present.

Archiving Vs. Disk Image

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