How do i make an EFI system Partition

Today, I rebooted my 2009 Macbook Pro and I tried to bootcamp, when it said "The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows." I went to disk utility to see if there was a problem, so I verified the disk. When I verified the disk, it said there was a problem in my partition map and "This disk doesn’t contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk."

Erase, reformat, and partition the HD. The EFI partition is created when you do that.

Similar Messages

  • How do you repair the EFI systems partitions when you mac tells you that the live file system is not supported?

    how do you repair the EFI systems partitions when you mac tells you that the live file system is not supported?

    I don't have good news. You will need to repartition and reformat the hard drive in order to determine if the drive is still OK or if it needs to be replaced. If your computer is a 2011 model or later do the following:
    Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion Using Internet Recovery
    Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
    Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.
    Partition and Format the hard drive:
    Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
    After DU loads select your newly installed hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
    Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion. Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
    Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
    This should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.
    If your computer is pre-2011 model, then locate the original installer discs that came with the computer. Then do this:
    Clean Install of Snow Leopard
    Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
    the drive and everything on it.
         1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
             with your computer.  Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
             After the chime press and hold down the  "C" key.  Release the key when you see
             a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
         2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
             button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
             After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
             size.)  Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.  Set the number of
             partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
             and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
             (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
         3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed
             with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
         4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
             Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
             username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
             Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
             install of OS X.  You can now begin the update process by opening Software
             Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
    Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. You can now download a version of OS X from which to upgrade from your Purchases page in the App Store.

  • MacBookPro SSD Error- ALERT: The partition map needs to be repaired because there's a problem with the EFI system partition's file system.

    MacBook Pro OS x Mavericks. I have Sandisk 256GB SSD and I am getting a below error message.
    ALERT: The partition map needs to be repaired because there's a problem with the EFI system partition's file system.
    Does anyone know how to resolve this error and fix it ? unfortunately I don't have a Time Machine backup. Thanks!

    Have you tried to run the verify/repair permissions and verify/repair disk through the recovery disk? If that didn't work then I would reinstall the OS after backing up. If that still doesn't work I would take it in.

  • This disk doesn't contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk.

    As stated above. I get this when I try to resize my HD. Was having issues with BootCamp so I removed it and got this.
    This disk doesn’t contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk.

    the same problem...
    any help?

  • Problem with the EFI system partition's file system.

    I installed latest yosemite 10.10.2 update - did a verify disk on “WDC WD1001FALS-403AA0 Media” (internal HD on my iMac 21.5-inch, Mid 2011) and got
    Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
    Error: The partition map needs to be repaired because there’s a problem with the EFI system partition’s file system.
    However a verify disk on the volume partition gets a clean bill of health!
    I haven't done a 'repair disk' yet. Thought I'd check if anybody else has same message first.
    Cheers

    I had issues where my MacPro 8-core would not boot after the 10.7.4 upgrade, but my MacBook Air 13" 2011 upgrade worked just fine.
    I had to restore my MacPro HD from my TimeMachine back up. Apparently, the Softraid raid drivers that I use on my MacPro are not compatible yet with 10.7.4. See here for more info:
    http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120511_1-MacOSX-SoftRAID.html
    I contacted Softraid and they are already aware of the issues and are working with Apple for a fix.
    Cheers.
    Bud

  • [SOLVED] UEFI doesn't "see" the 'EFI System' partition

    My BIOS/UEFI stop from "see" the 'EFI System' partition, there's shellx64.efi and a gummiboot installation and when I try to launch the shell only get "Not found" message.
    Here's the GPT:
    $ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
    GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.10
    Partition table scan:
    MBR: protective
    BSD: not present
    APM: not present
    GPT: present
    Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
    Disk /dev/sda: 625142448 sectors, 298.1 GiB
    Logical sector size: 512 bytes
    Disk identifier (GUID): 8700C28A-71B0-416A-971A-DDAD1961D56E
    Partition table holds up to 128 entries
    First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 625142414
    Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
    Total free space is 2669 sectors (1.3 MiB)
    Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
    1 2048 1640447 800.0 MiB EF00 EFI System
    2 1640448 78815231 36.8 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
    4 111316992 251867135 67.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
    5 251867136 253968383 1.0 GiB 8200
    6 253968384 625141759 177.0 GiB 0700 Microsoft basic data
    7 78815232 111316991 15.5 GiB 8300
    File list:
    $ ls /mnt/boot/efi
    bootx64.efi EFI loader shellx64.efi
    This happened after a unsuccessfully fedora's bootloader installation.
    Last edited by hotvic (2015-02-23 00:34:34)

    I finally managed out what is the problem.
    The problem is that Fedora Installer (anaconda) wrote the MBR code to disk. so the UEFI partition isn't read by BIOS (I think, not sure).
    The solution for me was erase the protective-MBR:
    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
    and then fix the GPT:
    # gdisk /dev/sda
    ## just type 'w' and confirm
    after that reinstalled the gummiboot and voila
    Thanks to all and sorry my very bad english.

  • Wbadmin - access to EFI system partition fails

    Sorry, but I could not change the headline in the thread were I started this issue. But error 0x807800C5 is too imprecise
    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/79a735c1-4c50-4fa8-a945-46e25991eea9/wbadmin-failure-0x807800c5?forum=windowsbackup#47e77a02-ddb0-42dd-b33d-1475471f7bc3
    So I sumarize the case:
    Server 2012R2
    Hypervisor with several running VM's
    Up2Date 3/18/15
    After weeks of succesfull backups wbadmin suddenly fails with 0x807800C5. No changes were made to the system, same backup device.
    I restored a file and a VM succesfully from the backup to verify that the disk and the image is ok.
    I run wbadmin from a script with:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -allCritical -hyperv:vm1,vm2,vm3
    Output is:
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation to F: is starting.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a shadow copy of the volumes specified for backup...
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a shadow copy of the volumes specified for backup...
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Windows Server Backup is updating the existing backup to remove files that have
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > been deleted from your server since the last backup.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > This might take a few minutes.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a backup of volume (EFI System Partition) (100.00 MB), copied (0%).
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Summary of the backup operation:
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > ------------------
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF >
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation stopped before completing.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation stopped before completing.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Detailed error: The specified backup disk cannot be found.
    I found out that the failure only occurs if I add the -allCritical switch.
    If I start the backup for drive c: with this command:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -include:C: -vssFull -exclude:c:\Hyper-V
    everything is ok.
    I can backup every virtual machine with the following command without any problem
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -hyperv:XYZ-DOM
    Only this command fails:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -allCritical
    The difference is that wbadmin now tries to backup ALL partitions, also EFI & Co. So I assume that wbadmin does not have proper access to the "EFI System Partition" and that all information which one can find in the logs of the
    2012 server related to that event is bullshit (Error: The specified backup disk cannot be found).
    I found reports of 8.1 users rleated to similar problems (http://answers.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/forum/windows8_1-files/systemabbildsicherung-bricht-ab/f6ed5e53-829e-48be-9b47-a73f730680cc?page=1&tm=1384095732725). Could be a hint, same kernel.
    But at the end: With this kind of backup you'll loose defintly the possibility of an bare-metal restore, very
    unsatisfying.
    Annother question: Backups with the -hyperv switch are terrible slow. The backups are written to an USB-3 disk, The xyz-Dom machine for example has two vhdx files with roundabout 700GB, more or less 350GB filled. The backup needs 12 hours!
    Thank you
    Klaus Deiss

    Sorry, but I could not change the headline in the thread were I started this issue. But error 0x807800C5 is too imprecise
    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/79a735c1-4c50-4fa8-a945-46e25991eea9/wbadmin-failure-0x807800c5?forum=windowsbackup#47e77a02-ddb0-42dd-b33d-1475471f7bc3
    So I sumarize the case:
    Server 2012R2
    Hypervisor with several running VM's
    Up2Date 3/18/15
    After weeks of succesfull backups wbadmin suddenly fails with 0x807800C5. No changes were made to the system, same backup device.
    I restored a file and a VM succesfully from the backup to verify that the disk and the image is ok.
    I run wbadmin from a script with:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -allCritical -hyperv:vm1,vm2,vm3
    Output is:
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation to F: is starting.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a shadow copy of the volumes specified for backup...
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a shadow copy of the volumes specified for backup...
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Windows Server Backup is updating the existing backup to remove files that have
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > been deleted from your server since the last backup.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > This might take a few minutes.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Creating a backup of volume (EFI System Partition) (100.00 MB), copied (0%).
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Summary of the backup operation:
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > ------------------
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF >
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation stopped before completing.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > The backup operation stopped before completing.
    2015-03-18 23:02:17 INF > Detailed error: The specified backup disk cannot be found.
    I found out that the failure only occurs if I add the -allCritical switch.
    If I start the backup for drive c: with this command:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -include:C: -vssFull -exclude:c:\Hyper-V
    everything is ok.
    I can backup every virtual machine with the following command without any problem
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -hyperv:XYZ-DOM
    Only this command fails:
    wbadmin.exe start backup -quiet -backupTarget:f:\ -vssFull -allCritical
    The difference is that wbadmin now tries to backup ALL partitions, also EFI & Co. So I assume that wbadmin does not have proper access to the "EFI System Partition" and that all information which one can find in the logs of the
    2012 server related to that event is bullshit (Error: The specified backup disk cannot be found).
    I found reports of 8.1 users rleated to similar problems (http://answers.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/forum/windows8_1-files/systemabbildsicherung-bricht-ab/f6ed5e53-829e-48be-9b47-a73f730680cc?page=1&tm=1384095732725). Could be a hint, same kernel.
    But at the end: With this kind of backup you'll loose defintly the possibility of an bare-metal restore, very
    unsatisfying.
    Annother question: Backups with the -hyperv switch are terrible slow. The backups are written to an USB-3 disk, The xyz-Dom machine for example has two vhdx files with roundabout 700GB, more or less 350GB filled. The backup needs 12 hours!
    Thank you
    Klaus Deiss

  • Gummiboot error : file system is not a fat efi system partition (ESP)

    I am at the point the guide tells me to do some specific work because I got UEFI motherboard
    I did a fat 32 partition (type ef00) of 1G , which is my sda3
    I created a dir /mnt/boot
    I mounted the sda3 there
    I type pacman -S gummiboot
    result is File system /boot is not a fat efi system parttition file system
    error: command failed to execute correctly
    I don't get what I did wrong or what I understood wrong in the wiki. My partition is fat32, I try to install the bootloader gummiboot there but I take that error msg even if it's indeed formated as fat32.
    edit: i've run the pacstrap -i /mnt base , everything worked smoothly and fast.
    Last edited by bigboss (2013-10-10 19:07:22)

    Hopefully you also say this line:
    gummiboot install wrote:Copied /usr/lib/gummiboot/gummibootx64.efi to /boot/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI.
    The \EFI\boot\bootx64.efi spot on the ESP is special. It is the "default" spot, which was originally intended to ensure that a UEFI USB flash drive, or other external media, would be able to boot.  So in those cases, there is obviously not going to be a firmware entry as there potentially are for internal devices.  So with external media, it finds the first ESP it can and automatically boots whatever is placed in that position.  After a while, this feature started to be implemented to the internal devices as well.
    This of course has its benefits, but also downsides.  It means that you can actually boot UEFI without making an efibootmgr entry at all.  You can instead set the machine to boot from the device (as though you were booting with the old MBR system) and have things set to UEFI.  It will then, like the external devices, find the first ESP and then boot the \EFI\boot\bootx64.efi, whatever that is. But this also has made it so that different installers will "compete" for that default spot. So although gummiboot copying itself to that spot is in my opinion, convenient, I believe the microsoft installer will also make an attempt to write over this as well.  Hence, it is better (but not essential) to have a firmware entry.
    As far as the efibootmgr mounting issue you had, it may be that the info is not in the beginners guide simply because of the recent changes to the efibootmgr binary.  See this section of the UEFI wiki page to understand what happened. Baiscally there is a new system in the kernel for EFI variables, and we have now switched fully.  But I also agree with jasonwryan here that it is also likely that there just simply has to be a balance between providing a nice up to date layout of the installation process in the beginners guide, while not totally regurgitating every single but of information from the rest of the wiki.

  • Recovery and EFI System Partitions both reading 100% Free after I Factory Reset

    I own a Hp Envy  dv7 Notebook PC running Windows 8 64Bit for about 1 year now. I recently did a Factory Reset, now my Recovery and EFI  Partitions say 100% Free on both partitions. I used the recovery disks I made two days after I purchased computer.

    Hi,
    Is it  "Factory Reset" you mentioned inside Windows(Change PC settings\General\Reset)? After you execute this feature, it would remove all the file in your current system drive and reinstall your system in fact. However it won't make any influence with
    other drive.
    In addition, generally speaking, OEM Recovery and EFI partitions should be hidden, how did you find them 100% free? I'm sorry for your loose, to fix this problem, you may need contact HP support for further assistance.
    Roger Lu
    TechNet Community Support

  • How do I make NTFS format for partition in disk utility ?

    Hi, how would I format a external hard drive partition to NTFS for windows ? There's no option in disk utility. Only MS-DOS ( FAT ) , ExFat, free space, Mac OS extended- journaled, Mac OS extended, journaled case sensitive.
    The other partition would be mac os extended journaled . Does it have something to do with partition scheme ? I'm running mountain lion .

    anonymous4a wrote:
    ok i wasn't clear,
    That would have helped.
    I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive.
    Ok, so you have OS X and Windows in BootCamp on your Retina MBP.
    You want to make a backup of both to one drive and this is what you should do.
    Get another powered external drive slightly larger than your internal boot drive.
    Use Disk Utility to format this external drive with a GUID partition table and two partitions each slightly larger than your MacintoshHD and BootCamp partitions
    The first external partition formatted OS X extended journaled (MacintoshHD2) and the second one exFAT (WindowsBootcamp2) The OS X parittion is first at the top.
    Download these two programs, Carbon Copy Cloner and Winclone 3.
    Use CCC to clone the OS X MacintoshHD to the MacintoshHD2, and use Winclone 3 (runs in OS X) to backup Windows BootCamp to WindowsBootCamp2.
    The OS X clone on the external drive is bootable if you hold the option key down while booting the computer.
    The Winclone 3 partition on the external drive is not bootable, it's a backup only as Windows is copy protected and will invalidate itself if it ran.
    Warnings:
    Don't use CCC to clone BootCamp, it's not designed for that and won't restore to run Windows.
    There is no software that can do both parittions at the same time and be bootable or restore properly to a different sized drive or restore the RecoveryHD partition. Some have tried with some other softwares and have problems with lost drive space.
    Both partitions have to be cloned/backed up seperatly as there is some intelligence involved and the user needs the option to adjust partition space.
    Also, backup your files in Windows (and OS X) to a regular external exFAT drive that was formatted on the oldest Windows machine your going to connect to, OS X doesn't do exFAT correctly so Windows can't read it. The exFAT partition using Winclone likely won't be readable by a Windows PC.
    Most commonly used backup methods
    .Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
    Again, you can't run Windows from a external drive, it's copy protected and takes the hardware id's into that, so it's essentially worthless to use NTFS on the external WindowsBootcamp2 partition.
    All you need is a partition format that can handle over 4GB sized files, and exFAT is ideal and free to use. FAT32 can't handle 4GB+ files and is being phased out.
    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/review-is-microsofts-new-d ata-sharing-system-a-cross-platform-savior/

  • How can I restore the EFI? partition

    In attempting to install my company's "golden image" on my MacBook via Boot Camp, it instead decided to wipe out the entire drive. As far as I can tell from Disk Utility, the Mac OS X partition (most of the disk) is okay, and the Boot Camp partition is still present (and I don't really care if it's intact or not), but the third partition (EFI? ACPI?) seems to have been overwritten by the Ghost installer.
    Is there any way to restore just the EFI partition? What's on the MacBook is replaceable, but I'd rather not if I could JUST repair the EFI partition.
    I tried the Firmware Restoration CD, to no avail. Disk Utility "verify disk" says the Mac partition is fine. During boot, I get the "slash circle" (international "do no enter" sign) flashing rapidly with the Apple logo, then a period of a question-mark folder, then back to flashing. I'm GUESSING since the third partition now has a name matching the company PC support package that it clobbered it.
    Doug

    Boot.efi is a file on the hard drive. If is one of many system files. Per the document reference I sent to you if any of these files are damaged, missing, or corrupted they will cause the same warning.
    "Circle with Slash - could not load boot.efi, or some other issue."
    This has nothing whatsoever to do with partitions on the disk drive. You just need to reinstall OS X. In fact you probably can do so using Archive and Install and not even have to erase the hard drive:
    How to Perform an Archive and Install
    1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) 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, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
    3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
    4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
    5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
    6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

  • How do I make a certain sized partition in Lion? (When I put 40.00 GB, it keeps splitting my hard drive in half)

    I wanted to make a partition like this: but when I click apply, the size keeps going back to half of my hard drive. How do I get it to stay at 40.00 GB? It also shows this when I click apply, so it doesn't work anyway. How do I fix that?

    You need to Drag the one partition Up from the bottom right hand corner (kind of a set of 45° line) until you get to the 40GB mark. Just typing in 40GB won't do it.
    EDIT:
    As to is failing first Verify the drive and Repair it, if needed. Once you drag up to make the main partition smaller by 40GB Click Apply. Then once that is done click the Plus sign to make that 40GB Un-Alocated space into another drive/partition. It is a 2 Step process. Step one making the main partition smaller. Step two creating the second partition/drive.

  • How do you make a bootable install partition from a disk image of an install disk.

    I have an iMac g4 running Leopard and would like to install OS X 10.3 on a different partition Leopard is on. However the super drive in the iMac will not read the disk I have, so I used my MacBook Pro to make a disk image of the install disk to use to install on the iMac. I do not know how to make the disk image into a bootable partition so I can install 10.3. The person I bought it from has already created a partition of the Leopard install disk and it is bootable but I do not know how he did this. Please help me. Thanks!

    However the super drive in the iMac will not read the disk I have, so I used my MacBook Pro to make a disk image of the install disk to use to install on the iMac
    Could be the cd is bad.  Could be a bad cd reader.
    I' not sure what you are trying to do. 
    To install,
    --  you need to boot from a cd. 
    -- copy a working installation from another partition. try carbon-copy-cloner
    -- could try target disk mode.  There is a cd sharing mode.
    "Installing OS X 10.4 'Tiger' on DVD-Challenged Macs Using FireWire Target Disk Mode" Should work for 10.3
    http://lowendmac.com/misc/06/0710.html
    Here is a picture of  a firewire port:
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/IEEE_1394_Firewire_PCI_ Expansion_Card_Digon3.jpg/800px-IEEE_1394_Firewire_PCI_Expansion_Card_Digon3.jpg
    cd sharing across ethernet.  Not sure if this works for booting.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5287

  • How can I make a hard disc partition?

    Dear sir/madame,
    I have a mac OS X leopard with one partition and I want to upgrade to Lion, I have an external hard disc and I am always making backup on it, so is it safe to upgrade my system without copying all my data to the external HD?
    And if I make a new partition on my system and put all data I need on it, then I install the Lion on the other partition, will the data be deleted?
    With thanks in advance,,,
    Nadim

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