Need a simple, free program to make bootable disk image.

Folks,
I'm looking all around for a freeware backup to create simple, bootable disk images for both Win7/64 and XP/32 builds. Nothing fancy, just as a disaster backup for the seven computers I'm zeroing out and re-loading for my math class. My builds are straightforward single-partition, single-disk machines.
I need to keep these machines clean and the school's network uninfected, so if I suspect an ugly virus or porn has sneeked in on a thumb drive my hope is to zero out the drive and simply re-load. I haven't yet had the pleasure of trying to re-load from a disk image.
I've got 40 hours into this project and am ready to backup all of them. I'll probably do something rash if another glitch causes me to re-load for the nth time this week. Freakin' 10 hours a day at it! (Please - don't even ask about the deadline today in getting my XP Service Pack 2 machines updated before Microsoft ends support for SP2....)
Luckily, Win 7 has a disk image applet I've used to create a disk image on an external drive and a recovery disk for these builds. I hope this built-in feature is good enough.
My three XP builds have no such luxury, so I'm looking for a freeware app to create bootable recovery disks on DVD. The full XP load is only about 10GB, so this is merely three DVD's.
I've gone all 'round the net, checking out reviews. Anybody here have a favorite? I do see a vote for Terabyte in Harm's "Favorite Tools" thread.

Clonezilla
Macrium Reflect

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Can not make bootable disk on end of year 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15"

Hello.
when I attempt to use bootcamp and on my MBP I can not make a bootable disk image on a external Usb flash drive. I can select the windows 7 image, and the click the klocation which I want it to be put, but after I click next Boot camp crashes and I get an Error message. It asks me to reopen boot camp, which I do and attempt again, but I get an error message once more.

I did get the support software onto my 16Gb Flash drive ( I formatted correctly and I can see the support soft. within) , I then try to make the partition and it says that It cant find the required data, those aren't the exact words because my computer isn't sitting infront of me right now... but when I get home I'll attempt the steps on the list you just linked me to...

Make a disk image of a drive with a bootcamp partition?

Forgive me if this is a silly question, but I'm not evern sure what to call what I'm trying to do so I had a hard time finding information on the topic.
I installed Windows 7 on my imac using bootcamp and I love it, everything works great! I spent several days installing everything on both partitions and I'm very happy with the way everything is running. I would like to "clone" or make a disk image of my hard drive. This way if I ever need to reinstall things or have a hard drive issue, I don't have to reinstall everything.
To be clear, I'd like to copy both the windows and mac os partitions together in one step, not make seperate backups.I'm not sure this is even possible.
I backup my files regularly on external drives so I'm not interested in anything that maintains a system of backups or anything like that. I'm looking for something more like a computer lab at a school would use to reformat and and do a fresh install of all of the software easily. Preferably I'd like something free, but I'll pay for something if it makes life easier.
Thank you for the help!

I know it's a lot to absorb (I've been doing these types of things for over 20 years), but if you take it slow, you won't have problem (like restoring over the wrong partition).
The first thing you should do is to create Recovery Media using the Recovery Media Wizard. This will give you a boot CD with all the Paragon tools on it. It your partition or disk goes south, just boot from this disk (hold down 'C' after the gong or hold down Option key and wait until the boot manager appears, then select the Recovery Disk). You cannot restore a image copy to a disk where you're running the OS, so the way to do a restore of a partition (or entire drive) is to boot the recovery disk, point to the partition/disk image, select the partition/disk to recover to, then start the restoral process.
For my Boot Camp partition, I prepared a Backup Capsule following the directions in HDM 2011. Since I have several 250 GB SATA2 drives just lying around from another server installation, I figured it would be best to use a pre-made Backup Capsule. But you can use just old any drive in any format, or even laser media (I wouldn't recommend that unless you want to store your backups offsite).
HDM 2011 can do either offline or online backups, the difference is that with an offline backup, the entire partition (or disk) is unallocated. In an online backup, the backup utility is running against a partition that may be making changes to itself. When you run CCC or SD! in OS X, you're running an online backup. However, I would recommend (at least for the first backup) that you boot from the HDM recovery CD to do an offline backup. This will ensure that you have an *exact* copy of the parition/disk.
Since this is you first time backing up your partition, I would suggest using one of the Backup Wizards. They'll guide you through the backup process and keep you from doing something wrong Similarly, use the Restore Wizard to restore your partition/drive.
To back up a dual-boot Mac to an external USB drive, do:
1) Boot from the Recovery Disk (I'm assuming that the backup hard drive is attached before you reboot)
2) Select Paragon Hard Disk Manager
3) Launch the Backup Wizard by selecting Wizards > Backup Wizard
4) Select the Mac hard disk (not the partition) where it asks "what to backup"
5) On the Backup Destination page, select "Save data to any local drive or a network share"
6) Hit the radio button for the "Save to local drive option" (unless you got a boatload of DVD's )
7) Select the external USB drive as the backup destination
8) Look over and correct the name and comments
9) Hit Next to start the backup
When it's done, you have an entire copy of your Mac's HD saved to external media.
If you need to recover your HD, just run the Recovery Wizard and reverse the process.
I hope this helps to get you started. Good luck.

Question about creating a bootable disk image in Leopard.

I have a Powerbook G4 that originally came with OS9, I upgraded to Tiger and recently upgraded to Leopard. The computer is running great but if it should go down what are my bootable options?
1) Boot from the install disk set then load tiger upgrade then load Leopard upgrade? then reload all my programs back on the G4?
2) Can I create a bootable disk image and save it on an external hard drive and then boot and reload everything at once? ( I guess by asking this question I really don't understand what the full scope of a bootable disk image is?) can someone explain...
Which option is better? I am also running __time machine__... what is the safest and easiest way to use time machine to get my software back together after I get the operating system up and running.
Thanks for the advice

Your best alternative is to create a bootable clone on an external Firewire drive.
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Of course you can use other software for cloning and backup:
Backup Software Recommendations
My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
9. Data Backup (Commercial)
For use with Leopard always be sure you use a version of the software that is compatible with Leopard.

How to make a disk image of a DVD to Playback in IDVD Player?

Is there a way to make a disk image of a DVD so I can play it with IDVD Player? I made a DVD image from Disk Utility and got a .dmg file, I then copied the contents of the DVD to the image. iDVD doesn't recognize it. So I then converted this image to a DVD/CD Master .cdr file with Disk Utility, but this isn't recognized by iDVD either. I am running OS 10.4.11.

One can burn a disc image thru iDvd or apple's disc utility but it is Not possible to play a disc image thru iDvd to the best of my knowledge. However a disc image burned thru iDvd will play exactly like a typical dvd when apple's dvd player app is used for playback. You may need to navigate to the video_ts folder (w/in the disc image) in order to play the image.
Message was edited by: SDMacuser

Why can't I make a disk Image??

getting Leopard tomorrow. system working great. plan to do an "upgrade installation". backed up all my files (106GB) to an external HDD. so I think I'm ready....
question is - why can't I make a disk image of my "Macintish HD"?
it starts to create the image but Disk Utility comes back and says "Unable to create disk0s2.dmg. Resource busy."
I thought it might be a good idea to do a "complete system backup" just incase something goes wrong with the "upgrade installation".
Since it didn't let me, I just dragged-n-dropped the Users folder to the external HDD, so I got my files backed up.
curious why I can't make a disk image of my WHOLE HDD. can someone enlighten me....
thanks, chris

made changes in the iDVD, don't know what I did but it worked

How do I make a Disk image and burn an install Disk

How do I make a Disk image and burn an install Disk, Ive tried it a couple of times, but will not boot up.

Thanks for getting back to me, Yes it does, it came with the machine.
Hi pfhannon,
Does the original Install disk that you are copying,
boot your computer?
You may be successfully making a copy of a disk that
is not suitable for your machine.
regards roam

Can I make a disk image of my macbook pro for backup?

Can I make a disk image of my macbook pro for backup? I'm using Lion, have 8 g memory and 500 HDD.

Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
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 external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
DU will also clone the Recovery HD partition automatically at the end of the process.

Program for burning bootable disk

ive combined my windows xp disk with sp2 in order to install it on a partition of my mac hd. i found a tutorial for integrating the two, but now i need to find a program that can burn a bootable disk. i had a licensed nero before, but i accidently deleted it while clearing hd space and i have no idea where the key code is. does anyone know a good free program?

I believe you should be able to do it with Disk Utility. Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility.
Insert a blank disc.
Start Disk Utility.
From the File menu, choose Open Disk Image and select the ISO to be burned.
In the list of volumes, you will now see an item representing the ISO file. Select it.
Click the Burn button and follow the instructions.

How can I create a bootable DISK IMAGE of my PB Internal Drive?

I would like to make a bootable image of my Hard Drive but without including any Free Space.
You see all I need on the image are the OSX and the programs, NOT the 60GB of Free Space. Disk Utility however wants to create a 80gb image which includes 60GB of Free Space.
I would like to use the Bootable image as a source image to use with the RESTORE function in Disk Utility.
Regards

You'll need a second machine or an external HDD with Mac OS X installed on it.
For purposes of this procedure I'll be calling your machine the 'source' and the second machine or your external HDD the 'target'.
First either boot the source into target mode by holding down the 'T' key while it boots. Once you see the FireWire icon on the screen, let go of the 'T' key and plug the source into the target. If you're going with the external HDD route, boot your source of off your external HDD.
Now, select the drive of your source machine, and hit Apple-I to bring up the information pane. Down at the bottom (in the permissions area) you'll see a check box labeled "Ignore ownership..." Uncheck that.
Open up Disk Utility. Select the source drive and run First Aid and Repair Permissions on it.
Now, select the File menu -> New -> New Disk Image from Folder. You're going to want to hit that big "New Image" button, but don't. Trust me. It'll only cause trouble for you down the road.
Select the source drive as the source. You can leave everything else the same and click "Image".
Select the target as the destination. Click Save.
Wait for a couple of hours (depending on how much stuff you have).
When it's done, select the Images menu -> Scan image for Restore.
Select the disk image you just made and click "Scan".
When that's done you have a restorable image. Just use the restore tab to restore it.
I've done this literally hundreds of times and it's worked every single time.

Can I make a DISK IMAGE of the installation DVD as BackUP?

Well after a week of continuing problems, I am so glad that I had several Fully Bootable Backups on external FW800 Hard Drives to keep me alive as my internal HD has been freezing and other repairs may be needed.
The ability to restart via the OPTICAL DRIVE with the original Installation DVD was also a BIG HELP. But, what if my optical drive would go? I am wondering if there is a way to make a copy of the installation drive (I'm thinking of a disk image file - believe Disk Utility can do that??) - But will it be recognized and serve to boot / install Snow Leopard on my Mac should I need it? (MBP-13" mid-2010 issue)
I don't want this for any reason other than emergency backup -- I had a DVD that was scratched and could not be read-- hey, maybe I should burn a copy as well?
Please let me know what is technically and legally possible here. I can't use a snow leopard DVD on this Mac - as it is too new. I need some backup(s).
Thanks!
Best regards,
Steve Schulte
Sunday 17 October 2010

Modifying, no. That use to be possible in the pre-Tiger past.
And with Mac Pro all you really need is to have a small 20GB partition and put OS X there for use when you want to run Disk Utility you would also be able to use other programs like CCC or Disk Warrior.
I honestly never have had to get out the original DVD (SL, Leopard, OEM) except maybe once. But I have cloned my system and even backed up my small 20GB "edrive." I also use CCC to backup system (80GB or less) to sparse disk images. But I also bought OS X DVD 10.5.6 as I wanted something with driver support for new hardware, the same thing happening now if you install the ATI 5770 and won't be able to boot with less than 10.6.4.
BootCD back in 10.3.x days though could be used not just to add other packages and use the current OS to create DVD, but to have a live DVD and be able to run Firefox and utilites.
Installing OS X off FW drive is fast, fast booting, and 5-10 minutes max to do the install.

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

Software to create a bootable disk image????

Hi,
I need to create a bootable image. I have a ISO file, and need to create a bootable image to install software onto one of my servers. Is there software out there for a Mac that will allow me to create a bootable image?
Thanks for any input,
Nigel

Disk Utility doesn't make for bootable images. However, the command-line utility 'hdiutil' does (use it via Terminal.app. I've made bootable Linux DVD images before that way, but never a bootable Mac image.
I'm guessing that a bootable Mac image would involve making a disk image file, copying the necessary system files, blessing the image (in Terminal.app, type 'man bless' for more info), and then converting it to a regular ISO image.
Similarly, I think that all you need to make a bootable USB key/drive is to partition it GPT, copy the system files, and bless it. That said, you can probably use the OS X install media to install the OS on the USB key (it certainly works for USB hard drives) directly. You could even do that, then take an image of the drive (using dd) and convert it to an ISO with hdiutil.

How do i make a disk image strait out of DVDSP

So I usually only make one copy of a disc at a time by chosing build and burn. But the other day I made 10 copies of a disc and to make them i just drag and dropped the audio and video ts folders from the folder they were saved in to the disc image of a blank disc. Needless to say none of the discs worked. What is the process to correctly do this. Can i make a disc image from dvdsp3? Cause i know how to burn disc images from disc utility

In order for a DVD to play back correctly in a set-top player, the discs have to be formatted using the UDF file system. I believe that Disk Utility only creates HFS+ file systems; therefore, you were basically making pure DVD-ROM discs of the Video_TS directory, which wouldn't play back normally in a standard set-top DVD player (but might play back ok in a DVD-ROM software player).
You can easily burn true DVD discs in a DVD-R burning program like Toast - just select the UDF option and drag the Audio_TS and Video_TS folders into the root directory of the Toast window.
Technically, you don't even need to bring in the Audio_TS folder, but it doesn't hurt (and some versions of Toast caused the contents of the Video_TS folder to end up in the root without a folder if you tried dragging just the Video_TS folder by itself - the contents NOT being in a folder called Video_TS, won't work in a DVD player either).

DVDSP3-Can You Make A Disk Image File From DVDSP3?

*Hello again. I'm just finishing up my first go around w/DVDSP3. I was surprised that when I got to the burning options, that there was no option for burning a disk image file. Is it do-able on this program?*
*I burned out one disk and tested it on a couple different players, and "finally" it was good. After the burn, the prompt just said "Formatting finished". There was no option to burn another disk, nor could I find any place to bring up a menu, to tell it that I needed 4 disks. Therefore, it was hours just to get 4-15minute dvds burned, as it started the build all over again each time. Thanks again for the help!*
LarryWest

In the Format - even the Build and Format too - dialog, you have an option to write the disc to the hard drive.
If you need to make a copy at a later date (even after you've nuked everything from your hard drives, you can use Disk Utility in OS X to make a disc image from an existing DVD-R, then burn additional copies.

Need a simple, free program to make bootable disk image.

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