Setting boot drive using ARD.

I'm trying to use ARD to help re-image labs. I need to be able to set machines to netboot for imaging. I have read and tried the Manage->set boot drive. This option is grayed out and I'm not sure why. I would appreciate any help in either getting this option working or a unix command to set the machines to netboot so I don't have to manually restart each machine. I would use the server to just push the command, but I only want to do 30 at a time rather than all 600 at 1 time which is why I'm using ARD.

use send unix command
set user to root
send the command
bless --netboot
then after the command is successful, use ARD to reboot the computer.
Check out How to NetBoot Across Subnets for more info on bless
test on one computer, ones you get the settings right , try a larger group.

Similar Messages

How do I Partition Yosemite Boot Drive Using BCA?

I replaced the HD in my Mid 2010 27" IMac to achieve greater storage. The replacement went fine with no issues, and I then installed Yosemite (10.10.1) from scratch using the latest version of Diskmaker and installing the install version of Yosemite on to a USB thumb drive. The replacement drive is a 4.0Gb drive with no prior installations on it.
Everything has gone fine, and OSX Yosemite seemingly works great.
But I need to install Boot Camp and a fresh version of Windows 7, 64bit SP1, and it just won't work at the partition step before I ever get to the Windows installation.
When I use BCA I downloaded the drivers without a hitch, but when I go to the next step I encounter the error message, "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS extended volume or already partitioned by Boot camp Assistant for installing Windows".
I have found a number of references to this error message, but none seem to describe my situation with a new, clean, install of Mavericks.
I have a bootable backup (via Carbon Copy Cloner), and have loaded current Yosemite compatible versions of Partition Magic and TechTools onto the external bootable drive, but cannot see any problems with the drive.
Before I progress any further with installing apps on to the new drive and I still have a clean Yosemite installation on the new HD, I want to resolve the issue since Windows 7 via Boot Camp (and not via virtual software!) is essential. The prior smaller HD had a Windows 7 Boot Camp installation that worked fine.
Options that might work:
1. Boot to the external drive, and create an MS-DOS partition manually using Disk Utilities, and then try to use that partition for Windows using BCA.
2. Use low level partitioning software or terminal mode to erase the small hidden OSX restore partition, which may be why BCA thinks I have more than one partition on the boot drive. This notion shows up in some of the threads on this web site, but why would Apple allow this problem since all installations of Yosemite presumably have the hidden restore partition?
3. My new 4Gb hard drive is a hybrid SSD/HD (ST4000DX001), but this type of drive seems to be the norm now, and I do not see where this would be a problem.
4. Erase the new drive, and install a clean version of the original OSX, (Lion, I believe for the mid 2010 27" IMac) using the internet and the Cmd-R command, subsequently updating the original OSX version to Yosemite after creating a Boot Camp partition (although I don't know if BCA would work from the original version of OSX for this machine. I really don't want to do this because of the time required for the internet download, but it would take me to the original OSX image which came with the machine.
I have no issues with my Yosemite installation, and backup is not a problem since my goal was to create a clean installation of OSX uncluttered with legacy apps.
I would be grateful for any experienced suggestions, or hypotheses as to the nature of the problem.
Thanks!!!!

You can use an external disk for store files and for Time Machine, but you have to create a second volume.
To create volumes on the external disk, use Disk Utility. See > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html I recommend you to put as much space as you can for the Time Machine volume, because backups consume a lot and Time Machine starts deleting backups when the external disk is full

I upgraded my internal Boot Drive, used Disk Utility to image and restore..

...Time Machine still recognizes my external drive as the backup disk, and I can still go back in time to bring something back using it.
The problem is that, time machine thinks it needs to backup everything that is on my restored internal drive. So what I have now is this--
Full Backup from original Leopard launch
Incremental Backups
Full Backup (in progress now) since imaging my old internal drive to a new one.
My question: how can I turn what is happening now (a full backup of the present), into an incremental backup (where it should leave off, since it is an image of the same drive)?

Unfortunately, nobody can tell you what you're likely to be able to restore. You can only try. See Recovering deleted files for some suggestions.
The encrypted sparse bundles are the big problem. If all the individual "bands" of the sparse bundle are still intact, you should be able to recover them, although if the recovery software is unable to recover the directory structure, I imagine it may be difficult to piece them back together.
However, if even a few bytes of a single band file have been overwritten, the entire sparse bundle is ruined. You'll never get it open again. A recovery service is not likely to be of any help in that case.
BTW, you definitely need to be posting in the Snow Leopard forum, as there are some fairly significant differences between Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion. You risk getting answers that make assumptions on the system you are using, and that won't apply to you.

Procedure for SSD boot drive in Mac Pro?

I just purchased a 115GB SSD that I want to use as the boot drive in my Mac Pro running OS 10.6.8. I've read several articles about how to set this up but none seem to be working for me. On the SSD boot drive I want only the essentials: OS, Home Folder, Apps. Everything else (docs, downloads, music, photos, movies, etc.) needs to go on my 1TB storage HD. The problem I'm having using Carbon Cloner and Super Duper to copy the OS, HF and apps to the SSD is they're copying too much data, filling up the SSD with non-essentials (there should only be about 90GB of data being copied but much more seems to be transferred). I can't seem to lean-down what's being moved. Would doing a new install with the Snow Leopard DVD and then copying over only the essential files/folders with Migration Assistant be better, more specific?
Has anyone perfected this procedure, and can give me step-by-step instructions? All help is greatly appreciated!

There are dozens and dozens of threads, MPG, MacRumors and elsewhere.
don't move anything from "home" except the bare essential ~/Library (1GB at most) with CCC and deelect everything else. That should get you down to size.
Before you bought I hope you asdded up the /applications and good estimate. most users can get an OS/apps into 60GB or less (the max I would want to see on SSD you have) FCP and some others or if you hae a lot of large apps - some allow for installing in alternate locations as well as into system/library.
Some - there are always some - have had trouble cloning. Some had trouble with installing, too. Can't win for losing at every turn sometimes.
Been there, but look again at MPG series.
How To Clone a Volume
How to upgrade your system/boot drive
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

Mid2007 macbook trying to install retail copy of 10.6.3 after install fails say bless tool unable to set boot disk help!

Mid2007 macbook when trying to install retail 10.6.3 screen comes up installation failed because cant set start up disk try startup utility. when try startup utility it says bless tool cant set boot drive when called apple support guy said my harddrive was going out even though the computer had no ill signs before inserting install disk. I bought new harddrive and installer does same thing . Then apple sent me a new disk - same thing . I have ran disk utilities numerous times tried to reinstall numerous times even hooked external harddrive and ran tech tools from it one side note the startup key commands do not seem to work as in apple op pr,apple op of etc but will go to option start. I realize it is getting old but something is keeping software from loading i also read where i could take ram out for awhile i did this. No change. Taking to apple store is not option any and all suggestions welcome

Sounds like the machine has a firmware password as you cannot change the startup disk (stored in NVRAM) and only the option key at boot works.
You will need to option boot from the 10.6 disk and use the Firmware Password Reset utility and enter the password to disable it.
If you forget the password, take the machine to a Apple Authorized Repair and they can bypass it in hardware.

My G4 won't boot off a firewire drive cloned from properly-booting drive

I've got a G4 that normally boots 10.3.9 off an external firewire drive. I cloned the drive onto a WesternDigital "MyBook" external hard drive, and connected it via firewire 400. I cloned the 10.3.9 boot drive using SuperDuper to a partition on this drive. But, the G4 refuses to boot off it when I choose it as a startup disk. I see (very briefly) the following
....couldn't read it.... @d/mac-io@7/ata-4@1f000/disk@0:5,\\:tbxi
anyone know what this is, why it won't boot off the clone, and how I can check whether the drive contains a proper 10.3.9 system and is set to be bootable?
Mike

Hi Mike-
How did you know?
I "Googled" it. It's been reported many times, and is included in a couple of reviews.
Problem is, "bootable" can be claimed in Mac's, as it will boot with Intel machines.......
Don't ya' just hate that?????
This review is from a writer for Mac-Centric.

Swap boot drive with SuperDuper -- any tips?

I'm using a Mac Pro 3,1 and my 300GB boot drive is getting a bit tight. I'm thinking of swapping it out with a larger drive; I do daily cloned backups of my boot drive using SuperDuper, so it seems like a swap would be as simple as switching boot drives to my backup, swapping out the HD, and cloning everything back onto the new larger drive. That seems too simple, though; is there anything I should watch out for?
And on that subject, any suggestions as to reliable internal drives to upgrade to?

Be sure to prep the new drive properly:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Most any drive you choose will be fine, although personally, I'd avoid Western Digital Blue models and any "green" models from other mfgrs. I'm partial to Hitachi and Seagate.

Partition boot drive

Can I partition my boot drive using the install disk without losing any data? I have Snow Leopard on it now with 100GB of space available (320GB drive) and want to put Lion on it but need Snow Leopard because of older programs.

I decided not to pursue this because after booting up from my install disk and partitioning the hard drive with Disk Utility, the first dialogue window cautioned "This will erase your drive". Maybe I'm missing something here but I think I'll take it in to an Authorized dealer and have them do it.

System set-up with two drives (and one used as a boot drive)

Apologies if this has been asked before; I have searched a little for this info, but couldn't really find it.
I'm looking ahead to the glorious day when I eventually get my dream killer system, i.e. a Powermac (or whatever it's called when it goes Intel) with all the trimmings.
I like the idea of having something like a WD Raptor as a boot drive, with a large second drive mainly for storage plus the obligatory external FW drive for back-up.
I know from using Windows that a using a boot drive (or partition) with everything else on another volume is ok, but I had read/heard (perhaps incorrectly) that OS X likes/needs (particularly for iLife) to keep Apps in the Applications folder, music in the music folder etc.
So what would be the best way of achieving this type of set-up on the Mac?
Thanks in advance.

iTunes doesn't care where the music is stored. Just make sure it's NOT set to "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" in the iTunes preferences (under the advanced tab.
iPhoto 5 and earlier is a bit more picky. iPhoto 6 has an option very similar to iTunes that allows you to store your music wherever you want, without it automatically copying to the iPhoto folder. If you get a new PowerMac, it will contain the latest version of iPhoto, so you don't have to worry about it.
I never use the other iLife apps, so I don't have an answer for those.

Setting up an external boot drive to only use when running Logic Pro.

Since Logic Pro must be installed on the boot drive and it takes a lot of space I am considering an external boot drive. I would only use this drive when running Logic Pro and at other times it would not be connected. It is possible to set up a Firewire 800 drive in this manner and choose which drive to boot from whenever it is connected? I’m not interested in running Windows on this computer, but I would like the option to connect a second Firewire drive to occasionally backup the Logic boot drive.
Am I better off doing a clean install of the OS on this external drive?

If you hold down [option] at start up it will show all possible Boot volumes and allow you to select the one you want.
Yes, I'd do a clean OSX install and then put Logic Pro on it.

Is it possible to use External HD as main boot drive? (Help!)

Hi all
I am about to buy a Seagate FreeAgent Pro (link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/478636-REG/SeagateST305004FPA1E3_RK_FreeAgent_Pro_500GB_eSATA.html) with 500Gb and FW400/USB2.0/eSATA. I have a Mac Mini, and its internal HD is too small for me (80Gb total for about 70Gb of data).
What I'd like to do is install OS X on the External HD and use it as my main boot drive, and perhaps the Mini's internal HD for data backup. Would that be possible/legal (I only have the install discs that came with it - my first Mac :D)? If it is complicated, could you guys explain me how to do it?
I'd also like to know whether the performance would be better or worse. The Mini's got a 5400 RPM drive, and the external is 7200 RPM and would be connected through FW400 (plus a lot of free space for now).
One last question: if it is indeed possible/legal to use the External HD as my main boot drive, would it be possible to install and boot Windows on the external HD using Boot Camp or Parallels?
Cheers
Daniel
Mac Mini 1.83 GHz Core Duo 1 GB Ram 80 GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Performance will be worse because FW400 is considerably slower than the internal bus. For startup I would continue using the internal drive. You can use the external drive for data storage as well as off-loading any music, picture, and movie files to free up space on the internal drive. You can also partition a chunk of the external drive (80 GBs) to use as a backup partition for the internal hard drive. You can clone your internal drive to the external (partition) which will give you a bootable backup. Here's how:
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.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.

Possible to use TC as clone of boot drive in Leopard?

Time Machine seems to take FOREVER whenever I run it, so I end up not running it. I was wondering if it is possible to use Time Capsule as a pure hd and clone my boot drive to it for a full backup option? If so, how? Are there reasons not to?

Bad sectors automatically get re-written when new data are supplied. If the new data don't "stick" a spare will be substituted.
If you are happy with your clone, just update it. There is no need to write Zeroes to it. I was suggesting that process for when you make major changes -- it takes several hours to complete.
You may prefer to use you smaller drive, Zeroed, to start a new clone, wait a little while to assure success, then start a Time Machine backup set on the larger Iomega.
Or some other approach that has not occurred to me.

Mac Version of PS6 Will Not Launch if Scratch Disk is Not Set to Boot Drive

Mac OS 10.8.2. PS6 will not launch unless the boot drive is set as the number one option for the scratch disk. Even if I choose another internal drive and set it as the number one option for PS6 it will not launch. Is there any kind of work around for this? My boot drive is only a 120GB SSD so I don't want to use it as the main scratch disk.

Curt good idea but no go. This is a fresh install of PSCS6. I ran the Apple Disk Utility three times and Disk Warrior on the boot drive. If I leave the Scratch Disk set to the boot drive no issues, only if I change the order of the scratch disk or if I do not have the boot drive selected as a possible option for the scratch disk.
Where is the 'ignor ownership' option found? I did a 'Get Info' and I don't see it in that window.

Setting up XServe mirrored drives using disk utility

We are getting ready to format a server and reload the OS. We currently have 4 drives (250gb) each. I want to know the best way to set the drives up so they will be redundant. Do I include the first drive, which will contain the server software? This is an older G4 XServe box with 2gb of memory. I do not have a RAID card in this server. This will be software RAID.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Scot

Depending on how much redundancy you're looking for you can do it a number of ways, but here are the basics.
1) Boot from your installation media
2) After you choose a language you can invoke the Disk Utility
3) Use DU to wipe the disk and create a RAID 1 - add desired disks to the RAID*
4) Once the RAID is finished it will appear as a single drive
5) Quit Disk Utility and return to the Installation process and install the OS on the "Disk" which is actually the new RAID.
The set-up you want dictates the "desired disks" in step 3 above. Usually people create one mirror of the system disk so they have a disk to boot from if the primary drive fails. If the main system disk fails you simply pop out the bad drive and reboot off the mirror. You could do more than that but it really is overkill. If you really want more protection use the other disks for making back-ups so you can rollback or find accidently deleted files rather than more copies of the same disk.
Hope that helps,
=Tod

Leopard Prep: Setting up two boot drives

I actually think I'm going to do a complet system wipe. I've been having enough issues with my system to warrant it. So I'd like to set up a second bootdrive for Leopard. I know some of you guys do this specifically with Logic in mind, so I was hoping someone might walk me through it.

Sorry for kicking in so late. I am in the habit of using CCC, almost religiously. I think you've seen me previously on the forum talk about using CCC on a second partition or drive on your machine, booting up from it, and then doing the apple system patches or plugin updates or what ever, and running like that for a bit to make sure everything is OK. Once I've identified that there are no new anomalies, then I boot into my primary partition and do the same updates the way I did them on the cloned partition.
Further, what I've been doing while testing Leopard is to simply use that second partition or drive and use it to install Leopard. This way I can boot between my 2 operating systems without a hitch, and if Leopard gives me a hard time, I can park it until the next update.
Having that luxury will allow me to install Leopard when I get it Friday, and run all my software with the gold master and see what sticks and what falls and it will allow me to decide if I want to use it full time or not. I suspect at this point that because of the Apogee drivers I won't be using Leopard full time. In fact the Apogee site now officially says to not use any of their drivers with OS 10.5... yeah no kidding it kernel panics the box. So until Apogee gets their driver out, and I hope that's soon along with Leopard itself, I am going to keep both Tiger and Leopard running, and when I want to do my music, I just boot up in Tiger, when I want to do everything else I work in Leopard.
Another idea I am toying with is that once I get Leopard going with everything I need, I may just rebuild the Tiger drive and make it a music only drive. Meaning that boot drive will only have Logic and its needed components. Everything else will be on Leopard. I would probably split that drive in 2 partitions so I can still do my upgrade tests. Is it time consuming? yes to setup it seems time consuming, but the end result is that you will always have a running system that is always clean and free of any issues, and it will allow you to quickly test the updates so that you can take advantage of what ever changes apple and 3rd parties are making... or decide that they fumbled the ball and you don't want to make a change.
Living in fear and sticking on an old OS version is simply not a good thing.
Here is an interesting article on Leopard security if you're interested:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/9251
R

Setting boot drive using ARD.

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