Even though Mac OS X is termed as the best computer operating system, the performance issues Mac users around the world face every day make them realize that being best does not mean that it is perfect.
You find Macs running incomparably fast (i.e. high-speed data execution in technical terms) when they are new, though. However, their newness does not last too long and you find them sluggish after a period of rigorous usage. This sluggish performance of your Mac could be a symptom of its failure. Since you cannot be sure about the health status of your Mac, you should make some suitable arrangements to keep it alive. For example, you must have your Mac boot DVD, as you never know when a disastrous situation comes across resulting in data inaccessibility.
Mac Bootable Disc
A bootable disc is a removable digital data storage media that is used to boot operating system on computers having inbuilt programs to boot and execute program files based on some predefined standards. When you purchase a new computer, you get a bootable disc along with it. A bootable disc enable you repair and re-install the operating system installed on your computer. For this, you need to boot your computer with this disc and choose desired option (i.e. to repair or to install).
Significance of Bootable Disc on Mac
Perhaps you rely on boot volume (i.e. Macintosh HD) on your Mac, but this trust may break anytime and you will find that your data is no longer accessible. Since all applications and their updates you install on your Mac reside on its boot volume, even a minor mishap (i.e. virus infection, software or hardware error) may cause Mac’s failure. Apart from this, following are the major needs for a bootable disc:
To Boot your Computer: You might have come across performance issues on your Mac, which sometimes lead to failure of your Mac system. As a result, you lose all your data stored on it. In such a situation, bootable disc is the absolute resolution that enables you to access all your data. Using bootable disc, you not only can repair minor corruption issues, but go for a fresh Mac OS X installation as well.
Repair Boot Disk Permissions: On Mac OS X, each volume has a set of particular access permissions associated with it. These permissions, as named, not only limit user access on Mac volumes, but maintain integrity of your Mac system as well. You might have found one or more volumes on your Mac inaccessible, which is due to corruption of their access permissions. You can easily repair these permissions if they are associated with any of the secondary volumes. However, repairing permissions on Mac’s boot volume requires you to boot from Mac OS X install disc (especially in Mac versions earlier than Lion), and then launch Disk Utility to repair its Disk Permissions.
Repair Boot Volume: Boot volume is the primary partition on your Mac drive, named as Macintosh HD. It not only contains system files and user applications, but the updates you install for them as well. Apart from these, a Mac slows down due to numerous causes, including corruption of its boot volume. This causes Mac startup issues, poor execution of programs, freezing, and crashing issues. In such situations, you need to repair Mac’s boot volume. For this, insert Mac OS X install disc and press C key to boot from it. Select a preferred OS X language, and then select Disk Utility in Mac OS Utilities window. Select Macintosh HD at the left and click Verify Disk at the right. If it reports any error, click Repair Disk.
What if there is no Bootable Disc
When you face inaccessibility or corruption of Mac’s boot volume or its permissions, you need to repair the same after booting it using Mac’s bootable disc. You might wonder that if you can repair all Mac volumes as well as their permissions, then why you cannot do the same on its boot volume. Well, to repair Mac’s boot volume, it is necessary to boot from Mac’s bootable disc because you cannot repair it while booting from it. However, what to do if you do not have your Mac’s bootable disc? How would you install Mac OS X in case it is crashed suddenly? Besides, how would you repair Mac’s boot volume and its permission? You certainly cannot perform either of the operations it there is no Mac’s bootable disc.
Creating Bootable Disc on Mac
A bootable disc is nothing but a bootable data storage media that is used to install and repair the operating system. In addition, using a bootable disc for your Mac, you can recover inaccessible data, troubleshoot software as well as hardware issues, and customize settings on your Mac in order for running large applications (i.e. games and Photoshop).
If you are a Mac Lion or Mountain Lion user, then perhaps you remember that Apple did not ship you Mac OS X bootable disc. According to Apple, Mac Lion and Mountain Lion users do not need a bootable disc, as they can download (after purchasing) these installers from Mac App Store and run them directly. However, this only way of making these installers available is proved as the biggest complain of Mac users, as it is much more convenient to boot from a physical media (such as a bootable DVD, a USB flash drive, or any external media) than a downloaded app. However, if you do not have a bootable disc for your Mac, you can create bootable disc using Mac OS X installer after downloading it from Mac App Store.
For this, you have to go online to Mac App Store, purchase the OS X installer app, and then download it. When downloading is finished, go to /Applications directory and look for ‘Install Mac OS X <version name>.app’ (such as Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app). Right-click or Control + click installer app and choose Show Package Contents in the context menu. In the opening folder, navigate to Contents folder > Shared Support folder, and then look for a file named as InstallESD.dmg (i.e. an image file). Once it is located, minimize this directory window and launch Disk Utility (found in Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Now, drag InstallESD.dmg to the left pane of Disk Utility. Now, you have two options:
- To create a bootable external drive (i.e. using any of the volumes on your Mac or a USB hard drive) or a flash drive, or
- To create a bootable DVD
Creating a Bootable Drive for Mac
Select InstallESD.dmg in the left pane of Disk Utility and click Mount option in the toolbar above. You see a new volume named as Mac OS X Install ESD mounted in the Finder. Select this volume under the image shown in Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab in the right pane. Attach a minimum 8GB drive (i.e. it requires around 5GB space) to your Mac. Now, drag Mac OS X Install ESD from left pane of Disk Utility and drop it to the Source field, and drag the destination drive to the Destination field at the right.
Important: Make sure that the destination drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is using GUID Partition Table, which means you must be using an Intel-based Mac. If it is not, then format it first using these steps:
Attach a destination drive to your Mac and launch Disk Utility. Select this drive at the left, and simultaneously go to the Erase tab at the right. Now, select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) as the Format and type a name for this volume. Click Erase button and wait until it is finished. Now, go to the Partition tab and click Options button. Choose GUID Partition Table as the Partition Map Scheme for this drive. Finally, click OK, and then click Apply button.
Once it is finished, click Restore button to start copying your Mac boot volume to external drive. Please note that the process formats destination drive, so make sure that there is not a single crucial file stored on it. If you have set a password to your user account, then you need to enter it (when prompted) to initiate this process. Besides, the time taken by the process is based on the number of applications installed on this volume.
Creating a Bootable DVD for Mac
Aside from a bootable disk or flash drive, you can also create a Mac OS X bootable DVD using the same InstallESD.dmg file. For this, you need to track the following process:
With Disk Utility launched and InstallESD.dmg shown in its left pane, select InstallESD.dmg image file and click burn option in toolbar above. Now, a message prompts and you need to insert a blank DVD (you can use both single as well as dual layer disc); set your disc burning preferences, and then click Burn to start burning it. When it finishes, you can use this DVD to boot any Mac matching system requirements (Mac OS X version according to hardware configuration).
Note:The above described method is for creating bootable dvd of Mac using Disk Utility which is an inbuilt tool of Mac. However, if one is not comfortable with this tool and want some advanced tool that can perform this job easily so, you can go for third party tools like Stellar Drive Clone. This tool is extremely simple and fast for cloning and imaging of Mac drive.
This post is written by our proud Reader and Writer : Rashmi Chauhan
You can contact her on rashmi.chauhan09999@gmail.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment