Hey guys, just want to share with you how to make a backup of your Snow Leopard Install DVD on a USB thumb drive. This is a cool idea if you want to keep a copy even if your original SL DVD has been destroyed or being scratched and the worst...lost. I see some members lost or damaged their copies and had to buy a new one. This one is for my MacBook Pro 15". Below are the steps, requirements and some screenshots. Requirements: OS X Snow Leopard USB Thumb Drive at least 8GB capacity 1. Insert Snow Leopard install DVD 2. Go to Disk Utility 3. Select MAC OS X Install DVD from the side bar 4. Go to File>New?Disk Image from "Mac OS X Install DVD" 5. Rename under Save As: rename whatever you want. I kept mine as is. Will probably redo this and rename it with SL and which mac. 6. Press save, this will take at least 10 or more minutes. When done, a .dmg file of Mac OS X Install DVD will be seen now on your desktop 7. Convert the file from .dmg to .iso. This is done by editing the filename 8. You will be prompted if you are sure to change the extension from .dmg to .iso? press Use .iso. 9. You will see now the .iso file on the sidebar in disk utility program 10. Insert your thumbdrive and wait Disk utility to recognize it, select the drive that says "untitled". Just ignore my screenshot because i rename my thumb drive before this process. It doesn't matter anyway. 11. Go to restore tab 12. Now go to the Mac OS X Install dvd .iso file from the sidebar and double click it. 13. A progress window will appear that says "Attach image "Max OS X Install DVD.iso", you may skip the verification or go ahead and wait for the next step 14. The Mac OS X Install DVD will now mount on your desktop, you can close that one out because the image will now be seen in the Disk Utility program window, go there 15. Right click on the Mac OS X INstall DVD image (this is the lower portion on the side bar) and click "select source" 16. The Mac OS X Install DVD now will be the source under restore tab 17. Select your USB drive the "untitled" on the side bar and drag it to the "destination" field. Once there, you cannot rename it. Its okay coz you do not need to.Under the destination field, check the box that says Erase destination (this is actually checked as a default) 18. Then press restore tab 19. Then press erase, you will be asked with your administrator's password, go ahead and press okay. 20. The next process is setting up which takes like half an hour or less depending on the mac you're using. 21. You're done. You can now eject the DVD, eject the thumb drive. 22. Reinsert the thumb drive and the Mac OS X Install DVD will mount on your desktop. 23. You are finish. You can change the icon if you like by going in to the get info and copy the icon and paste it into the thumbdrive's get info to the the icon. You can always do this again as long as you still have the original OS X DVD. But in my opinion, discs are vulnerable to scratches, your kids might play with it without your knowledge. Lastly, if you wanna transfer this to another thumb drive, you can always do the step and set the sources. This is also applicable to an external hard drive, say partition it and allocate 1 partition to 8GB.
I actually do this, much easier than hunting down your old DVD. Also, if you use it on a hard drive you can get faster install times. You can even put it in a spare partition and install from there then keep that partition in case you want to reinstall on the go.
This is actually how I got SL installed on my machine. We upgraded using a Family Pack but only had the physical disk for a night (and I couldn't finish backing up everything in time), so I just made an .iso of the DVD, then restored it on to an 8GB USB drive. Then after making sure all backups were in order, I just plugged in the USB drive and away it went!
alternatively, you can also use SuperDuper to restore the ThumbDrive/external HDD with the SL DVD. much much easier in my opinion.
I've been using this since Leopard came out. You can use Mac OS built-in Disk Utility to create the installer in a thumb drive.
hi ijingo, may i request permission to re-post this is on my blogsite? i will copy it verbatim (too lazy to edit) thanks
just transfered all my installer dvds on my flashdrive. thanks for this great step by step tip ijingo. =)
I want to be able to make a slipstream usb disk or dvd that incorporates 10.6.2 Combo Update. How can I do this?
Thanks for that but it seems to be a dead link. I couldn't find any other source. Other listings point to the same repository.
