Create an ISO image of a DVD on Mac OS X

It seems to be a bit more difficult to create ISO images on the recent Mac Mountain Lion. Though I never did it before, it seems that an option to create an ISO was a part of the Disk Utiltiy application. Now though you can only make a .dmg.

You can try to copy all the files from a DVD to a folder and use Disk Utility to create an ISO but you'll have problems with extended attributes if copying a Mac OS X Install disc.

This works ok.

1. Open Terminal.

2. Now find where the DVD is mounted.

Type :

drutil status

This will tell us where the drive is mounted. It will look something like:

John-Mac-mini:Desktop John$ drutil status Vendor   Product           Rev  HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GA32N      KC12
           Type: DVD-ROM              Name: /dev/disk1       Sessions: 1                  Tracks: 1    Overwritable:   00:00:00         blocks:        0 /   0.00MB /   0.00MiB     Space Free:   00:00:00         blocks:        0 /   0.00MB /   0.00MiB     Space Used:  843:15:63         blocks:  3794688 /   7.77GB /   7.24GiB    Writability:       Book Type: DVD-ROM (v1)

We can check using: mount

John-Mac-mini:Desktop John$ mount/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)/dev/disk2s3 on /Volumes/My Book Time Machine (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled)/dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners)

I notice that in my example mount gave:

/dev/disk1s3

and drutil gave:

 /dev/disk1

You need to unmount the DVD drive by running: umount
This will need to be run as super user (sudo) and this will require your password.

sudo umount /dev/disk1
Password:

You now need to run the dd command:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk1s3 of="my file name.iso"

Copy DVD contents to a folder on OSX using Terminal

Open, Terminal

Type  

df

This will give us the device names.

You will see something like:

/dev/disk1s3    13158216   12992304    165912    99%   1624036    20739   99%   /Volumes/My DVD stuff

You can highlight and copy the DVD information  using cmd C.

Copy your equivalent to this: 

/Volumes/My DVD stuff

Then navigate to the target folder (using the cd command) such as:

cd /Users/John/Desktop/my target folder/

Now we can do the copying from the DVD to where we are.

cp -rpv "/Volumes/My DVD stuff" ./

If you want it to run quietly, then leave of the v option for verbose. Then if it will only report errors to the screen.

cp -rp

Job done.

How to instal Remote disc on an older mac

If like me you have an old Macbook pro and the optical drive has decided to lay down and die, then it's a bit of a problem upgrading the OS if you don't have the App Store.

I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion but the version was pre-Snow Leopard (I should have noted the version as I'm writing about it!).

Trouble is, to get from ye-olde version to Mountian Lion I needed to get the App Store, and to do that I need Snow Leopard, which comes on a DVD and will then let me get to the App store. Easy.

I needed to place the Snow Leopard DVD into the drive on my iMac (Mountain Lion), share the DVD drive by selecting Sharing in System Properties.

Then, I needed Remote disc on the old Macbook Pro. Problem is, it's only on newer kit. Well actually it's not. It's actually there, I just needed to configure it.

Open terminal on the Macbook and type:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
then

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true
Then restart the Macbook and in the Finder's sidebar there will be a disc icon. Click on it and off you go.

You can install from there. Fantastic I thought.

I went into System Preferences, Energy Saving, on both computers and set the computers not to go to sleep.

Installing across wifi took 3.5 hours then failed.

I tried again. It failed after the remote drive became unavailable.

I got a router and two cables and networked them together so it would be quicker but now the macbook tells me the HD is damaged.

I ran disk utility on it all it says it's fine so the media is ok.

Pooh.

Remote Disc was working, but I couldn't upgrade the OS with it.

In the end I,
1. Created an ISO of Snow Leopard
2. Formatted a memory stick (journaled)
3. Put the ISO on the stick and installed from there.

It worked - not entirely though. An issue with Spotlight remains that I haven't had time to resolve.
Oh - and my only Macbook is too old for Mountain Lion, or Lion. :)