How to Create a Mac Bootable DVD

A Mac bootable DVD is one which lets the user to rectify each problem caused by their Mac OS X, which may further lead to the Mac boot failure at any time, and it is useful when you need to reinstall Mac OS X. You just need to boot your Mac OS from the help of bootable DVD, launch Disk Utility, and finally fix the issue. But, when a bootable DVD is not available, you can no longer address the problems with the Mac startup disk, especially if you are running a Mac OS X earlier than 10.8 versions.
On the other hand, those who own Mac OS X 10.8 or a later version can boot from the help of Recovery HD to fix the issues with the boot volume. However, reinstalling the OS X requires a separate bootable DVD, which they do not have, as they were not shipped it along with the Mac machine. Thus, they have to create a separate bootable DVD in order to be able to rectify such problems on their own.
In order to create a Mac bootable DVD requires you to download the installer from Mac Store after purchasing it, and then you have to burn it to a DVD. So, before that make sure that the installer which you purchase is the same as the one that is already installed. Well, you may wonder that why to burn the installer app to a DVD, whilst you can directly boot from it and fix the problems. However, having a physical bootable install media is quite reliable and every user must have it, as you cannot just go online to Mac App Store and download the installer app every time when it is required. Besides, a good number of reasons are also there to have a bootable DVD, a bootable USB, or a like media.

Why you should Create a Bootable DVD:-
If your Mac slows down with the passes of time, applications keep crashing cont., files and folders take more time to open, and many other issues happen, then you are going to lose all of your important data due to Mac boot failure. In such a situation, your system mostly shut down. Your Mac OS X forcibly by holding down the power button until it goes power down.
Well, doing such trick will minimize the issue in the short run, but it may anytime lead to a bigger problem and cause incurable troubles for your Mac OS X. In order to be able to fix such issues, all you need to have is a bootable DVD for your Mac. In case you do not have it, create one by following the below mentioned steps as given below:

1. Purchase Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion installer app from the Apple App Store, and then download it on your system.

2. Now, Go to Applications and find the ‘Install Mac OS X <Name of OS X version>.app’.
(Note: Name of OS X version is different for different versions, such as Lion, Mountain Lion, or Yosemite etc.)

3. Once you find the Install Mac OS X <Name of OS X version>.app, now right-click on it and select Show Package Contents in the contextual menu.

4. In the folder than opens, open Contents folder, and then open Shared Support.

5. Search for the InstallESD.dmg file.

6. Now, launch Disk Utility from your system and drag the InstallESD.dmg image file to its left pane.

7. Now, you need to create a bootable DVD, make sure that you have a blank DVD (single-layer or dual-layer) available with you. After that, you can proceed with the below following steps:-

1. Highlight the InstallESD.dmg file in the left pane and click Burn in the toolbar.

2. When it prompts to insert a DVD, insert one.

3. After inserting the DVD, choose your disc burning preferences and proceed.

4. Once disc-burning process is finished, eject the DVD, and you move the Mac installer app to a different location. Using this DVD, you can boot any Mac machine compatible with this version of Mac OS X. However, apart from Disk Utility, you can also use any other disc burning application.
Major Benefits of a Bootable DVD:-

As you all know that you were not shipped a bootable DVD along with your Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion system, every time you come across an issue with the boot volume of your system, you need a bootable DVD to repair it. Besides, following are some key benefits of having a bootable DVD:

In a situation when you are not able to install applications on your Mac. Subsequently, you can Repair Disk Permissions of the boot volume using Mac Bootable DVD.

You can reinstall your Mac OS X again, in case some issues lead to Mac boot failure or similar situation.

Cloning of the Mac hard drive volume requires booting from a secondary bootable media. A bootable DVD lets you to clone the boot volume as well as the entire Mac drive at once, including installed applications and user data.

In spite of the aforementioned advantages of having a bootable DVD, a bootable DVD is required to resize the boot volume of your Mac.
Now, you must have understood the significance of a bootable DVD, you must have one for your Mac. Well, you would also be glad to know that some of the best professional Mac cloning apps are able to create bootable DVD from the current boot volume of your Mac. Having such a tool is really great, as you do not have to purchase and download the installer app from the Mac App Store. However, before using such an app, make sure that your Mac boot volume is fine (or it does not have any issue). After that, you can begin with the process to create bootable DVD for your Mac.

2:29 AM - By Stuart Bell 1

How to Install Windows on Mac OS X using Boot Camp?

Little background:-

Boot Camp is one of the helpful utility from Apple Inc. by which a Mac user can install Windows on the Mac OS without using a second system.
With the help of Boot Camp, users can use any version of Windows OS on their Mac OS very easily.
After completing the Boot Camp Assistant, you can start your Mac and choose between Windows and Mac OS (as per your suitability) or use the features of both OS.
In short, Boot Camp provides the Mac users to run Windows based programs without buying a second computer and install Windows OS on it.

Boot Camp is a good idea to use PC into the world of Mac and its implementation is also very simple. For using PC on the Mac, you have to create the new partition after repartitioning the Mac hard drive and after that install the Windows OS along with some other system drivers.

Below I have written some of the helpful steps which you should need to know before installing window OS on your Mac OS X:

Install Windows by Using Boot Camp on Mac OS X:-

1. First open the Boot Camp Assistant from /Application/Utilities
(Before you start this process, please make sure to take the complete backup of all of your important files and folders)

2. Now, in the second step, adjust the divider in such a way that it creates the partition of Windows as per the necessary size.
In order to create the two equal size of the hard drive, you should click on the “Divide Equally” button.

Imp: - You can also create a Windows partition of exactly 32 GB by clicking on the “Use 32 GB” button.

3. Upto here, the Windows partition gets started. Now, insert your windows installation disk and start the Installation in Boot Camp Assistant.

4. In the 4th step, select the partition titled as “C: Partition”.

Imp: - You should select the above mentioned partition; otherwise you will end up losing all of your important data from the Mac HD.

5. Now, complete the Windows installation process and finally insert the Mac OS X installation disc to install the drivers.

6. In the final step, restart your system.

Now, you can use your new Boot Camp along with the version of your window. Sometimes, when the Mac users need some extra storage space in the Boot Camp partition, then resizing the boot camp partition come handy.

Resize Boot Camp Partition:-
With the help of Mac partition manager, users can easily resize the Boot camp partition so that both the Windows as well as Mac users have appropriate size of partition.

Taking the appropriate Partition size using Boot Camp, helps the users to maintain the performance of their system continuously.

10:31 PM - By Stuart Bell 1

Can disk utility shift Mac partitions?

I have a PowerPC Mac with Mac OS X 10.4. I tried to create a dual boot disk on my Mac. The total size of my Mac disk is 250 GB. The Mac OSX was installed in 100 GB of space and rest 150 GB was free. I installed Windows 7 with bootcamp and allotted it 80 GB of space on the disk. Everything was well except one thing. I was left with two free spaces, sandwiched with Windows 7 volume. Here is the layout of my hard disk:

1. Mac OS X (10.4) = 100 GB
2. Free Space = 35 GB
3. Windows 7 = 80 GB
4. Free space = 35 GB

I wanted only three partitions on my Mac drive but unfortunately, created four. So, I had to merge the two free spaces and create a new partition of 70 GB.

Unfortunately, the Apple's disk utility doesn't show any option to merge / shift these free spaces to bring them together. So, finally, I had to search for a third party Mac tool to create a new partition from free space.

I found the Stellar partition manager for Mac which can :

1. Create new partition
2. Resize partition
3. Shift Partition
4. Hide / Reveal Mac partition
5. Format partition
6. Delete Mac partition

So, it was very easy with Stellar partition tool to bring the free spaces ( 35 GB each ) together to create a new partition of 70 GB. Now, I have three partition on my drive:

1. Mac OS X (10.4) = 100 GB
2. Windows 7 = 80 GB
3. New Partition = 70 GB

Apart from this I can also hide my partition and stop it being accessed by my daughter as it stores some very important files. Although there are so many other Mac applications to manage partitions in Mac but the features like :

1. Interesting GUI
2. Low price
3. Fast performance
4. Data safety

made me lean towards it. It is to suggest our readers not to believe blindly about any application but first try this application and check if it can serve you to manage your Mac partitions effectively.

11:20 PM - By Stuart Bell 0

Format Vs Delete Mac Partition

Should I format or delete my Mac partion? I often being asked by many of my readers about this dilemma. While using a partion management software they often get confused with these two options. So, lets remove the confusion.

Format Volume/Partition: When we format a Mac volume, it offers us with an option to change the file system of Mac and also erases all the data from it. This option is suggested only when you have unimportant data on that volume. After formatting, your volume is ready to store new data.

Can I recover my data if I got my volume formatted accidentally ?

Yes, you can. For this you need a data recovery program and please don't write anything on your hard drive before you use any data recovery software.

Delete Volume/Partition: Once you delete a partition or volume and will be marked as a free space of that size. Further, if you want to use that free space to store data, then you need to create a new partition. Deleting a partition allows you to remove any unwanted volume/partition from your Mac drive.

Can I recover my data if I got my volume deleted accidentally ?

Yes, you can. But, if you are using the Stellar partition manager ,then no recovery is possible.

10:53 PM - By Stuart Bell 0

Create new Mac partitions with Stellar Partition manager

In the process of managing Mac partitions (either resize or deletion) there may remain free spaces on mac hard drive. These free spaces on hard drive can be used to neither to store data nor to install any application.

The best way to utilize these free spaces is to merge them to create new partition. The following diagram will put my point more clearly.

Mac Hard drive structure

P1

F1

P2

F2

P3

In the above diagram, F1 and F2 are scattered free spaces. These cannot be used in this status. To make it usable, its always suggested to merge these free spaces together. After merging, the new structure will be like this:

P1

P2

F1 F2

P3

Recently, A software I came to know, with such feature , is Stellar Partition manager. We can perform following operations by using this mac tool.

1. Format
2. Delete
3. Hide
4. Reveal
5. Resize
6. Shift
7. New partitions

The free download version of Mac tool is available at http://www.stellarpartitionmanager.com/. The following picture gives a deeper observation of Stellar partition manager.

11:30 PM - By Stuart Bell 0

Alternate to Disk Utility to Resize an Existing Mac Volume

Disk Utility allows you to resize existing volumes without losing data, but there are a few limitations. Disk Utility can decrease the size of any volume, but it can only increase the size of a volume if there’s enough free space available between the volume you wish to expand and the next partition on the drive.

For practical purposes, this means that if you want to increase the size of a volume, you may need to delete the partition below that volume. You will lose all data on the partition you delete (so be sure to back up everything on it first), but you can expand the selected volume without losing any of its data.

Process to Increase the size of a Volume

1. Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
2. Current hard drives and volumes will display in a list pane on the left side of the Disk Utility window. Hard drives are listed with a generic disk icon, followed by the drive’s size, make, and model. Volumes are listed below their associated hard drive.
3. Select the hard drive associated with the volume you wish to expand.
4. Click the ‘Partition’ tab.
5. Select the volume listed immediately below the volume you wish to expand.
6. Click the ‘-’ (minus or delete) sign located below the Volume Scheme list.
7. Disk Utility will display a confirmation sheet listing the volume you are about to remove. Make sure that this is the correct volume before taking the next step.
8. Click the ‘Remove’ button.
9. Select the volume you wish to expand.
10. Grab the right-hand bottom corner of the volume and drag to expand it. If you prefer, you can enter a value in the ‘Size’ field.
11. Click the ‘Apply’ button.
12. Disk Utility will display a confirmation sheet listing the volume you are about to resize.
13. Click the ‘Partition’ button.

Disk Utility will resize the selected partition without losing any of the data on the volume.If a user is not comfortable with inbuilt disk utility of Mac , then he may opt for some other disk management tool like Stellar Partition manager.
The Stellar Partition manager provides its users the option to:

1. Create new partitions
2. Hide Partitions
3. Merge Free spaces to create partitions
4. Resize Mac partitions

Here is a screenshot to show the options available with Stellar partition manager.

10:11 PM - By Stuart Bell 0