Advice on imaging/Making Recoveries

[BLUEDOG314]

So I posted earlier about making never booted images and think I have found a way to accomplish what I want, but still have a few questions as they came up after the fact.

First, I have created a bootable drive with a large number of partitions on it using various means such as Diskwarrior recovery maker, simply using hdiutil to clone built in recoveries, etc. In doing this, I have many bootable partitions with various names that I have not defined and are a bit confusing to look at form the option boot menu. How do I change the name that shows up at the option boot menu? Simply changing the partition name with disk utility does not seem to work. Further, is changing the icon that shows up in option boot as easy as editing the .VolumeIcon.icns file in the volume's root directory?

Second, I am having a real hard time getting a hold of official Mavericks and Lion installers. Does anyone know of a way I can achieve a "never booted" image from using the InstallESD.dmg that can be captured from an internet recovery download? If not, can I just use internet recovery to install these OSes to a partition on a USB drive, shrink the partition around it to get rid of unused space, then just use hdiutil to clone it before its ever booted?

Third, once I have these images potentially made as described in my second question, and some from AutoDMG, can I then use one of my bootable recoveries to "asr" the image from a partition on the drive holding a bunch of these DMGs to a target drive in terminal?

Sorry for the long winded question, any help with my little project would be much appreciated.

 

[LarryJoe33]

I am not sure if I can answer all your questions as we use different tools. I can tell you what I use and have done. I have an external FW800 750GB G-Drive. I formatted it as HFS+. I then created partitions for each image (clone) with a size that represents the image plus 10GB (or so). I use CCC5 and Time Machine to write to these partitions. When I option boot, each partition shows up by name as a boot option. For example, I have a High Sierra, a Sierra and recovery 10.12 (Sierra) and 10.13 (High Sierra). I also have a Time Machine option to boot to. The first four were created with CCC5.

[doublepost=1504726314][/doublepost]Disk Utility is a bit weak at resizing partitions on the fly. It's frustrating. I believe there are better tools out there. I have re-did things since the pictures above, but I think you get the results.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

Yea thanks that does help. I am thinking now that is has something to do with the programs I am using to do everything. I will post more as this whole thing progresses.

 

[Crash0veride]

This should help you with the naming. I don't know about the icons though. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/2350/how-can-i-change-the-title-of-a-boot-image
[doublepost=1504730302][/doublepost]Actually if you know how to change an icon: cmd+C desired image --> get info --> click image next to title (top left below window frame with icon and title) --> paste desired icon image using cmd+V. It might work for the boot volume image. The problem would be EFI/ESP partitions if that method does work.

 

[LarryJoe33]

This should help you with the naming. I don't know about the icons though. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/2350/how-can-i-change-the-title-of-a-boot-image
[doublepost=1504730302][/doublepost]Actually if you know how to change an icon: cmd+C desired image --> get info --> click image next to title (top left below window frame with icon and title) --> paste desired icon image using cmd+V. It might work for the boot volume image. The problem would be EFI/ESP partitions if that method does work.

I tried to do this a while back (changing icons) and it wouldn't take. I may have gone about it the wrong way though and the format may have been wrong. I tried to put the CCC icon on the drive/partition. OP if you get it to work, do share.
[doublepost=1504733242][/doublepost]

Yea thanks that does help. I am thinking now that is has something to do with the programs I am using to do everything. I will post more as this whole thing progresses.

I am a BIG fan of CCC, from ease of use to the very response support team, Mike the President and Founder often replies with comprehensive instructions and/or resolutions and insights.

 

[Crash0veride]

I tried to do this a while back (changing icons) and it wouldn't take. I may have gone about it the wrong way though and the format may have been wrong.

As in it didn’t change at all or at boot? I’m curious. I change some of my icons (easier to identify disks on desktop) and it’s quite easy, but I’ve never done a boot volume. I’ve done a bootcamp volume but the computer is actually booting from the EFI there. I may have only used pngs though. You also have to be sure you’re copying the image data and not an image file per say.

 

[LarryJoe33]

As in it didn’t change at all or at boot? I’m curious. I change some of my icons (easier to identify disks on desktop) and it’s quite easy, but I’ve never done a boot volume. I’ve done a bootcamp volume but the computer is actually booting from the EFI there. I may have only used pngs though.

I just googled a CCC image and tried to drag it and it wouldn't take/stick. It was a jpeg. I am sure I probably needed to convert to .ico or something. I didn't put much effort into it.
it to

im

 

[Crash0veride]

I just googled a CCC image and tried to drag it and it wouldn't take/stick. It was a jpeg. I am sure I probably needed to convert to .ico or something. I didn't put much effort into it.
it to View attachment 716164 im

I know PNGs work, maybe because they support transparency. That image would have a white backdrop, ya know, have to be rectangular, and i see that pissing Apple off, so they don’t use that format. I also always just open them in preview, click the image and hit cmd+c and paste it to the other one.

 

[LarryJoe33]

I know PNGs work, maybe because they support transparency. That image would have a white backdrop, ya know, have to be rectangular, and i see that pissing Apple off, so they don’t use that format. I also always just open them in preview, click the image and hit cmd+c and paste it to the other one.

I will give it a shot next time I plug my external drive in. I probably need to resize that jpeg as well. It's huge.

 

[Crash0veride]

I will give it a shot next time I plug my external drive in. I probably need to resize that jpeg as well. It's huge.

Background be gone, and works. Took 5 minutes.... probably should have switched to a DM chain.

 

[LarryJoe33]

Background be gone, and works. Took 5 minutes.... probably should have switched to a DM chain.

Nice! Thank you.

 

[LarryJoe33]

Ironically, came across this app while looking at something else:

https://freemacsoft.net/liteicon/

 

[BLUEDOG314]

Thanks for the help. It appears I was making the icon and drive naming thing harder than it had to be. The Cmd+I thing in finder works clearly. Interestingly the bless command did not change the option boot name, but THIS time just renaming the volume reflected in option boot menu. I had tried this before and it did not work, but whatever.

If anyone wants to learn how to make an icns file there is a great tutorial I linked below. It is also tedious, and as Crash0veride has shown there is an easier way. Just not sure why icns files exist when one larger PNG can be rescaled on the fly as needed. Ohh well.

http://applehelpwriter.com/2012/12/16/make-your-own-icns-icons-for-free/