Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to Install OSX from DMG

H

hasteveha

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 27, 2008
67
0
I tried to do a fresh install of leopard from the dvds that came with my computer, it always fails at 8% and doesn't complete, it says the disk is damaged. I have an image of leopard install disk on my external drive. How can I boot from it and install leopard. I want to see if my disc is bad, or if the iMac is bad. I'm new so I'll need step by step instructions

Thanks
 
You can't boot from a DMG. You can either burn your Leopard image to a dual layer DVD if you have a Superdrive capable of burning dual layer, or if you have a spare external hard drive or an 8GB flash drive, you can use Disk Utility to restore your Leopard image to your drive and boot off that drive.
 
if your mac is new and you have destroyed your restore dvd's phone apple and ask them to send you some replacements - maybe for a small fee or even free depending on how nice you are to them
 
I've had the iMac for one day. The DVDs came defective. Hopefully they replace it for free
 
hasteveha said:
I've had the iMac for one day. The DVDs came defective. Hopefully they replace it for free
Click to expand...

Just having done a re-install a week or so back… when you install the Mac OS Installer checks the media (disc) for any faults.

Does it check out 100% when you run install?

If the discs pass the check then there might be another problem.
 
I ran disk utility. found the image on my exernal hd, went to restore, source is the img, then restore it so mac HD I restart it looks like it will boot up but just hangs
 
just incase you do not know this :

put restore DVD 1 in drive - reboot and when you hear the dong hold down "C" until you see the installer screen
 
hasteveha said:
I tried to do a fresh install of leopard from the dvds that came with my computer, it always fails at 8% and doesn't complete, it says the disk is damaged. I have an image of leopard install disk on my external drive. How can I boot from it and install leopard. I want to see if my disc is bad, or if the iMac is bad. I'm new so I'll need step by step instructions

Thanks
Click to expand...

Not sure if this will work or not as it relies on being able to open the installer from the .dmg while booted from the install disk you have if it will let you do this then you should be alright. All you need to do is boot with the install disk with the external turned on so it will be available once booted. When you get into the installer you need to see if you can mount the .dmg with diskutil from an already mounted external drive. If you get the .dmg mounted then it would be a matter of noting the name of the mounted .dmg so when you quit the diskutil and open a Terminal you know what to use as the name when cd'ing into to mounted image of the .dmg to start the installer contained in it with something like this for the commands.

Code: 
cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Installation/Packages
open osinstall.mpkg

You would need to change the "Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD" to whatever the name was in the display of the mounted .dmg in diskutil, the \ are here as they are needed if there is a space in the name. Now with the .dmg installer open proceed with the install from it as normal if it gives you trouble with the machines internal disk being mounted already the quit the installer from .dmg and Terminal go back to diskutil to unmount the machines internal hard drive. This can be made even simpler if you can still boot your machine and have a spare partition on the internal drive as all you need to do then is mount the image from the external drive with diskutil run the installer from it choosing the spare partition as the destination to install too.
 
The drive is called /volumes/freeagent drive . I change that part from the part you listed, but it says no such file or directory. It's bascially like ms dos. I want to get to the mounted drive from the terminal so I can do the install
 
I've been booting from the DVD to install. I chose the option that wipes everything. It checks the installation dvd and then it starts to install. It goes it installs almost all the way until there is 8% left. It then says failed install. Check the disc is might be damaged. Contact vendor for replacement. I cleaned the disc, used a pc and made a dual layer backup of the dvd and tried the install, same thing happend. I downloaded a clean dmg of leopard and have it on an external drive. I booted and mounted the external with the .dmg . I want to run the install and see if it will work. How from the terminal, I'm familar with dos.
 
hasteveha said:
I downloaded a clean dmg of leopard and have it on an external drive. I booted and mounted the external with the .dmg . I want to run the install and see if it will work. How from the terminal, I'm familar with dos.
Click to expand...

tut tut -

Phone Apple get new disks - simple
 
hasteveha said:
The drive is called /volumes/freeagent drive . I change that part from the part you listed, but it says no such file or directory. It's bascially like ms dos. I want to get to the mounted drive from the terminal so I can do the install
Click to expand...

Ok that would be the name of the external drive itself in diskutil you need to use the name of the mounted .dmg that is on that drive when changing to its directory ie. the name freeagent will not be part of the /Volumes/..... path you use.

Edit: Another way to get the name to use is in the Terminal using the mount command like below.

Code: 
:~ MacUser2525$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
fdesc on /dev (fdesc, union)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, automounted)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted)
/dev/disk1s2 on /Volumes/wd500 (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s3 on /Volumes/Home (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s4 on /Volumes/music (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s5 on /Volumes/video (hfs, local, journaled)

This should show all mounted volumes giving you the name you need once you have mounted the .dmg file.
 
Even though the error said it was the media. It was the new 4gb of ocz ram I ordered from new egg. I had a feeling it might be the problem. With the 4 gb installed I ran a regular hardware test the ram passed. I ran a more advanced test and it fail. I popped in the original ram it came with, the install worked like a charm. I guess I will RMA the new ram.

Thanks guys
 
If you have an external disk and have an os on it you can boot from that one,then open the leopard dmg by rightclick and look into the package,then look into installation,system,library if I am right and there are all the parts of your installation.
Click on the main macosinstaller and you should be able to anstall from there.
Hopefully this works.
I actually anstalled osx 10.4 on my (now dead :()pismo by installing every single installer in that folder.
It wasn't possible by just clicking the main one.
Cheers Perry
 
hasteveha said:
It was the new 4gb of ocz ram I ordered from new egg.
Click to expand...

yep...something i learned from building my own pc's...if OS installs fail, always swap out the ram. the reason it fails at the same spot each time i believe is because its always copying the same amount of data in the same order each time...and always fills up the ram to the same extent so when it gets to a certain register that's busted... could easily make you think its the cd/dvd like when you install XP and it always has trouble copying the same file but it doesn't tell if you it had a read or a write error :(
 
PLin said:
You can't boot from a DMG. You can either burn your Leopard image to a dual layer DVD if you have a Superdrive capable of burning dual layer, or if you have a spare external hard drive or an 8GB flash drive, you can use Disk Utility to restore your Leopard image to your drive and boot off that drive.
Click to expand...

Great idea on the 8gb flash drive. I've been using an external HD partitioned but flash drives are SO cheap now... perfect solution! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back