Using dd I'm getting a Resource Busy error

[JoshFink]

Hello, I'm trying to restore an old Hard Drive image OS.dmg to a usb hard drive that I have.

I'm using the command:

dd if=/Users/Shared/OS.dmg of=/dev/disk5 bs=1m

And I'm getting

dd: /dev/disk5: Resource busy

What would cause this error? I'm not sure why it's "busy"

Thanks

Josh

PS.. I get the exact same thing when i try to do it in DiskUtility

 

[mikehardy]

I just did this - what I did may work for you

In order to overwrite all the information on the disk, you have to make sure the mac OS isn't using it first

Open the DiskUtility.app, and on your USB hard drive, unmount any of it's partitions. Do not eject the USB hard drive.

Right click on the hard drive in the DiskUtility and get it's Identifier from the Information tab.

Now take your image, and the identifier, and put it all together with something like this, on the command line in terminal:
dd if=<your image file> of=/dev/<disk identifier>

That worked for me putting the diskboot.img bootable Linux image file onto a USB hard drive that had the identifier disk1 by doing dd if=/Users/mike/diskboot.img of=/dev/disk1

good luck

 

[Ryan813]

That did the trick thanks

 

[DrewKlassen]

Thank you.

 

[sbohonos]

Worked for me, thank you!

 

[Sarthak Varshney]

I just did this - what I did may work for you

In order to overwrite all the information on the disk, you have to make sure the mac OS isn't using it first

Open the DiskUtility.app, and on your USB hard drive, unmount any of it's partitions. Do not eject the USB hard drive.

Right click on the hard drive in the DiskUtility and get it's Identifier from the Information tab.

Now take your image, and the identifier, and put it all together with something like this, on the command line in terminal:
dd if=<your image file> of=/dev/<disk identifier>

That worked for me putting the diskboot.img bootable Linux image file onto a USB hard drive that had the identifier disk1 by doing dd if=/Users/mike/diskboot.img of=/dev/disk1

good luck

thank you so much!
it helped!!

 

[sem49]

Well done. This just did the trick for me as well!

 

[No_GT31]

I just did this - what I did may work for you

In order to overwrite all the information on the disk, you have to make sure the mac OS isn't using it first

Open the DiskUtility.app, and on your USB hard drive, unmount any of it's partitions. Do not eject the USB hard drive.

Right click on the hard drive in the DiskUtility and get it's Identifier from the Information tab.

Now take your image, and the identifier, and put it all together with something like this, on the command line in terminal:
dd if=<your image file> of=/dev/<disk identifier>

That worked for me putting the diskboot.img bootable Linux image file onto a USB hard drive that had the identifier disk1 by doing dd if=/Users/mike/diskboot.img of=/dev/disk1

good luck

Thank you!! it works for me!!

i had to use "sudo diskutil unmount /dev/diskXsX" and then my dd worked!

 

[e.d.d.i.e.]

Worked great for me! Thank you very much. Been having trouble getting a live bootable USB created on a Mac. All good now though.

 

[iHateMacs]

11 year old thread still valid and useful today. Great. Thanks.

 

[nomcebo_manzini]

Make that 12 Years…. I'm a longtime PC user, very sporadic linux user … and maybe I made a dopey decision when I bought an old Mac Mini to keep my "risk" down. Money risk is/was limited to < $100, which I'm glad to say is almost small change for me…. But BOY, the risks of assuming that Apple is at least as good as Microsoft or any decent flavor of Linux in terms of NOT WILLFULLY making you wish your own memory and the internet's could/would be scrubbed when you buy a modern device … AND the heck with you if you're using an old one … ARE HIGH INDEED. Using a Terminal should be almost foolproof IF you type right. This proves otherwise. I know Apple had to fiddle with the firmware at least twice because they didn't really test the software (OS mostly) sufficiently before doing what (the only thing ?) they do well - sell the suckers (ambiguity VERY intentional) . . . Well, the good news is that I've been forced to this conclusion in less than a month and at low cost. My USB is blinking away getting "prepped" with Lubuntu. Sure hope I can now boot using it - I'm expecting trouble! - and I'm left scratching my head how they got to be (by several measures) the biggest company in the world.

 

[netsrot39]

The post has helped me just right now in 2024. Command was needed in order to backup and restore an image of my Raspberry Pi.