Boot Multiple Bootable .DMG from USB?

[crashnburn]

Boot Multiple Bootable .DMG from USB?

Is there something like this for the IntelMac/Apple world?

I have a Multi Boot CD/DVD that allows bootable Tools: Acronis, Partition Magic etc. I'd like to create something like this for my Mac world with certain apps.
e.g. Super Duper, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius, Volume Works, iDefrag etc etc.

A simple example of the same is the following article where I can drop ISOs as they are into a USB pen drive thats been prepared to boot a menu which can choose which ISO to boot next.
It would be great if I can dump all ISOs / DMGs into one USB pen drive / HDD but I'd be okay with making a separate Mac & PC (Windows & Linux) Tool kit for booting.

Boot Multiple ISO from USB (MultiBoot USB
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-mu...multiboot-usb/

Thoughts? Anyone create / try / look at such Boot tools.

[old-wiz]

OSx .dmg files are not bootable; they are not the same as iso files.

[crashnburn]

Hmm.. well I am not saying all DMGs, but atleast the ones that are part of Bootdisks / Bootable CDs / DVDs?

Is there no way to convert them to ISOs? Or images?

After all if it is burnt to a Disk and then bootable, the code exists within. In fact, I think some people even made ISOs of the Bootable Mac OSX DVDs?

[wrldwzrd89]

You can't boot a DMG file directly. You CAN, however, use various tools to "burn" a DMG's contents to a USB drive that can then be booted from. If you're comfortable with the Terminal, the dd command can make an exact copy of one disk onto another disk. There are also various GUI tools for this purpose.

[MDJCM]

I don't think this guy's question got answered properly, and I have the same question, so bumping this.


The real question is...

Is it possible to have a USB stick that when plugged in, shows up as multiple separate bootable drives e.g. a single USB stick that can boot into Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 and 10.8 from startup?

I've seen it before on FireWire drives but not USB drives.

[simsaladimbamba]

Originally Posted by MDJCM

I don't think this guy's question got answered properly, and I have the same question, so bumping this.


The real question is...

Is it possible to have a USB stick that when plugged in, shows up as multiple separate bootable drives e.g. a single USB stick that can boot into Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 and 10.8 from startup?

I've seen it before on FireWire drives but not USB drives.

Yes, that is possible, I have done so with an USB HDD and ten partitions.
One partition per installer from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and one partition per installed OS from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and one partition for application installers and one partition for temporary stuff.

DMGs are not bootable, you have to clone those DMGs to those separate partitions, thus if you have one Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and one Mac OS X 10.7 Lion DMG for example, your clone the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard DMG file to partition 1 and the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion DMG file to partition 2 and so on.
Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to make a 1:1 clone of DMGs to separate partitions.

[MDJCM]

Ah good, I use & like CCC, didn't think about using it for this too