Trying to copy Apple Hardware Test to external drive, need help

[celebi23]

Did a search & couldn't find the answers that I'm looking for. Forgive me for the long post, there's some backstory to this problem

My MacBook Pro has been acting a little bit weird lately (nothing bad enough to bring to the Apple Store yet) so, I've been getting ready to create an emergency boot disk with 2 partitions:

*Snow Leopard with various Disk repair software (Disk Utility, TechTool Pro, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius, Data Rescue & Stellar Phoenix, all of which I legally own copies of)
*Apple Hardware Test (in case I lose my disc or it gets damaged)

The first one should work just fine. I'm having problems with copying Apple Hardware Test to an external drive.

I'm got a 15-inch MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) & my Mac OS X Install Disc 1 is:
Mac OS X 10.4.8
AHT Version 3A116
Disc Version 1.1
2Z691-5948-A

Apparently Apple Hardware Test is on a hidden partition (about 30MB or so) that does not normally mount (except when running AHT). I tried finding the partition using the Terminal command "diskutil list" & it didn't show it. I then tried showing the hidden files & the only thing that I could find were the diagnostics folder, located at: "Mac OS X Install Disc 1/System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics"

A friend mentioned to me that when trying to create a Disk Image of the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 with Disk Utility, I needed to select the parent DVD drive (and not the item listed below as "Mac OS X Install Disc 1), go to File-->New-->Disk Image from Disk 1 & then a complete copy (plus the hidden AHT partition) would be made.

I've got a 16GB Flash Drive & I tried copying the Disk Image using Carbon Copy Cloner (and later trying the "Restore" option with Disk Utility itself) & it would only boot into the Mac OS X Installer, even after holding down the D key while booting up.

I thought maybe it didn't like USB so, I tried the same with an external FireWire Drive. Same results. Then a friend mentioned that he found out that Apple hosts (pretty much all) AHT Disk Images on their site:

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Hardware_Test/ + Disk Image file name

and he also sent along this information too:
Apple Hardware Test 3A115
Apple Hardware Test v 3A115 supports MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo) only. 2006-10-24 Diagnostics MacBook Pro
018-2591-A
4.5 MB

Apple Hardware Test 3A116
Apple Hardware Test v 3A116 supports MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo) only. 2006-10-24 Diagnostics MacBook Pro
018-2592-A
4.5 MB

So 018-2591-A would turn into "018-2591-A.dmg". Regardless if some of the version information is wrong (I've got a 15-Inch Core 2 Duo & the AHT Version is 3A116), I downloaded both & cloned them to my 2 drives (the USB & the FireWire drives, using Disk Utility & Carbon Copy Cloner) & tried booting from them. Wouldn't boot. All that were on the Disk Images were "/System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics". Nothing more. Carbon Copy Cloner gave me this error when cloning them:

The target volume will not be bootable because a required system file (Library) does not exist at the root of the source volume.

So, here are my 2 questions: has anyone been able to successfully locate, & copy, the hidden Apple Hardware Test partition & clone it to an external drive & run AHT from there?

 

[Matthew Yohe]

You don't need to use Carbon Copy Cloner. Use Disk Utility and "Restore" the DMG to a partition on your drive.

Then you do have to hold "D" when you reboot.

 

[celebi23]

You don't need to use Carbon Copy Cloner. Use Disk Utility and "Restore" the DMG to a partition on your drive.

Then you do have to hold "D" when you reboot.

Tried that in Disk Utility. Kept getting the same error over & over: "An error (16) occurred while copying. (Resource busy)."

edit: Just tried restoring the Mac OS X Install DVD 1.dmg file, to my external Firewire HD, on a different computer & Disk Utility gave me this error now:

Restore Failure
Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored.

If I try mounting the dmg first, I get this error instead:

Restore Failure
Could not validate source - Resource temporarily unavailable

The dmg was a complete copy of the original disc

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Tried that in Disk Utility. Kept getting the same error over & over: "An error (16) occurred while copying. (Resource busy)."

You have the image mounted. Eject it.

edit: Just tried restoring the Mac OS X Install DVD 1.dmg file, to my external Firewire HD, on a different computer & Disk Utility gave me this error now:

Restore Failure
Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored.

So, do what it says. Click on "Images" and then "Scan image for Restore"

 

[yashrg]

Upon trying to restore the AHT dmg to my USB drive, it asks me to first erase, and then prompts me that it needs to scan the drive. After I say go ahead and scan, I get the "resource busy" message even when I don't have the image mounted.

 

[Belka]

Upon trying to restore the AHT dmg to my USB drive, it asks me to first erase, and then prompts me that it needs to scan the drive. After I say go ahead and scan, I get the "resource busy" message even when I don't have the image mounted.

You must mount .dmg first. Then restore to USB included file.