JustinTD Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 I have spent the past 3 hours scouring this forum site for a clear guide on how to take an installation DVD such as Leo4All or any other and copy it to a USB device for use on installing to computers. There were multiple tutorials and none of them seemed to agree on the procedure nor (in my case) work. So, if someone would be so kind as to reply to this thread with the instructions and information I outline below so that everyone can find a single spot with a detailed guide; and mods, please sticky this once someone does. Information Needed: 1. Drive partition information. Which type should you be using? MBR, GUID, etc... 2. What format should the parition be? FAT, HFS, etc... 3. DiskUtil? Should you be using diskutil to restore your image to the partition in question? 4. What do you need to do to make this bootable (assuming your BIOS can boot from USB MSD's)? Set partition active (if so, how)? Install efix or something like it? Thanks in advance. I am sure numerous people will appreciate your efforts. I know I sure will! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinTD Posted September 29, 2008 Author Share Posted September 29, 2008 Anyone wanna chime in here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnaClocker Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 I don't think it's possible. I've never heard of it being done. It's a good idea, but it'd take a rather large thumbdrive, 8+ gigs.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 This is actually dead easy, but you need osx to do it, a method that works in linux or windows would be more useful. in short, I tend to repartition the stick to 1 partition, guid, then use the restore function of disk util to copy the disc image onto the stick, then run the chameleon installer on it, and that is pretty much it. From there, you can get more complex, with bigger sticks, imaging the retail DVD onto the stick and adding a fat32 partition to hold your initrd , booting it all from grub.... The thing about usb-stick based installers is their amazing versatility.. Not only are they read-write, so you can tweak and adjust & add updaters & installers & apps & stuff as you go, but there is really no limit to what bootloaders or patches you can use. I haven't written a tutorial because my own installers are in constant flux, and I haven't found one I think is good enough to call "definitive". Also whereas I like Grub as a primary bootloader, you may prefer syslinux, or something else I haven't thought of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinTD Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 Hagar, thanks for that bit of information. Here's my ultimate goal: I have a 160GB USB External drive, I already can make 3 paritions for OSX installs on true macs (Leopard PPC, Leopard Intel, Snow Leopard Preview) ... but in addition, I would like to make 1 partition for Leo4All installs, 1 for a system back (IE, mirror image of primary partiiton with all software, bootable, so all I have to do is copy that partition back to the HD in the event i have to start over and not reinstall everything), and a final partition for storing applications (the later is not a necessity). How can I acheive this goal? With the chameleon thing i would assume i can get the Leo4All done, then I just need ot be able to restore the bootloader from the image of the disk onto the HD for backup purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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