Advertisement Here’s the dilemma. You’re a Mac user who has to create a clone of a disc to be shared with friends.
However, the disk must be compatible with Windows. Perhaps surprisingly, you can create a Windows-compatible ISO disc image through macOS without using any Wondering where all of your Mac's storage has gone? These free apps will let you know. All you need is your Mac’s Disk Utility and some magic from Terminal. Here are the simple steps. Create an Image with Disk Utility Note: If you already have a.CDR image, you can skip straight to the next step. Connect an external drive (or, if you have an older Mac, i nsert a disc into the CD/DVD drive) to your Mac and launch Disk Utility, which Want to dictate notes, look up words, and merge PDFs?
Drive-cloning utilities: The best Mac apps for making a bootable backup. It can create a disk image of the destination volume. Install new software, try out wacky system customizations,.
Your Mac has in-built tools for these tasks and more!, from the Utilities folder. Your disk will appear in the left column window. Click on it once to highlight, as shown in the screenshot below. Now that you’ve selected the source of the disc image, click on File New Disk Image from In the popup window, select Desktop as your destination.
Next, make sure to choose DVD/CD Master as the Image Format. Choosing this format ensures the contents of the disk are copied entirely as a.CDR image. You should keep the image’s name short so that it’s easily reproduced. If asked, enter your Mac password and hit OK to begin the disk image process. Depending on how large the disc is, the amount of time that’s necessary varies. You’ll see a progress bar estimating the time until completion. Once the process finishes, hit “Done,” and check your Desktop for the.CDR image.
In its current state, the disk is ready for use on any Mac. To share the file with Windows users, you’ll need to convert it into a recognizable format.
To do this, you’ll use your Mac’s You can only cram so much into graphical user interface before it becomes cluttered, so it should come as no big surprise that you can do some really cool things using the Mac Terminal. As you can tell from the screenshot above, Terminal will create a new hybrid image. This image can be used by both Windows and Mac computers that use ISO 9660 and If you've just purchased a new external hard drive for your Mac, it's important to take the time to prepare your hard drive for use with Mac OS X. There you go. You can easily create cross-platform hybrid disc images with your Mac without the need for any additional apps.
How neat is that? To mount the disk image in Mac, simply double-click on it.
In Windows, use. You can also Do you still have CDs or DVDs lying around? When an optical disc breaks, it's gone forever. We show you how to make digital and playable backups of your CDs and DVDs now!
On a virtual drive. Did you run into trouble? Leave your questions below and we’ll try out best to help you out. Explore more about:,.
One of the most appealing characteristics of the macOS is the combination of power and simplicity that the operating system provides a user. The Mac’s ease of use often insulates us from the inner workings of the incredible technology that lurks behind its elegant interface. While it is not a necessity to understand every aspect of your computer and operating system in order to put them to very productive uses, there are times when it’s worth looking under the hood to see what’s really going on. You might find that obtaining a deeper understanding of the technology you take for granted can help you in unexpected ways. A case in point is the entity known as a disk image.
Let’s take a closer look at what a disk image is and how you might be exposed to them while using your Mac. What is a Disk Image? A disk image is a single file or storage device that usually contains a sector-by-sector replica of all of the data from a storage device such as a hard drive, DVD or floppy disk. It is an exact copy of the source device that includes the files and structure of the original storage medium. Disk images can be useful in many ways, such as:. Creating system backups. Data recovery.
Burning CDs and DVDs. Software distribution.
Computer Disk images can be made in a variety of formats. Two of the more popular formats are the DMG and ISO disk image formats. The ISO format is more favored by the Windows operating system.
Mac users will usually find themselves interacting with DMG disk image files. Creating Disk Images on Your Mac There are several ways that you can create a disk image on your Mac. Here are three methods for making a DMG file on your Mac. Disk Utility. Launch Disk Utility. Click on File on the Menu bar.
Select New Image. Provide your details for source and targets. Click save to create the image. Launch Disk Drill. Select Backup from the menu.
Choose Backup into DMG image. Select the source drive or partition. Click Backup. Select the location where the image is to be stored. Click save to create the image.
Mac Command Line You can use the Terminal application and employ the create command to create a disk image from the command line. Uses of Disk Images Software Distribution A disk image is often used to download software on the Internet. Mac users have probably downloaded many DMG files that are mounted as virtual drives on your desktop. When used in this manner they are a reminder of a time when floppy disks ruled the software distribution world. They are a streamlined way to distribute code and even complete operating systems can be downloaded in disk image format. System Backups of your system ensures that you can perfectly recreate the system if the need arises. It is a more resilient way to backup your system than the more commonly used logical backup.
Using disk images along with logical backups will provide you with a robust backup scheme to protect your valuable data. A disk image is the most precise copy of the original disk that you can create. It removes the logical layers of backup software and file systems to concentrate on the physical bytes resident on the storage device. Data Recovery The presence of a disk image can be instrumental in your ability to perform a successful data recovery on a damaged or corrupted storage device. If you think there is even a remote chance that your hard drive is experiencing problems you should to protect yourself.
We will look more closely at how disk images and Disk Drill software can be used to perform valuable data recovery operations. Recovery Scenarios Using Disk Images There are many ways that a disk image can be used to extract or recover data that was previously on another storage device. Let’s take a closer look at a few of them. Extracting Data From an Old ISO Disk Image Disk Drill employs powerful scanning technology to locate and recover data from a standard ISO image. In cases where the Finder cannot read your data or Disk Utility reports the image as unformatted, Disk Drill employs its own “Allocate Existing File System Data” method in an attempt to complete the restore.
A byte-to-byte backup saved to an ISO disk image can be scavenged for deleted data by all of Disk Drill’s resources. The tool can mount the disk image and use its sophisticated scanning and data recovery algorithms to extract your files to a new location. Data Recovery on a Failing Storage Device There are often overt or subtle signs that your hard drive is experiencing problems. In some cases, the act of scanning your drive to recover data may be more than it can physically handle.
You risk a totally inoperative drive by attempting a direct data recovery. A better solution is to use Disk Drill to create a from which to attempt your data recovery. Rather than subject the storage device to the stress that will ensue with the scanning necessary to recover your data, creating a disk image will entail only one more disk access across the device. This is highly preferable and is the recommended method when recovering files from a damaged or failing drive or partition. Disk Drill will use the recently created DMG file and perform its scanning and recovery magic on it. Once your data is successfully recovered you should probably start making plans to replace the failing drive. If you choose to continue to use it, a good practice would be to make regular disk image backups for added data protection.
Extracting Bin or Cue Disk Images on a Mac You may have occasion to convert.bin or.cue files into an ISO file that can be used by other applications on your Mac. We will use two freeware software tools in order to accomplish this feat. First, we will install the Homebrew application which will then be used to install binchunker, which performs the actual file conversion. In order to install Homebrew, you need to be running Mac OS X 10.10 or later and have Command Line Tools installed on the machine.
You should also have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the command line. Installing Homebrew. Open the Terminal app. Enter the following command on a single line in Terminal: /usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL. Hit Return to agree to the terms of the install and enter your administrator password.
You can now use Homebrew to install binchunker. Installing binchunker with one command:.
Brew install chunk. Converting Files with binchunker The general format for converting files.bin and.cue files into an.iso file is:. bchunk Input.bin Input.cue Output.iso You can then mount the.iso file and use it as you would any other disk image.
Disk Images and macOS Hopefully, we have demonstrated the benefits that you can achieve by creating disk images on your Mac system. They are a way to make precision backups of your storage devices and present a method of data recovery that preserves a failing drive by limiting the need to access it during a restore.
It’s definitely worth your time to see how they can better protect your data.