[johny-boy]

os x 10.2.8 toast 6.1.1

hello,

is it possible to burn a bootable CD with toast in os x? and is it possible to burn a bootable DVD with toast in os x? if so how? i remember in toast 5 there were a number of necesseties: select "bootable" being one if memory serves -- and i don't see any option like that in 6.

i burnt a dvd from a disk image (i haven't and didn't mount the image) and all the data is on the dvd but it is not bootable -- that is i've started up my machine with the dvd in the drive while holding down option and the only drive/os that appears is the one on the built in hard drive -- the one on the dvd doesn't appear: therefore it looks like i and toast failed to burn a bootable dvd. what is the difference between a bootable dvd and a not-bootable dvd for goodness sake? why is it that even with a full os on the disk it then has do be in some way officially made bootable? what's that all about?

anyway, before wasting many cds and dvds, is it possible to burn a bootable cd and is it possible to burn a bootable dvd with os x 10.2.8 and toast 6.1.1?

thanks very much for any information on the above.

cheers, John.

This post has been edited by johny-boy: 25 May 2006 - 08:24 AM

[tsantee]

You cannot create a bootable CD or DVD with Toast 6 or 7, but you can duplicate one that already is bootable. This is done by using the Toast Copy window. You say say you have an existing disc image. Whether or not that disc image retained the bootable capability of the original disc depends on what what used to create the image file. Toast will make a disc image from a bootable disc (again, with the Toast Copy window selected) that can be burned to disc and still be bootable.

[johny-boy]

thank you for the reply.

i'm fairly sure the disk image is bootable. i did make a copy of it, using the copy tab and using 'image file', but the resulting dvd doesn't seem to be bootable (i verified the copy successfully having burned it). how can i find out if the disk image is bootable or not? is that possible?

what you're saying about toast not being able to create a bootable disk, but if it's given one to copy it's perfectly capable of copying a bootable disk; so has that changed between toast 5 and 6? why is it that toast 5 had a bootable option?

what i'd really like to know, just because i don't understand it and it's something that's perplexed me for some time is: what is it about a disk, apart from having a fully functioning operating system on it, that makes it bootable? there seems to be something aswell as an os that's required to make it bootable; what? just a full os seems to be enough for a hard drive. what is it about cds and dvds that's different? what is this extra thing that makes them bootable?

but back to the original question: is it possible to find out if the disk image on my hd is bootable? i think it is but having made a copy of it using toast and attempted to boot from the disk it isn't a bootable disk, so i guess you're going to say; the disk image isn't bootable. is there a way to find out? if so how?

thanks.

[tsantee]

Some of your questions I can't answer because I don't know. But let's start at Toast 5's ability to create a bootable CD. It can only do that with an OS 8.x or 9.x CD and it requires the Mac to be booted into one of those OS's in order for that feature to be available. No version of Toast can create an OS X-bootable disc. You might recall that the System Folder in the OS 9 disc had to be "blessed" in order to work. Just having a startup system file in a system folder didn't work unless you also could see the little system icon inside the System Folder icon. Blessing the system file is what Toast 5 could do.

I have made backups of my OS X install CDs and DVDs with Toast 6 and 7 using the Copy window and they have booted. My process was to first create a Toast disc image file by choosing Save as Disc Image when the original CD or DVD was selected in the Copy window. I also burned to DVD-R media which may also be a requirement to be bootable on a Mac, but I don't know that for sure.

I don't know what makes an OS X disc bootable or not. Maybe there is something you can learn for the developer of BootCD here: http://www.charlessoft.com

The only way I can think of to test if a disc image file will make a bootable disc is to do exactly what you've done: burn the disc and start up the Mac while holding down the option key.

[johny-boy]

tsantee, thanks very much for the reply.

> But let's start at Toast 5's ability to create a bootable CD. It can only do that with an OS 8.x or 9.x CD and it requires the Mac to be booted into one of those OS's in order for that feature to be available

did toast 5 in os 8/9 allow you to turn any data (without an os as part of the data) into a bootable cd? is that what you mean by create rather than copy? if that's the case i had no idea it could do that.

> You might recall that the System Folder in the OS 9 disc had to be "blessed" in order to work.

yes i never really understood that and it's something like that that i'm thinking of possibly when i'm asking what extra thing is it that makes a disk bootable. does the blessed thing, whatever that was, not exist in os x?

> I also burned to DVD-R media which may also be a requirement to be bootable on a Mac, but I don't know that for sure.

oh, i used a DVD+R.

> The only way I can think of to test if a disc image file will make a bootable disc is to do exactly what you've done: burn the disc and start up the Mac while holding down the option key.

well the dvd is definitely not bootable, but the bootableness of the disk image reamains in question.

i think it's the whole blessed thing that's making me think that there's something extra/magical needed to make a disk bootable, but from what's been said it looks like the blessed thing (which was what exactly?!) may be a thing of the past -- not in os x?

> I don't know what makes an OS X disc bootable or not. Maybe there is something you can learn for the developer of BootCD here: http://www.charlessoft.com

ok well thanks very much for the info. very helpful.

so the problem possibly is the use of dvd+r instead of dvd-r? doesn't seem likely though as i'd have thought that kind of detail is hidden from the computer -- it's either a drive it can read from or it isn't. if the drive recongnises dvd+r or not i'd have thought is the only issue and it does, and my computer is fine with dvd+r's usually. but then i keep feeling there's some sort of odd mysticalness surrounding bootable disks so i don't know.

thanks.

This post has been edited by johny-boy: 25 May 2006 - 12:43 PM

[tsantee]

johny-boy, on May 25 2006, 12:41 PM, said:

tsantee, thanks very much for the reply.

did toast 5 in os 8/9 allow you to turn any data (without an os as part of the data) into a bootable cd? is that what you mean by create rather than copy? if that's the case i had no idea it could do that.

You could drag an OS 9 System Folder into the Toast 5 Data window and it would get blessed if you turned on that option. So in this way you create a bootable CD that you're building from scratch.

Quote

> I also burned to DVD-R media which may also be a requirement to be bootable on a Mac, but I don't know that for sure.

oh, i used a DVD+R.

Do try this with DVD-R. Macs wouldn't even read a DVD+R disc until about three years ago.

[johny-boy]

>You could drag an OS 9 System Folder into the Toast 5 Data window and it would get blessed if you turned on that option. So in this way you create a bootable CD that you're building from scratch.

i see. so instead of bulk copying (a disk that happens to be bootable) you could make a bootable cd from the data tab of toast so long as the data includes an os and bootable was checked. and you can't do that with toast 6 in os x. right.

> Do try this with DVD-R. Macs wouldn't even read a DVD+R disc until about three years ago.

ok i will -- don't have one at the moment but will get one. but seeing as the computer reads successfully from the drive i really can't see how that's going to make any difference -- it can either read successfully from the drive or it can't -- i could very easily be wrong though obviously.

thanks very much for all the info.

[johny-boy]

i've just had confirmation from elsewhere from someone else that they successfully used a DVD+R to make a bootable disk so it is in at least some setups perfectly possible.