Hi Esther and Geoff Excellently explained Esther. Actually further explanation had occurred to me too after i wrote my original reply, but by that point it was too late as the message was already in cyberspace. :)
However, I hope that between us, we've managed to give Geoff and others a good point of reference and guide to start making their own installers without having to rely on silly little utilities such as Lion Disk Maker which, in my opinion at least, was written by somebody with way too much time on his hands. Were it possible to use the UIB utility for a visually impaired user, I am sure that there are several members of this group who could have equaled or bettered that utility. Be that as it may, if some find it of value then fine, live and let live. :) Regarding Carbon Copy Cloner, it's worth pointing out that they are currently running a promotion which they are calling "Get Ready For Mountain Lion". This project runs through to August 12, and gives you 25% off the regular price of Carbon Copy Cloner. This is one utility which I think worth supporting, as it, just like Super Duper! could potentially save you hours of work, let alone a great deal of lost data. I have, therefore, chosen to support that utility and I gather that Lynne is planning to update her article regarding system backups when she gets home. She's currently away on a weekend-long expedition with a group of girl guides, (the equivalent of what we call the "Boy Scouts"). But that's another matter entirely. Carbon Copy Cloner is, as I've already said, now Mountain Lion compatible, as is Super Duper! It pays to have one or both of these utilities ready and waiting I think. But also the manual method of creating bootable media which Esther and I described is something that most Mac users will want to know how to accomplish. Gordon On 3 Aug 2012, at 23:03, Esther <mori...@mac-access.net> wrote: Hi Geoff, Just to further comment on Gordon's points about the "Partition" tab in Disk Utility. I think that to prepare your SD card (or a USB memory stick) for being a bootable volume, the preferred method is to use the "Partition" tab and create a new partition, which also deletes existing content in the process, rather than to use the "Erase" tab. Most USB thumb drives and SD media card come formatted for use with FAT32 files for Windows, since Macs can read these formats. The distinction is that when you make a bootable drive for current Macs, you not only need to specify the format for files (e.g., "Mac OS Extended, Journaled"), but that you're using a "GUID Partition table" (for an Intel Mac) vs. an "Apple Partition map" (for an older PowerPC Mac, or for a device that is not being used as a startup device) vs. a "Master Boot Record" for devices used to start up DOS or Windows devices, or devices that require DOS- or Windows-compatible partitions. In order to get access to those options, you have to create a new partition by changing the popup button for the partition layout of your device from "Current" to "1 partition" (or however many you want). Then you can assign name, format, and size to your partition and press the "Options" button to select one of the three options I described above (GUID, Apple, or MBR). These changes take effect when you click "Apply". I believe that Carbon Copy Cloner lets you choose a menu item to "Create a Mountain Lion Installer", which takes care of all the selection options automatically, since it assumes you need this as a bootable drive, just as the default options to use it to make a bootable clone handles this preparation and the formatting settings. But it is possible to prep the drive manually as I described by using the "Partition" tab of Disk Utility instead of the "Erase" tab. <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
