Tutorials 

Using Disk Copy to create disk images

By Christian Pickman, Contributing Editor

You may have already noticed that Mac OS X shareware and commercial software developers are starting to use disk images as a method for online software delivery. Using disk images for software delivery guarantees that there is a checksum verification of the disk image prior to mounting the disk image as a volume on the user desktop. The added benefit is software developers can easily add company logos or other artwork as a background image in the disk image to enhance the appearance of their product.

With the release of Mac OS X, many applications that we have been familiar with in Mac OS 9.x either got renamed and/or enhanced (ie. the SimpleText in Mac OS 9.x is equal to TextEdit in Mac OS X) or were complied into one center application (ie. Disk First Aid for Mac OS 9.x is now a part of Disk Utility called First Aid in Mac OS X).

Luckily, Disk Copy for Mac OS X has retained its name and general interface. Disk Copy for Mac OS X, however, has incorporated a couple of new features while at the same time has lost some of the features that the Mac OS 9.x version of Disk Copy used. Most notable new features in Disk Copy for Mac OS X are:

• New Image from Device
• Burn Image
• Disk Image encryption

"New Image from Device" allows you to disk image a physical media device. This feature would be used if you want a true exact "block-by-block" copy of a hard drive or CD-ROM. This type of disk image would be not only copy all the data on that device, but would copy all the free space on the device as well.

"Burn Image" allows you to select a pre-existing saved disk image and write that information directly to a CD-R or CD-RW disk.

"Disk Image encryption" allows you to use AES-128 encryption to password protect a new disk image. This is especially beneficial for saving confidential data to a disk image with others having the ability to view your files.

However, features from the Mac OS 9.x version Disk Copy that are not found in the Mac OS X version are:

• Create Image from Folder
• Create Image from Disk

I have found these two features to be very useful with Mac OS 9.x and we will probably see them incorporated in future versions of Disk Copy for Mac OS X (perhaps in 10.2). How could I forget the "Make a Floppy" feature, which also is not found in the Mac OS X version of Disk Copy. Gee I wonder why??? ;-)

Now that we know the basic differences between Disk Copy between Mac OS 9.x and Mac OS X, how do you create a disk image to save file too? This is the fun part, so here we go:

1. Launch Disk Copy. By default the path to the Disk Copy application will be: /Applications/Utilities/Disk Copy

2. Once you have located the Disk Copy application, I would recommend that you drag the Disk Copy icon into the Dock so you can drag and drop disk images to it in the future.

3. With Disk Copy launched, go to the Image menu and select "New Blank Image".

4. After making your selection, you will be presented with the New Blank Image window. From here you can tell Disk Copy what you would like the name of the disk image to be saved as, where you want the disk image to be saved after it is created, the volume name of the disk image volume (this will be volume name when the disk image is mounted on the user desktop), the volume size, the format (HFS, HFS+, MS-DOS or UFS) and whether you want the disk image to have AES-128 encryption for security purposes.

5. Once you have made your selections and added your information to the appropriate fields, your disk image will probably look something like this (notice that I have this disk image saved the user desktop so I can easily locate after its created):

6. Now click the Create button, so Disk Copy can create and save your new disk image. Disk Copy will now write the disk image file to the user desktop and then automatically mount the disk image volume.

7. Now on the user desktop is the disk image file (Christian's File Volume) that we just created along with the automatically mounted disk image volume (My Stuff).

8. Now when you double-click on the volume called "My Stuff" you will be in the root directory of the disk image volume and can start copying files of folders to your new disk image volume and have them saved for future use. Files can also be saved to the disk image volume by dragging and dropping them on the disk image volume icon.

Once you have copied the files to the disk image volume you can either drag the disk image volume to the Trash icon in the Dock which change the Trash icon to an Eject icon or select the "My Stuff" volume and chose Eject from the File menu to dismount.

This procedure of how to create and use a disk image in Mac OS X is relatively basic, however, gives you a general overview of how to create and customize to your needs. With the release of Mac OS 10.1, Disk Copy received many needed features from the previous versions that came with Mac OS 10.0.x. With future update releases of Mac OS X, Disk Copy will definitely receive the features we were use to having in the Mac OS 9.x version of Disk Copy plus other enhancements that will make this an incredible tool for Mac OS X users.

If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to e-mail me: christian_pickman@osxfaq.com