Take mac image on external hardrive

[Shadow_Walker]

Hi all

 

Bit of background. I have just started my new job at another school and they have a mac suite. Now at my previous school we had deploystudio set up and running. Unfortunately deploystudio is way down on the list of thing i need to do as there is a complete restructure of the school building and new technology going in and wont have the chance to set it up till later on in the year. I have created the mac image on a mac mini and was wondering is it possible to drop that image onto an external hard drive and then plug that hard drive into another mac and build the machine from it.

[Carter]

If you have a lab I would suggest building a DeployStudio Server. You can have one up and running within 15-20mins.

 

I created a How To Video here on setting up DS and doesn't take long. http://twistedmac.com/index.php/22-mac-os/35-setup-deploystudio-osx-yosemite-10104-server

 

EduGeek Forum topic found here http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/157221-how-setup-deploystudio-os-x-yosemite-10-10-4-server-how-video.html#post1347606

 

If you want to make a external/bootable HD yes it's possible. It's actually the old school method before the ability to image over a network.

 

Make sure the Mac mini has the latest updates and then using either disk utility from the restore partition or from target mode you can copy the hard drive.

 

I don't recommend using the MacMini to copy itself to the external HD. May run into issues since the OS is running and your are trying to copy it at the same time.

 

Computers out of the box will have a restore partition that you can use to get Disk Utility.

 

Day chaining Macs would be the old school method so if you have a lab and you want to image one computer to another you can put computers into target mode and image one computer then use that newly images computer to image another and so on.

 

Hope that helps.

[AWMGolfer]

I use and have used for a few years Carbon Copy Cloner, https://bombich.com/

 

Our staff has Macbook Airs along with our Junior High students through a state run program. I create a student image on a laptop, plugin a thumb drive or an external drive and run Carbon Copy Cloner, makes a duplicate of the hard drive. Plug the external or thumb drive into the computer you want to setup and boot to the portable drive. It loads up the OS just like it is its own computer, run the program again but choose the laptop as the destination and in 10-20 minutes your laptop is a clone of the original computer. For summer re-imaging for the incoming junior high students I setup 3-4 drives so I can do them in chunks and it takes me just an afternoon. Love the program and has saved me a lot of time and hassle. I know there are faster options our there for doing bulk imaging but with some changes probably coming down the road there isn't much use in setting it all up.

[Shadow_Walker]

If you have a lab I would suggest building a DeployStudio Server. You can have one up and running within 15-20mins.

 

I created a How To Video here on setting up DS and doesn't take long. How To Setup DeployStudio With OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 Server

 

EduGeek Forum topic found here http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/157221-how-setup-deploystudio-os-x-yosemite-10-10-4-server-how-video.html#post1347606

 

If you want to make a external/bootable HD yes it's possible. It's actually the old school method before the ability to image over a network.

 

Make sure the Mac mini has the latest updates and then using either disk utility from the restore partition or from target mode you can copy the hard drive.

 

I don't recommend using the MacMini to copy itself to the external HD. May run into issues since the OS is running and your are trying to copy it at the same time.

 

Computers out of the box will have a restore partition that you can use to get Disk Utility.

 

Day chaining Macs would be the old school method so if you have a lab and you want to image one computer to another you can put computers into target mode and image one computer then use that newly images computer to image another and so on.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Ok i followed your video and created a master image. How can i now get that to the other machines over the network? Do i have to use netinstall on the server app?

 

Thanks

 

Edit: Hold on think i may have worked it out

Edited August 18, 2015 by Shadow_Walker

[Carter]

If you are using DS it will just pick it up by holding down "N" for netboot".

[Shadow_Walker]

If you are using DS it will just pick it up by holding down "N" for netboot".

 

Yes i get this error now

 

 

Any idea

[Shadow_Walker]

Any ideas

[3s-gtech]

Are all of the DS requisites satisfied after installing it on your server? It looks like the directory where images are saved hasn't been set up.

[Shadow_Walker]

Are all of the DS requisites satisfied after installing it on your server? It looks like the directory where images are saved hasn't been set up.

 

Yes made an amateur mistake and gave access to the wrong folder.

 

Thanks for all the help

[Carter]

Also use the IP address of the server and not the DNS address. Makes it much more reliable.