Trying to make an image of a Server but getting error message

[mctoast]

Hi. Newbie with rookie knowledge of XServes and Mac OS X Server (took the 10.4 Server Essentials class three years ago, had Tiger server running on a G3 iMac!). Have lurked around AFP548 a little bit, but not much, starting from 2005.

I’m trying to make a disk image (.dmg) of an XServe. I boot the XServe off of an external drive, fire up disk utility and choose File>New>Disk Image from “server volume”

Then I choose where I want the .dmg file to be created. It doesn’t matter where I try to put it (one of the additional two unused hard drives in Bay 2 or Bay 3, or on a network volume), I get an error message: “Unable to create ‘server volume’ (Resource Busy).”

What am I doing wrong? Or what do I not understand yet?

Thanks.

[mctoast]

Hi.

Tried another tactic. I booted up the XServe into Target Disk Mode on a MacBook Pro. Then fired up Disk Utility again and chose File>New>Disk Image from “server volume”. It started, but erred out with the “Resource Busy” message. Then I tried the same thing but this time instead of “server volume”, I chose File>New>Disk Image from “698.6 GB AAPL FireWire Target Media”. It still erred out with the “Resource Busy” message. Then I tried File>New>Disk Image from Folder, and then chose “server volume”, and then selected where to save the .dmg and it started to create the image, but erred out with “Unable to create “server volume” (No such file or directory).” Then I tried “Disk Image from Folder” again, but this time chose “698.6 GB AAPL FireWire Target Media”, selected where to save the .dmg, and once again, it started to create the image, but erred out again with “Unable to create “server volume” . I’m at a loss. I am unable to create an image of the XServe HD and I need to. Does anyone out there have any ideas? Thanks.

[mctoast]

Okay, I finally got it to work. Here’s what I did:

When I chose the destination for the .dmg to be created in, I opened the “Image Format” drop down menu and changed the selection from “compressed” to “read/write”. Suddenly, no more error messages!

But why? Can anyone shed some light on why this made a difference? Why would making the image format “compressed” cause error messages and block the image from being created, but “read/write” sails on through?

Thanks.

[Author]

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