Booting multiple images/virtuals - How???

[jccj7]

Hi - been reading the instructions and searching within the forums. Found a lot of facts to answer my question - but not sure all of it put together makes sense - so I thought I would ask....

I'm trying to create several indepedent bootable images that I can boot into for different missions...sorta like seperate virtuals. So when I'm done with a certain virtual - I would restart and boot from from my normal internal drive.

I am using a bootable FireWire drive and since it also serves as a data drive as well, I tried to use the sparse image option.

So question #1 - can you boot from a sparse image, then process, and once complete - restart and return to main OS?

If so - how? My MBP did recognize the FireWire drive after holding the Option key.

If sparse images are not bootable - I guess I need to create a partition to place bootable images on - is this feasible? Can I move back and forth easily and keep both OSs seperate and independent?

Hope that made sense and any comments much appreciated.

jc

[dnanian]

You can't start up from a sparse image until it's restored to a supported startup device.

You can easily partition a drive to store both a full copy of your system (which would be bootable) and a second partition that'll hold one or more sparse images. I recommend always having a bootble backup, if possible: it makes everything easier/faster.

[jccj7]

Dave - thanks for the quick reply. That's what I thought - just wanted to verify.

Here's an idea I had - could I create 2 bootable partitions on an external firewire drive and then when I hold down OPTION during boot - would I get a choice of which partition to boot from???? If so - then I could keep two seperate and independent OSs, right?

[dnanian]

That's right, yes.

[jccj7]

And there you have it....thanks Dave!

[mypointofview]

If I understand this - does this mean I can never make an image that I could boot from?

The reason I'm asking is, that I want to clone a Tiger DVD into a dmg image which I can then copy to an older Mac over the local network. The older Mac does not have USB, Firewire or DVD drive available - only Ethernet.

My plan is to mount that bootable image and install from there then.

Would I perhaps need a different software ?

-martin

[dnanian]

You can't create a directly bootable image over the network unless you have a NetBoot server. But you can restore an image of "Backup - all files" to a supported real bootable drive and have it bootable...