Part 4: Making Bootable SoftRAID Volumes.
Part 4
Making Bootable SoftRAID Volumes on PowerPC and Intel Macs
SoftRAID 3 allows you to create a non-RAID or Mirror volume which has Mac OS X installed on it. This volume can be used as your startup (or “boot”) volume on PowerPC and Intel machines. This section tells you how to make your SoftRAID volumes bootable and what you need to do to change them.
Note: PowerPC Macs can only use APM formatted disks as Startup Volumes and Intel Macs can only use GPT disks as startup volumes. For more information, see page 9 of the SoftRAID Manual.
Creating or changing Startup Volumes
When creating, converting or deleting a volume, SoftRAID needs to unmount it to perform its operations. A startup volume, by its very nature, cannot be unmounted. In order to perform these functions on a startup volume or on any volumes which share disks with a startup volume, you will need to startup your Mac from a different startup volume. This can be a either a separate FireWire system disk or can be a SoftRAID Startup CD-ROM or DVD.
Creating a Startup volume requires 4 steps
1. Startup the Mac from a volume which does not share a disk with the intended SoftRAID volume.
2. Create a new SoftRAID volume or Convert an existing Apple volume (see Part 3 of this QuickStart Guide).
3. Add a System to the volume if it is not already present.
4. Select the volume in the Startup Disk System Preference window. For an Intel startup disk, you must be started from OSX 10.4.8 or later.
To perform these four steps you will most likely need to create at least one of the 2 CD-ROMs or DVDs described below. You will need to create these before you create the startup volume.
To Start up
A SoftRAID Startup CD-ROM or DVD is required in Step 1 if you want to create a new SoftRAID startup volume on a Mac which has no other startup volumes, or if you don’t have a separate FireWire disk with a Mac OS X to start up from.
To Install a System
A Modified Mac OS X Install CD-ROM or DVD is necessary
in Step 3 if you want to install Mac OS X 10.4.x with the most current SoftRAID driver onto
a newly created or existing SoftRAID volume. The install CD-ROM or DVD has a SoftRAID driver
in the system which will be installed on your new volume but it may not be the most current driver.
You can modify your Install disks using the Modified Mac OS X Install CD-ROM or DVD command, and
then use this to install onto your new SoftRAID volume.
To create either CD (or DVD) you will need your original Mac OS X Install CDs
or
DVD and a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R or DVD-RW. If your original Mac OS X
Install DVD is a dual layer DVD, will need to use a blank dual layer DVD to create
your SoftRAID Startup DVD.
Creating SoftRAID CDs and DVDs
The CDs and DVDs described in this section can
only be created from Mac OS X Install CDs or DVDs, version 10.4 or later which are started up from a Mac OS X system,
version 10.4 or later. To create DVDs for use in creating SoftRAID startup volumes for Intel Macs, you must be started up
from Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later
If you are running a Mac OS X system older than 10.4.8, and you want to perform operations to a startup volume, or a volume sharing disks with that volume, you will need to create your own separate startup volume on a separate disk, such as a FireWire disk. If you have a SoftRAID Startup CD-ROM or DVD created on a Mac running Mac OS 10.4.8, you can start up from that disk as well.
Creating a SoftRAID Startup CD-ROM or DVD:
1. Launch SoftRAID 3.
2. Select the Create SoftRAID Startup CD-ROM or DVD command in the Utilities menu. You will be directed through the process of creating and burning a new CD.
You will need a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW and the Mac OS X Install CDs or DVDs, version 10.4 or later.
Note: Some versions of 10.4 Tiger are shipped on dual layer DVDs. If you have one of these, you must use a blank dual layer DVDs to create a SoftRAID Startup DVD.
3. Restart your Mac with your new CD or DVD as your startup volume. To do this, you will need to hold down the “c” key as you restart your Mac. You will then be able to use SoftRAID 3 to create, delete or convert your volumes. After you have finished your changes, you can quit SoftRAID which will then restart your Mac. For more details see page 31 of the SoftRAID Manual.
Creating a Modified Mac OS X Install CD-ROM or DVD:
1. Launch SoftRAID 3.
2. Select the Modify Mac OS X Install CD-ROM or DVD command located in the
Utilities menu. You will be directed through the process of creating and burning a new CD.
You will need a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, or DVD-RW and the Mac OS X Install CDs or DVDs (version 10.4.x).
3. Restart your Mac with your new CD or DVD while holding down the “c” key and select the volume(s) you wish to install the system on. The Mac OS X install CDs or DVDs have been modified so they now recognize SoftRAID volumes.
4. Follow all the installation instructions from the Install CDs or DVDs.
For more information, see page 34 of the SoftRAID Manual.
The creation of either of the CDs or DVDs described can take as much as 45 minutes and can be performed with the SoftRAID application running in the background.
