Installing Final Cut Pro 7 from Disk Images

By Sandy on September 30, 2009 2:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A while back I wrote an article about making copies of DVD's by way of creating disk images. Today I want to talk about another use for creating disk images; disk images of your software and/or applications. (Also known as .dmg files) Have you ever had the unfortunate event where your system completely crashed and you had to reinstall the software? Or worse yet, realize you have to reinstall the software, but can't find the discs or have lost them completely? We always talk about backing up our systems, files, and projects, but what about backing up the actual applications? It's definitely a good idea to purchase an extra external hard drive just for this purpose, especially if you're working with several software applications.

Another scenario: suppose you're upgrading your applications and have to upgrade several machines, say like in a school computer lab for example. It could take you literally all day and night to accomplish such a task. However, if you create disk images before your upgrade, and save them to an external hard drive, then just move the hard drive from computer to computer, you could save so much time and not have to "babysit" your upgrade or install. Not to mention having to wait on the disk drive to eject and put in the next disk, and having to wait on a slow spinning disk drive. The disk images will mount and install much quicker than actually doing it yourself.

Ok, so now that I have you convinced, let's take a quick look at how to actually do it. We create disk images with the Disk Utility application found in the Utilities folder.

Mac HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Click on the disk you want to copy from the list on the left hand side, and click on New Image from the menu at the top. Set the destination where you want the image to be copied to, like an external hard drive and click Save. It's that easy.