Ok, I wasn’t really pirating Tiger… I was pirating Panther too…
Ok, so I wasn’t really pirating Tiger or Panther (no, not Jaguar either… what? Puma? You’ve got to be kidding me…). Actually, I was just trying to figure out how to do a few simple things:
- Convert a
.dmgfile to a.isoor.bin / .cuefile, so it could be burned on a PC - Burn that
.dmgfile (or what it was converted to) - Boot a Mac off this burned CD (because it was a bootable CD in the first place).
The whole “pirating Tiger” theme was just what all the posts I found about converting .dmg files and burning bootable CDs on a PC kept accusing the posters about. I imagine most of those assumptions were probably true, since Apple charges more for its OS than even Microsoft does, but still, they didn’t have to be rude about it, did they?
So anyway, just a few simple things, right? Sounds so painfully simple, right?
Wrong!
So, in order to help all those other people out there who may be having this same problem, and keep getting accused of pirating insert Apple OS here whenever they ask about it, I thought I’d post a working solution. Now, it’s quite possible that I found the longest route to victory, but this one certainly worked (at least for me). If you find a better way, please let us all know in a comment, just so we can help further the overall knowledge of the internet populace.
Without further delay, here are the steps to get a .dmg file burned (and bootable, if applicable) on a PC:
- Download Mac Drive.
It’s got an insanely short useage period (5 days?!), but the trial version will work! - Download Daemon Tools.
Version 4 contains crapware… Find version 3.x! - Reboot, since both of these above products require it.
- Download UltraISO.
The trial version has some limits. I think that as long as a single file on your image isn’t over 300mb, you’ll be fine. I had an existing full version already, so I really can’t verify this. Know an alternative program? Please let me know! - Mount the
.dmgfile in Daemon Tools. Mac Drive should recognize it as being a Mac-formatted disc, and translate it all for you. Yippie skippy! - Using UltraISO, create a
.iso(or other format) image from your mounted (and translated).dmgfile.
Strictly speaking, you don’t need to do this. In my case, I wanted to be able to re-burn this disc after my 5-day Mac Drive trial, so I wanted a working copy for future use. - Burn your newly created
.iso(or other format) file to a CD / DVD / Punch card with your favorite program. - …
- Profit!
Ok, so I’m not exactly profiting off this… If you find out a way I can, please, don’t hold back! Still, the process works (I burned half a dozen Mac .dmg images using it, they all worked), and you don’t have to shell out any $$$ (assuming UltraISO worked for you). How can you not walk away happy??
Oh, by the way… I’m loving Tiger, so go crawl back in a hole somewhere you lousy forum trolls!
/me pirates your brain to run on DOS.
Oh, great… As if I didn’t have enough brain farts as it wa…. [power cycle]…
I am not a Mac person at all, infact I haven’t seen one eversince I am here in Africa (been like 7 years now)… Oh Good Old Days!
Salaam Brother,
I disagree with you completely. I mean you obviously haven’t done your research. If you were really in the game, then you would already be using an Apple, guess what, most experts already have.
Apple has a much more robust kernel than Windows ever will. Just go to the net right and read up.
The thing is this: you actually have to use one for a while, so that you can see the difference.
I know people say it doesn’t crash and stuff, the truth is that it does, just not as often.
The whole Tiger environment is designed for productivity. Imagine a world where everything just works – that’s Apple.
But if you still want to wait for Vista untill 2007 that’s fine by me. Just don’t think of yourself as a real techy.
I don’t mean to criticise, but you have no real basis to judge the company or any of its products since and I quote (you haven’t seen one since you came to Africa) – you’ve obviously missed a lot.
I mean in my part of the world everyone I know had iPod ages ago. Getting a Mac is just the next step. And for someone like you, that should be a leap if you live in Africa.
I really don’t believe you, you don’t know a single person?
Shame, can’t have a Mac or don’t want to, is that it? Anyway, until then just keep on using Windows – a slave of the 90’s.
Mwahahaha.
Abdul Kadir
Afghani Refugee Camp, Peshawar, Pakistan
Well, that was certainly interesting… I can’t say it was the most lucid comment my blog’s ever gotten. In fact, it looked like SPAM at first glance. I’m really still not sure who here was criticizing Apple / Macs, since I was singing the praises of it and Abdul (our resident one, not our guest) called his Apple-filled days of years past the “Good Old Days!”.
Still, there were several good points made there:
[...] read more | digg story [...]
Thanks for the info, MellerTime. Been searching high and low, for the answer to this little problem. I also came across dmg2iso http://vu1tur.eu.org/tools/ while on my travels in cyber space, didn’t have much luck with it though
If you have any joy with it, could you please make a post about it? Would be very greatful
Spanky: Yeah, I tried dmg2iso as well. From what I remember (it’s been a while now), it would run and run and then just stop. Whether it was actually generating an ISO correctly for the first x megs or not, I don’t know because I couldn’t actually burn it to test.
Anyway, it sounds like a great idea (and certainly one that would be welcome in the community, apparently), but when things don’t actually work, great ideas have a way of falling apart…
Me again
Followed your steps, but it’s not working. With MacDrive 6 installed, and the image mounted in DT, I should be able to view the image in explorer right?
Well I can’t, and UltraISO won’t open it ether
Tried to view it with IsoBuster, but the gives me the error “No file systems and/or files found”
I am 99% sure that the image itself is fine.
Any more tips/info you could give me would be very welcome.
Just tried the same thing, but mounted the image using Alcohol 120%
Still no joy :’(
Have you checked to make sure MacDrive is actually set to decipher Mac CDs? As I recall (again, been a while), it asked during setup, but I know the option is somewhere in the options. I don’t know why you would want to install MacDrive and NOT have it decode Mac CDs, but apparently someone has the need, otherwise the feature wouldn’t exist.
Download another .dmg (even something simple like a freeware app) and try it, just to make sure it’s not that image.
Beyond that, you’re on your own. As I said, this happened to work for me, your mileage may vary. I never professed to be an expert, and I really don’t have the time to make a career out of this.
[...] As a web author, it’s always pleasing to see that you’ve apparently helped contribute something back to the community – you helped “scratch an itch,” as it were. So I took a good deal of satisfaction in seeing that even now, 2 months later, my entry about burning DMG images on a PC was fairly popular (about 895 hits this month). [...]
Hello folks,
I’ve got a problematic iBook here and I was trying to create a bootable DiskWarrior CD from a DMG that I got from Piratebay.org (I had the original but the CD is scratched and in my country this makes it legal for me to download it). Problem was, that I didn’t have a second Mac around, so I had to try from Windows. I tried to use TransMac, and the stuff that you suggested and I ended up with a lot of useless CDs. The files get burned to the CD as far as I see, but my iBook won’t boot it.
Can you point me to the file/setting that actually tells the Open Firmware that this is a bootable CD? If this is missing in my dmg too, I might just have a corrupted file. Looks pretty much like that to me now.
Sorry, I’ve imparted all my knowledge unto the internet. YMMV. Sorry, I don’t have time to help.
doesn’t matter anymore, i’ve screwed up everything anyway now
but thanks for providing the tutorial anyway.
I gave up and just copyed the image on to a dvd then mounted the image on the mac.
I’ve been trying to do this myself… Just found that transmac will do the job. The latest version can read DMG files and burn them to DVD/CD without any need to convert. I’m burning now, yet to try finished result
Ok that didn’t work. Trying it your way. Thanks for the info
Okay, in reponse to the comments about Mac being superior, you’re all assuming Windows. I love how the new Mac commercials say “PC” but they mean “A PC running Windows”. I introduce to you, an OS called Linux. It’s more powerful, stable, and secure than Windows will ever be. Also the new Mac OS X versions are based upon a Unix/BSD Kernel. So please, stop pretending that Macs are superior to PCs simply because Mac doesn’t suck half as bad as Windows does, realize that there is another OS out there!
Yeah yeah yeah, ok, so Mac might not be better than Windows, and we’re still ignoring the little OS that could – Linux. We’re not going to change anyone’s mind about any of this. The point is that different platforms help different people with different needs accomplish their own goals more easily. Will there ever be one true desktop operating system that fits perfectly for everyone? I seriously doubt it… There will always be an underdog (or three), if for no other reason than people like to root for an underdog (like those people who run Linux just to say they run Linux).
To each his own operating system…
Did you ever find a solution ruben/PingPongPauly?
Have you guys actually tried my approach? It took some… “wiggling”… but in the end, I did get it to work. It’s quite possibly not the most direct route, but if you’re only doing an image or two, it should get you where you’re going.
Virtual Daemon never seemed to be able to mount the .dmg files, so that’s where I got into trouble. I tried to force it by selecting “All Files” and clicking the .dmg to mount, but it didn’t seem to work. It could be the file, but I tried at least three with no luck.
There is a tool for Windows called MagicISO hat seems to convert dmg to ISO (FAQ link: http://www.magiciso.com/FAQ/FAQ0011.htm). I did not try it because I just found it by looking for a solution for converting dmg under Linux, but maybe it is useful. The Perl script from the link posted by Spanky worked pretty well by the way.
Interesting. What size image were you converting, Christoph? In my tests with the win32 binary version of dmg2iso it didn’t work…
The dmg has a size of 375 MB, but I used it with Linux. I did not try the binary beacuse I got errors while compiling.
[...] Linkified [...]
I don’t know how you got this to work. I get as far as mounting in d-tools and macdrive 6 translates, but no burning apps, ultra ISO, transmac, nothing sees the virtual disc.
i.e. drive f: is the mounted dmg, and i can see it in explorer, but no apps let you choose drive f: to create iso or cd copy.
Did i miss something? I’m stuck with a g4 cube and about 20 wasted cds trying to pirate panther, tiger, you name it!
As much as I’d love to help you out, I’m afraid i just don’t have the time to go through the process again and test and try to get it down to an exact science. It did work for me (I swear!), but there were many hours spent fooling around with stuff (jiggle this, tweak that, reboot those…).
While I can promise you that somewhere in all that, there is an answer to your problem, I can’t promise you that it’s in any way an easy process finding it. Keep at it and let us know if you figure out what’s going on that’s goofy.
Hey man, don’t feel like you need to come help every poor sucker in this position! I’d never expect you to try to figure it out for everyone, hell I don’t even have much time to worry about it myself with work! I’m amazed someone not only got it to work, but decided to post it online, and after many hours of searching I’m fairly confident that I have visited some of the same areas that you tried asking for help and were berrated for “pirating tiger”
But be sure of this, I’m am going to get an OS on this damn g4 cube if it kills me, and i REFUSE to pay for it. I don’t pay for microsoft products, and I consider myself unbiased, therefore i MUST pirate tiger(just try to argue with that logic!) I’m actually starting to think it has alot to do with the firmware, because I can’t even get LinuxPPC distros to boot on it, though I am assured that the disc drive is functional.
My next step after trying this method a few more times, is a weird and more roundabout way:
Install VMware, create a virtual g4 mac, install my OS into that virtual rig, burn the dmg using macs burning software, boot the real g4 cube from that disc
So yeah, thanks for being the only place online that really addresses the issue people are having, and thanks again for actually responding, tho I’d never expect it
Rest assured, once I get it going i WILL come back and post a very long detailed walk thru on exactly how i did it, listing the exact files (not links to torrents, just the .iso name)
This much i am sure of, dmg2iso doesn’t work at all, i have yet to find a SINGLE person who made a bootable iso from it. 1 out of 10 times it actually correctly converts dmg to iso, the other 9 times it takes a 642 meg dmg and creates a 300meg iso and calls it error free.
And the 1 time it actually converts it, it is in NO WAY BOOTABLE! So people stop wasting cds. Aswell, Transmac does NOT burn bootable mac isos from a PC.
So yeah, unless someone can tell me exactly what files on the mac disc make it bootable, I’m going to try everything under the sun and then some!
Great blog btw
Me again lol
Came across this little prog today. Not sure if it is of any use in regards to this ongoing battle, but thought I’d post the link anyway
I wonder if this will all be a thing of the past soon, what with these new intel macs.
Doh! lol
http://www.dataviz.com/products/macopener/index.html
Nice link, but alas it will not create bootable mac discs.
but I DID IT!!! And here is exactly how I did it, and the reason most of you haven’t been able to.
Firstly, my images were corrupted. I’m not sure when or how, but they became coasters.
So first off, let me say if you make or find a mac image, in any format, iso, dmg, cdr, DO NOT OPEN OR MOUNT IT IN ANYTHING!!!!!!
The second you wount it, it’s toast and will never ever work.
Ok, so as I said, my images were toasted, so I got a hold of a legit tiger dvd. Installed onto my g4 cube, which has a cd burner/dvd reader combo.
Once installed I quickly networked it with my windows machine via shared folders. Then in the MAC I put in the Tiger DVD and used mac’s disc utility to create an image of the disc.
This image was “tiger-dvd.cdr”
Not dmg, but CDR. They key being, when you create the image of the DVD BE DAMN SURE you select “MASTER CD/DVD” if you don’t you will never get this disc to work properly.
Once you have the image, as Isaid DON’T OPEN OR MOUNT IT.
Then I logon to my windows box, and one of the most important things, DISABLE MACDRIVE or any other app you have to view mac discs on a pc, or it will ruin your image.
I copied the image over to my pc, and renamed the file from tiger-dvd.cdr to tiger-dvd.iso
Burn in nero at x8 speed, and BAM! Working pirated Tiger DVD.
The key is all i nthe original image, this is why most peoples are nonbootable or missing files, either the person who made the image forgot to select “MASTER CD/DVD” or they accidentally opened or mounted the image file.
I know this guide doesn’t fix this for people in my original position, an empty mac, no dvd, no mac os.
But if you indeed have a valid image of the dvd it will burn from windows.
This is the ONLY method I got to work, the method here got me as far as getting ready to make an iso with ultraiso, but thats it.
Transmac = coasters
Macdrive = coasters
dmg2iso = coasters
every other method = coasters.
Follow my instructions to the letter, and I promise you a bootable pirated tiger dvd.
so the hardest part for most of you will be getting a valid uncorrupted tiger image.
Keep this in mind, if like me, you have no dvd burner on your mac, you can use the following method:
Get vmware and install a macos onto a virtual mac. Do your conversions within the vm.
You should also be able to burn any mac image from within that vm on your pc and have the discs act as if they were burnt in the mac, I have been told this method works find.
Thanks for the info phishybongwaters. But still not much good if you’ve got a .dmg that you want to burn on a Windows box.
The search continues………..
When you already have a original tiger DVD you could simply do a 1:1 copy with Nero I guess
For some information about handling Mac CDs with Windows check out the PearPC Wiki (http://wiki.pearpc.net/).
There is also an article about converting a .dmg by using only UltraISO (http://wiki.pearpc.net/index.php/Converting_DMG_to_ISO).
I know I tried using UltraISO to natively convert my DMG to an ISO, but I don’t remember what the problem was… I’m not that stupid, though.
But hey, if it works… use it.
Also, apparently dmg2iso works, just not on Windows. I tried the Windows binary and it barfed. If you use the Linux perl script, it looks like you’re good to go (from what I’ve heard – never tried it myself).
YEah I shouldn’t count all those apps out, they did work for some people.
But for those of you that were stuck where I was, this is the only advice I can offer if Chris Meller’s approach didn’t work.
First, this has to be done with a valid dmg, if it has been opened or mounted, even on a mac, it will not be bootable, don’t ask me why, it’s just that way.
And ps, good luck trying to make a bootable 1:1 of tiger dvd with any app in windows, i’d really like to see SOMEONE ON EARTH get it to work t hat easily
Ok anyways get vmware or virtualpc. I’m fairly sure both let you create virtual macs. Simply install your favourite mac burning software into the virtualmac and burn the dvd, it will work. Or, if you are still intent on burning from windows, like i was, simply get the dmg loaded into the virtualmac, use the hdutil to convert it to cdr, upload that to your windows pc, rename .cdr to .iso and burn.
I used nero 6 ultra edition.
ONLY IF THE PERSON WHO MADE THE DMG did it the way I specified. That’s 98% of the problem, almost every downloadable copy of tiger you’ll find is destroyed. I know there are some out there, but good luck finding them.
All it takes it to forget to select “MASTER CD/DVD” or simply accidentally open the image in your mac. For me, I know that the first few copies I attempted with the legit disc were destroyed by Macdrive6.
Macdrive is great, but if you are attempting to burn a bootable mac iso on your pc, the simple act of macdisc6 translating the disc for you destroys the image.
With the risk of getting my post censored, EDIT: Yeah, talking about it is fine, but when you start trying to turn my post into a torrent ring, that’s where I’ve gotta draw the line… Sorry. – Chris
Anyways, if that was over the line just delete it
No appologies needed, that’s why i posted that clearly at the end, fully expecting you to edit it, not that i was trying to start a torrent ring as you put it, but it could easily be argued to the contrary if needed.
Better safe than sorry
So for all of you guys stuck with a mac with no os and downloaded images, and only a PC to burn them from, and all these methods fail…
You have dud images. Keep a lookout on the most popular torrent indexing sites for a new, yet to be released, tiger iso fully bootable when burned from a pc.
Look for a familiar user name in the torrent name hint hint hint hint hint hint.
Good luck and happy pirating.
OSX OWNS!
Very educational post… great comments too.
Now, I’m not looking for a walk-through for my particular crisis, but rather some good finger-points in the right direction. And if you just want to ridicule my ineptitude, don’t bother, I already realize the sheer magnatitude of my screw-up. I’m a mongoloid, I know.
I just got my hands on 2-year-old Mac, and I’m trying to update it from 10.3.9. I successfully downloaded the .dmgs for the 4 CD Tiger installation. My friend and I (we thought) figured out how to burn these onto disc, and I’ve sucessfully made it through the first disc. Now the MAc is asking for “Mac OS X Install Disc 2.”
Problem is that the disc we burnt isn’t working, and upon further investigaton, it appears that we merely burnt the contents of the install .dmg (cd just contains Packages folder), instead of making a bootable disc.
So I’m stuck on this install screen wondering what to do next. All I have at my disposal are the CDs with the Install Disc _contents_, the original panther install CDs, a XP laptop, and my Mac seemingly forever stuck in Installer.
Here are options that occured to me (although I don’t quite know at the moment if they are possible/how exactly to execute):
1) Cancel install (or boot past installer somehow), and reburn .dmg correctly.
2) Reobtain disc images on my PC and burn new install discs from above steps.
3) Boot Mac into Firewire drive mode, download .dmgs and follow the above steps (I’m not sure if this will work, as I can’t access the networking options as mentioned here: http://www.lifehacker.com/software/networking/geek-to-live-fast-one-wire-network-ip-over-firewire-173973.php)
4) Make new install discs from the Tiger files currently on CD and the boot info from the Panther cds.
5) Shackle the Mac to my ankle and go jump off a bridge.
Seriously, any suggestions of any size much MUCH appreciated.
Nevermind, I was able to access the Mac over Firewire and after trying some of the various methods above, I was able to simply use only UltraISO to convert and burn the unmounted .dmg to useable .iso.
Great post, great comments. Thanks.
There is no way that mounting a disc image with a Windows application can or would ever make any changes to the original image file. Same goes for using MacDrive. These applications read the image, nothing more. If you’re burning from MacDrive’s translation, then you’re getting the files not the boot information. However the original DMG file will remain unaltered.
I don’t know about the Tiger disc, but you can’t just copy the Office 2004 disc with Nero without having something like MacDrive to decode the disc first.
Actually, taking a mac iso and mounting it on a windows box DOES destroy the image. It will burn fine, and be readable but NOT BOOTABLE.
This is a fact, research a little, mounting the image, even in macdrive, will make it unbootable.
My method is the only way I got to work, and all this relys on te fact that the dmg is still bootable. Once it’s converted to iso it’s still bootable.
But if you mount that image with macdrive or anything in windows, it will no longer be bootable.
Go ahead and try it yourself.
This is why 99% of mac isos online aren’t bootable. If you have an os on your mac thats fine, but if you don’t, like i didn’t, you need it to be bootable, atleast the first disc in the set.
So in my case, blank mac, legit tiger disc, only dvdrom in mac, you can use my method or the original one posted here.
But if you still feel the same way, i challenge you. Get a bootable mac disc. Do whatever you need to create an image of it.
The burn it, it will boot.
Now do the same, but before you burn the disc, mount the image in d-tools or something.
Now burn that image.
It will NOT boot.
man Abdul Kadir is the kind of person who gives mac heads a bad name, now I don’t use macs because I dislike having to pray to God and do a little voodoo when I install LINUX, or er upgrade too. Now the almighty mac os x kernel pales in comparison with the flexibility, stability, and general kick-assness of the linux kernel how many times have YOU built a kernel from source or written your own module. Perhaps you should become a real techie before you start waving around the joys of the mac kernel, or try developing a real piece of software perhaps. Also it’s not cool to flame the blogger on his own blog. Lame dude, just lame. I use windows 2003 server R2, openSUSE and Fedora. I’m not waiting for vista, I’m waiting for R3. hahahah
thanks by the way for the good instructions. Keep up the good work!
Looks like comments are getting a tad out of hand, so we’re going to close them.
I still welcome additions to the conversation. If you’ve got something to add, please trackback or pingback to this post!
Don’t have a blog? Google’s got you covered… Blogger’s free!
Why go to all that trouble of downloading and installing three separate programs none of which work with a damn if you just want to burn .dmg files to a disc that is readable by a Mac? TransMac does this all by itself.