BitTorrent Mac OS X Install DVD Image Errors

Futureshop didn’t have any Retail Apple OS X 10.5.x for sale so I purchased a Mac OS X Leopard on kijiji.ca and downloaded a copy using Bittorrent.

I downloaded two different Torrent versions of Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg and got EBIOS read errors when I try to install either of them.

I used TransMac to both expand the DMG to a ISO and burn the expanded image (ISO) to a HP Double Layer DVD+R 8x blank DVD using a Samsung Slim 8x External DVD Writer (Model SE-S085).

First I burned a DVD with TransMac at “high speed” and when that DVD didn’t work I burned a DVD at “low speed”.

After I booted my Netbook with Boot-132 and continuing with the Mac OS X Install DVD both of the DVDs gave me the multiple block errors as noted below. The block would be different each time and the blocks would timeout about every 5 seconds.

EBIOS read error: Device timeout
Block xxxxxxx: Sectors 64
EBIOS read error: Device timeout
Block xxxxxxx: Sectors 64

Next I then started the Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg with the “-v” switch. I booted with the Boot-132 Darwin/x86 boot and replaced the DVD at the boot: and press Enter twice to accept the offered hexdecimal boot device. Then I pressed F8 to show start up options.

The start up options showed one highlighted start up volume “hd(31,1) Mac X Install DVD”. I entered the -v option at the boot: prompt so I could to show the diagnostic messages during the install process. This way I could see the errors in more detail.

Here are the kind of messages I was getting.

LoadDrivers: Loading from [System/Library/Extentions/AppleMacRISC4PW.kext/Contents/PlugIns]
Loading HFS+ file: [System/Library/Extentions/AppleStorage/Contents/Info.plist] from xxxxxxx.
EBIOS read error: Device timeout
Block xxxxxxx: Sectors 64
EBIOS read error: Device timeout
Block xxxxxxx: Sectors 64
EBIOS read error: Device timeout
Block xxxxxxx: Sectors 64

The Samsung External DVD Writer burned the Boot-132 DVD just fine so I am guessing that it is not the Writer that is the problem.

I tried to open both images (ISO) that TransMac expanded from both of the downloaded DMGs using UltraISO and I received a pop up prompt telling me that both of the image had “Unsupported Block size, HFS volume will be skipped”.

At this point I am at a bit of a loss as to what the problem is. On the webpages from both the Torrent files I used there were comments of burn successes on the Windows platform so it appears the original downloads are good.

The UltraISO error “Unsupported Block size, HFS volume will be skipped” indicates to me that there is a problem with the expanded DMG that TransMac produced even though TransMac is not reporting the error.

Also in UltraISO the expanded DMG image shows no HFS+ volume and only the Boot Camp and DVDCDSharing folders.

Yet in TransMac the same expanded image shows the HFS+ Volume and the 4 folders that should be there.

So UltraISO thinks the expanded DMG image is broken while TransMac is showing the same image correctly.

My friend Rob Calam suggested that I find a bittorrent file that is a ISO instead of a DMG. It took me about 2 days to download that file when I booted with it I got the Apple logo at boot but it when no further. So all three images I downloaded using bittorrent failed.

I tried the retail copy of Leopard and it worked with out any problems. This weekend I will probable install Mac OS on the netbook.