Restore from Network Volume

[millieaux]

Hi, I have a sparseimage backed-up to a NAS that is accessible via AFP. If my main drive dies, and I have to boot from the OSX install disc, is there a way to acess the image on my NAS drive over the network? I looked in Disk Utility from the boot DVD and couldn't see an easy way to get to my network drive.

This is a PPC MacMini accessing my NAS (freenas) via ethernet and AFP.

Thanks!

[dnanian]

Does the "Network" choice in the file browser under "Open Disk Image..." work for you?

[millieaux]

That choice works - however, the problem is that the NAS server's name appears greyed-out. At least it does when I run Disk Utility from my HD. I can reboot and try it from the boot CD and see what I get...

[dnanian]

Try using its URL -- i.e. afp://ip/share.

[millieaux]

Ok, the Disk Utility when run from the boot DVD doesn't give you the network option and doesn't allow you to enter an address to find an image. You only can access the internal HD(s) or FW connected drives. Ah well. Will have to think about how I can do disaster recovery in case my main HD dies... guess I can re-install from the DVD, and then somehow use Disk Utility to apply/upgrade the current image from the one on my network drive?

[dnanian]

Yeah, what you could do is create a minimal bootable partition, boot from it and restore the main one.

I believe there are ways to do the restore from the DVD, though, since you do have http access, and Disk Utility allows a file URL. It might only work with DMGs, though. (However, doing a mount in Terminal could work... but is likely more work than you'd want to do.)