How to Convert Snow Leopard Retail Disk to .DMG

Apple released Snow Leopard Retail Disk last week and i hope most of you secured your copy. Recently an iHackintosh fan mailed me and asked me that he has a MacBook Air and his external DVD Drive is damaged. Some of you may facing a corrupted Drive on their MacBook etc. etc. So you will not be able to install the latest Snow Kitty on your Machine. He asked me for any way if he can convert the retail disk in to .DMG (Disk Image) and here is the easy to follow steps to convert Snow Leopard Retail Disk to .DMG with Disk Utility.
Requirements :

1. A Working OS X Leopard With a DVD Drive.
2. A retail Snow Leopard Disk.
3. A memory Stick 8GB minimum.

Step 1). Install Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Disc in your Leopard.

Step 2). Launch Disk Utility
Step 3). Select the Snow Leopard DVD within Disk Utility
Step 4). Click the “New Image” button at the top
 Step 5). Name the image and put it somewhere you can find it easily (Desktop)

 Step 6). Click OK and wait for the image to be created

That’s it, once Disk Utility finishes it’s task your new .DMG file will be available on your desktop. Now you can transfer it to your MacBook Air with USB Drive.

Install Snow Leopard in VMWARE 7 Windows Edition

How to install Snow Leopard in VMWARE 7 and Windows host ? Virtualization of Snow Leopard (Client) is not officially supported/allowed by any virtualization solution. However a few modifications to the .vmx file and use a modified install disk as this will save a lot of trouble. Let me clear Apple licensing does not allow for the virtualization of OSX Client on any hardware and only allows for the virtualization OSX server on Apple hardware. Anything else is in violation of the license agreement. This article is for informational purposes only, you can never achieve full utilization of Mac OS X on VMWARE. So if you like the Mac then go ahead and buy a Mac.

Requirements

• VMWARE 7 and Windows XP, Vista or 7
• Retail DVD of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6
• Intel Based Machine, AMD isn’t supported.
• Patience, a Cup of coffee or Energy drink whatever you like.
• A pre-made Snow Leopard VMDK, dariwn_snow.iso Download (Rapidshare), (Rapidshare 1)(Mediafire) Or (Megaupload)

Instructions

Step One : Launch VMWARE Workstation and load the .vmx that came with the package you downloaded above. Now edit virtual machine settings for advance options.

Step Two : Edit the VMWARE settings eg: Memory, Processor, Networking Adaptors etc. Select CD/DVD drive options and in Connection select Use ISO image file and browse the Darwin_Snow.iso
Step Three : Now power on the virtual machine and keep your finger on F8 key.
Hit F8 very quickly on your Keyboard you will be prompted with the following screen

Step Four : Like Boot 132 method now you need to replace the boot cd with the Snow Leopard Retail Install DVD. Right click on the CD icon in bottom of the VMWARE windows and click on Settings option.


Now change the options from ISO image to use physical drive and make sure you have Retail DVD already installed. Save and Exit
Step Five : Now navigate to boot screen and press “C” on your keyboard to select “Boot DVD”, again press F8 for advance options and type -v at the boot prompt then hit enter for booting with verbose mode.
Step Six : Now wait for 2-3 minutes and your Installation screen will appear. Now you can install Snow Leopard as usual.  Before choosing the destination open Disk Utility and erase your Vmware HDD in to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format type. Under customization deselect printer drivers and language translations for trouble free installation.Once installation finishes your virtual machine will reboot automatically.
Step Seven : Follow Step Two again “Select CD/DVD drive options and in Connection select Use ISO image file and browse the Darwin_Snow.iso” now you can boot in to Snow Leopard you may need to force restart 2-3 times if Kernel Panic happens, once machine boot successfully you can set your preference etc.

Known Issues

1. Some .dmg aren’t opening
2. Kernel Panic on every shut down so just force shut down after every kernel panic.