Disk Utility OS X Guide

Disk Utility is an application that does multiple things. It's main utility is to verify and repair disk permissions and verify and repair disks. It also makes disk images, burns them, and verify/repair them.

Verify/Repair disk permissions

Every file on your Mac OS X hard drive have a particular set of permissions. Those permissions determine which users can access which files and what exactly that access is for. Permissions also determine what applications can access what files in various situations. Sometimes, permissions get messed up and applications seemed bugged or weird acting. In this case, repairing permissions is a good idea.

To repair permissions in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, launch the disk Utility application. Click on Macintosh HD on the left sidebar and click on the "Repair disk permissions" button. After it's done, it will tell you which permissions were messed up and if OS X repaired them. You can also verify the permissions without repairing them. To do that, just click on "Verify disk permissions".

Create/Burn disk images

To create a disk image, click on "New Image" at the top of the screen. Give it a name and tell disk Utility where to save it. Then, choose a volume size and format. To make an image readable in Mac OS X, leave the format default. From there, save your image by clicking "create" and you can modify it by mounting it and selecting it from the left sidebar. To mount an image, right/ctrl click on it's icon in Finder and click on "mount".

To burn, select a mounted image and click on the "burn" button. Select a destination and press "OK". After the burn is complete, disk Image will verify the disk to make sure everything went OK. You can skip the verification by clicking on "Skip" without altering the final result of your disk.