Burn multiple directories as a single DMG

[jon]

Hello forum members,

I bought DropDMG some time ago, but it's only recently that I've started to use it in earnest. I'm using it to make an encrypted image of my home folder to burn to a DVD as a "last resort" backup. I don't want certain folders backed up (Movies, Music, Pictures) as they are in effect backed up on my iPod, so I drag the remaining folders to DropDMG and end up with one DMG for each folder that I dragged, which is sensible behaviour, but not what I want.

To work around this, I first copy the folders I want to another folder, and then drag that to DropDMG which works fine. The trouble is, it takes much longer and takes up much more space while the operation is carried out. I've tried creating a new folder with symbolic links to the folders I want to image, and then dragging that to DropDMG, but that doesn't work.

There must be a better way, and I'm sure I must be missing something obvious. Any ideas?

Thanks in anticipation for any help,

Jon

[Michael Tsai]

I'm using it to make an encrypted image of my home folder to burn to a DVD as a "last resort" backup. I don't want certain folders backed up (Movies, Music, Pictures) as they are in effect backed up on my iPod, so I drag the remaining folders to DropDMG and end up with one DMG for each folder that I dragged, which is sensible behaviour, but not what I want.


The best way to do this, at present, is to create one DMG for each folder, then put the DMGs into a folder and burn that folder.



I've tried creating a new folder with symbolic links to the folders I want to image, and then dragging that to DropDMG, but that doesn't work.


DropDMG copies the folder contents exactly, so if you give it a folder of links it will copy them as links.

[jon]

Thanks for the speedy reply, Michael.

I'm wondering if creating separate DMGs and then burning them will have potential issues with spanning onto DVDs — what I mean is that if I have 3 DMGs of 2.5 GB each, I will need 3 DVDs to burn them but if imaged together I'd need only two — but I'll try it that way and see how it works out.

Thanks again for the help.

Jon

[Michael Tsai]

I'm wondering if creating separate DMGs and then burning them will have potential issues with spanning onto DVDs — what I mean is that if I have 3 DMGs of 2.5 GB each, I will need 3 DVDs to burn them but if imaged together I'd need only two — but I'll try it that way and see how it works out.

Yes, if your folders are sized such that that’s an issue, then you’d need to do what you did before: copy the folders first and make a single (segmented) DMG from them.