Can you select the disc image or its mounted volume as the startup disc? No. But to clarify, the disc image (if built properly) can be restored to a drive partition and it will be bootable. Coj Kevin Willis <res19rmg at verizon.net> If you use Disk Utility to create a disk image of your start up drive, will it be a bootable back up? Also, would I need to save it in a compressed format, or does it need to be read/write? Thanks, Kevin