Advertisement As you may know, you can reinstall macOS on your computer via the internet recovery. But did you know that you can create a bootable USB drive to install macOS from? This will let you boot your Mac from a different source if it won’t work normally, and makes installs on multiple machines easy. Let’s see how to do this. Choosing a USB Flash Drive for Installing Mac USB flash drives are cheaper than ever, so you won’t have to spend much for this task.
However, make sure to buy a name-brand flash drive (like SanDisk, Kingston, or PNY) from a reputable store. Stay away from super-cheap drives with suspiciously high storage on sites like eBay.
For what it's worth, when I plug in this drive into my working MBP, I see the 'Install OS X Yosemite' get mounted in Finder. Edit 4 Here is a screenshot of the 'Startup Disk' option within 'System Preferences' on my working MBP that has the Bootable USB plugged in - which proves that it was properly created, I believe. To create a bootable Mojave installer drive, you just need the aforementioned installer and a Mac-formatted drive (a hard drive, solid-state drive [SSD], thumb drive, or USB stick) that’s big enough to hold the installer and all its data—an 8GB thumb drive is perfect.
These drives have their firmware hacked to report a false size to your operating system. Not only will the transfer speeds be painfully slow, but using them may also result in loss of data or even a damaged USB port. Also, check to see what ports you have on your Mac. The 12″ MacBook has a single USB-C port, while MacBook Pro models from 2016 and later feature USB-C ports exclusively.
Fortunately, there are USB-C drives available, or you can use a USB-C to USB-A adapter. It’s best to go with a USB 3.0 drive, with a minimum size of 16GB. The is good overall value for the money; we’ve highlighted for more options. $8.99 Formatting Your USB Flash Drive You can only create a bootable installer for macOS on a Mac. If you’re using a flash drive that already has data on it, make sure to back up any important files as you’re going to erase everything in a moment. Navigate to Applications Utilities, and open up Disk Utility. You should see your flash drive under the External section in the left pane.
After selecting it, click on the Erase button along the top. Choose a friendly name (which you’ll use later), and make sure to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the format. Finally, click Erase and you’re done with this step. Downloading the macOS Installer To download the macOS installer, open the App Store and search for your version of macOS. Click on the Download button if you’re on High Sierra or earlier. MacOS Mojave is slightly different, as it opens up your System Preferences to download the installer. This is because one of is a new way of installing updates.
The experience of building the USB with DiskMakerX7 was painless. I am now able to boot to a screen with two icons like the one shown in this article. At this point, I select the USB drive that is named 'Install OS X High Sierra' and that takes me to the menu with 4 choices. When I go into Disk Utilities, I am able to re-format the 500GB HD in the iMac and it automatically creates a new volume.
I named my volume 'Abyss'. Then I return to the 4-choice menu and select 'Install MacOS', and click the Continue button. The Continue button turns gray - forever. Yes, I have verified that this iMac is eligible to use High Sierra. What could be wrong? Is it possible that I need a newer OS X Base System?
Can that be upgraded?
The reason many people want to have a bootable is to create clean installs: that is, to install Lion on a freshly formatted hard drive that doesn't contain any previous OS. The other major reason to want a bootable Lion installer is for emergency booting.
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It's true that Lion creates a bootable that you can use for troubleshooting. But the Recovery partition is only usable if your drive is in basic working order. If your drive has a corrupt partition table, or you've replaced the hard drive, then the Recovery partition is downright useless. OS X Lion installer. 8 GB USB flash drive. You can use a larger drive if you wish, but more important than the size of the flash drive is its speed. If you're buying a new flash drive just for Lion, I recommend buying one of the fastest available.
While slow (read: inexpensive) flash drives will work fine, you'll find that both the time it takes to create the bootable flash copy of the OS X Lion installer and the time it takes to install Lion on a target drive, will be somewhat long. Some free time. The creation time varies by the speed of the USB flash drive, but plan on 30 minutes to over an hour. Insert the USB flash drive into your Mac's USB port. Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities. In the Disk Utility window, look for the flash drive in the list of attached devices.
Look for the device name, which usually appears as the drive size followed by the manufacturer's name, such as 16 GB SanDisk Cruzer. Select the drive (not the, which may appear below the drive manufacturer's name), and click the Partition tab. Use the Volume Scheme drop-down window to select 1 Partition. Enter a name for the volume you're about to create. I prefer to use the name that Apple originally assigned to the Lion installer image that we'll copy in a later step, so I enter Mac OS X Install ESD as the volume's name. Make sure the Format drop-down menu is set to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled).
Click the Options button, select GUID as the Partition Table type, and click OK. Click the Apply button.
Disk Utility will display a sheet asking if you're sure you want to partition your USB flash drive. Click Partition to continue. Once Disk Utility finishes formatting and partitioning the USB flash drive, quit Disk Utility.
Open a Finder window and navigate to /Applications/. Right-click on Install OS X Lion (this is the installer you downloaded from the Mac App Store), and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Open the Contents folder.
Open the SharedSupport Folder. Within the SharedSupport Folder is an image file called InstallESD.dmg. Right-click the InstallESD.dmg file and select Copy from the pop-up menu. Close the Finder window.
Right-click in a blank area of the desktop, and select Paste Item from the pop-up menu. This will create a copy of the InstallESD.dmg file. Clone the InstallESD.DMG File to the Flash Drive. Launch Disk Utility, if it's not already open. Click the flash drive device (not the volume name) in the Disk Utility window. Click the Restore tab.
Drag the InstallESD.dmg from the device list to the Source field. Drag the Mac OS X Install ESD volume name from the device list to the Destination field. Make sure the Erase Destination box is checked. Click Restore.
Disk Utility will ask if you're sure you wish to perform the restore function. Click Erase to continue. You may be asked for your administrator account password; supply the necessary information and click OK. The clone/restore process can take a bit of time.
Once the process is complete, you can quit Disk Utility. Using the Bootable Flash Drive.