The process of installing OS X or macOS on a Mac hasn't changed a great deal since OS X Lion altered the delivery of the OS from optical disks to electronic downloads, using the Mac App Store.
Bootable Mac Os X Download Usb
If you have a Mac, you've probably been anticipating the release of OS X Mountain Lion. If you have multiple Macs, you've probably been dreading the long process of downloading and installing it on all of them. Here's how to create a bootable backup disk and save yourself some time.
Choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the Utilities window. Click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions to choose your disk and begin installation. If the installer asks to unlock your disk, enter the password you use to log in to your Mac.
The big advantage of downloading the Mac OS is, of course, immediate gratification (and not having to pay shipping charges). But the downside is that the installer you download is deleted as soon as you make use of it by installing the Mac operating system.
With the installer gone, you lose the opportunity to install the OS on more than one Mac without having to go through the download process again. You also lose out on having an installer that you can use to perform clean installs that completely overwrite your startup drive, or having an emergency bootable installer that includes a few useful utilities that can bail you out of an emergency.
Bootable usb from iso (self.hackintosh). So, you want to create a bootable OS X installer USB stick for making a Hackintosh? If so, you have the tool right in front of you in that OS X VM on VBox. So, on the Mac, Disk Utility is a fundamental tool in making that USB stick for installing the boot loader and OS X onto a Hackintosh.
To overcome these limitations of the installer for OS X or macOS, all you need is a USB drive that contains a bootable copy of the installer.
How to Create a Bootable Flash Installer of the OSX or MacOS on a USB Drive
There are two ways to make a bootable copy of the installer; one makes use of Terminal, the command-line utility included with all copies of OS X and macOS; the other uses a combination of the Finder, Disk Utility, and Terminal to get the job done.
In the past, we've always shown you the manual method, which uses the Finder, Disk Utility, and Terminal. Although this method involves more steps, it's easier for many Mac users because the majority of the process uses familiar tools. This time around, we're going to show you the Terminal app method, which uses a single command that has been included with the Mac OS installer since OS X Mavericks was released.
The OS X Yosemite installer is the last version of the installer with which we verified this manual method using the Finder, Disk Utility, and Terminal. The general recommendation is to skip the manual method for any version of the Mac OS that is newer than OS X Mavericks, and instead use the Terminal method and the createinstallmedia command, as outlined below.
Start by Not Starting
Before you begin, stop. That may sound a bit daft, but as we mentioned above, if you use the OS X or macOS installer, it will likely delete itself from your Mac as part of the installation process. So, if you haven't yet used the installer you downloaded, don't. If you've already installed the Mac OS, you can re-download the installer following these instructions:
If you're just now downloading the installer, you'll notice that once the download is complete, the installer will start up on its own. You can just quit the installer, the same way you'd quit any other Mac app.
What You Need
You should already have the OS X or macOS installer on your Mac. It will be located in the /Applications folder, with one of the following names:
A USB flash drive. You can use any USB drive that is 8 GB in size or larger. We suggest a flash drive in the 32 GB to 64 GB range, as they seem to be the sweet spot in cost and performance. The actual size of the bootable version of the installer varies, depending on which version of the Mac OS you're installing, but so far, none has gone over 8 GB in size.
A Mac that meets the minimum requirements for the OS you're installing:
If you have everything you need, let's get started, using the createinstallmedia command.
Use the Createinstallmedia Command to Create a Bootable Mac Installer
It's not really that much of a secret, but ever since OS X Mavericks, the Mac OS installers have contained a command hidden inside the installer package that takes what used to be a complex process for creating a bootable copy of the installer, and turns it into a single command you enter into Terminal.
This Terminal command, called createinstallmedia, can create a bootable copy of the installer using any drive connected to your Mac. In this guide, we're going to use a USB flash drive, but you could also use a normal hard drive or SSD that's connected to your Mac. The process is the same, regardless of the destination. Whatever media you use to create the bootable Mac OS installer on, it will be completely erased by the createinstallmedia command, so be careful. Whether you're going to use a flash drive, a hard drive, or an SSD, be sure to back up any data on the drive before you begin this process.
How to Use the Createinstallmedia Terminal Command
Make sure that the Mac OS installer file is present in your /Applications folder. If it's not there, or you're not sure of its name, seethe previous section of this guide for details on the installer file name, and how to download the needed file.
Plug your USB flash drive into your Mac.
Check the flash drive's content. The drive will be erased during this process, so if there's any data on the flash drive that you want to save, back it up to another location before proceeding.
Change the flash drive's name to FlashInstaller. You can do this by double-clicking the drive's name to select it, and then type in the new name. You can actually use any name you wish, but it must exactly match the name you enter in the createinstallmedia command below. For this reason, we strongly suggest using a name with no spaces and no special characters. If you use FlashInstaller as the drive's name, you can just copy/paste the command line below instead of typing the rather long command into Terminal.
Launch Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities.
Warning:The following command will completely erase the drive named FlashInstaller.
In the Terminal window that opens, enter one of the following commands, depending on which OS X or macOS installer you're working with. The command, which starts with the text 'sudo' and ends with the word 'nointeraction' (with no quotes), can be copy/pasted into Terminal unless you used a name other than FlashInstaller. You should be able to triple-click the command line below to select the entire command. macOS High Sierra Installer Command Line
Copy the command, paste it into Terminal, and then press the return or enter key.
You'll be asked for your administrator password. Enter the password and press return or enter.
The terminal will execute the command. It will first erase the destination drive, in this case, your USB flash drive named FlashInstaller. It will then begin copying all of the needed files. This process can take some time, so be patient, have some yogurt and blueberries (or your snack of choice); that should just about match the amount of time needed to complete the copying process. Of course, the speed is dependent on the device you're copying to.
When the process is complete, Terminal will display the line Done, and then display the Terminal command prompt line.
You now have a bootable copy of the OS X or macOS installer that you can use to install the Mac OS on any of your Macs, including using the advanced Clean Install method; you can also use it as a troubleshooting utility.
Creating installation media for your operating system of choice used to be simple. Just download an ISO and burn it to CD or DVD. Now we’re using USB drives, and the process is a little different for each operating system.
You can’t just copy files from an ISO disc image directly onto your USB drive. The USB drive’s data partition needs to be made bootable, for one thing. This process will usually wipe your USB drive or SD card.
Use a USB 3.0 Drive, If You Can
USB 2.0 has been around forever, and everything supports it, but it’s notoriously slow. You’ll be much better off making the upgrade to USB 3.0 since the prices have dropped dramatically, and the speed increases are enormous… you can get 10x the speed.
And speed really matters when you’re making a boot drive.
Editor’s Note: We use this Silicon Power USB 3.0 drive here at How-To Geek, and at $15 for a 32 GB version, it’s well worth the upgrade. You can even get it in sizes up to 128 GB if you want.
Don’t worry about compatibility, these faster drives are fully compatible with an old USB 2.0 system, you just won’t get the speed boosts. And if your desktop computer doesn’t support USB 3.0 you can always upgrade it to add support.
For Windows 7, 8, or 10
RELATED:Where to Download Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 ISOs Legally
Use Microsoft’s own Windows USB/DVD download tool to create a bootable drive you can install Windows from. You’ll need a Windows installer ISO file to run this tool. If you don’t have one, you can download Windows 10, 8, or 7 installation media for free — you’ll need a legitimate product key to use them, though.
Provide the ISO file and a USB flash drive and the tool will create a bootable drive.
RELATED:How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10 the Easy Way
Alternatively, if you’re installing Windows 10, you can download an ISO or burn Windows 10 installation media directly using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool.
From a Linux ISO
RELATED:How to Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive, the Easy Way
There are many tools that can do this job for you, but we recommend a free program called Rufus—it’s faster and more reliable than many of the other tools you’ll see recommended, including UNetbootin.
Download the Linux distribution you want to use in .ISO form. Run the tool, select your desired distribution, browse to your downloaded ISO file, and choose the USB drive you want to use. The tool will do the rest. You can see a full step-by-step guide here.
You can use similar tools on Linux. For example, Ubuntu includes a Startup Disk Creator tool for creating bootable Ubuntu USB drives.
From an IMG File
Some operating system projects provide an IMG file instead of an ISO file. An IMG file is a raw disk image that needs to be written directly to a USB drive.
Use Win32 Disk Imager to write an IMG file to a USB drive or SD card. Provide a downloaded IMG file and the tool will write it directly to your drive, erasing its current contents. You can also use this tool to create IMG files from USB drives and SD cards.
Linux users can use the dd command to directly write an IMG file’s contents to a removable media device. Insert the removable media and run the following command on Ubuntu:
Replace /home/user/file.img with the path to the IMG file on your file system and /dev/sdX with the path to your USB or SD card device. Be very careful to specify the correct disk path here — if you specify the path to your system drive instead, you’ll write the contents of the image to your operating system drive and corrupt it
For DOS
RELATED:How to Create a Bootable DOS USB Drive
If you need to boot into DOS to use a low-level firmware upgrade, BIOS update, or system tool that still requires DOS for some reason, you can use the Rufus tool to create a bootable DOS USB drive.
Rufus uses FreeDOS, an open-source implementation of DOS that should run whatever DOS program you need to use.
From Mac OS X Installation Files
RELATED:How to Wipe Your Mac and Reinstall macOS from Scratch
You can create a bootable drive with Mac OS X on it by downloading the latest version of OS X from the Mac App Store. Use Apple’s included “createinstallmedia” tool in a terminal or by run the third-party DiskMaker X tool.
The Mac OS X drive can be used to install OS X on other Macs or upgrade them to the latest version without any long downloads.
From a Windows ISO for Mac
RELATED:How to Install Windows on a Mac With Boot Camp
If you plan on installing Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp, don’t bother creating a bootable USB drive in the usual way. Use your Mac’s Boot Camp tool to start setting things up and it will walk you through creating a bootable Windows installation drive with Apple’s drivers and Boot Camp utilities integrated.
You can use this drive to install Windows on multiple Macs, but don’t use it to install Windows on non-Apple PCs.
Some of these tools overlap — for example, Rufus can also be used to create bootable drives from Linux ISOs, IMG files, and even Windows ISO Files. We suggested the most popular, widely recommended tools for each task here.
Image Credit: USBMemoryDirect on Flickr
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