This is the process I used to make a bootable USB drive of the Mountain Lion Operating System on my Macbook Pro. My Macbook was the Macbook Pro 13″ inch 2012 model. This process for making a boot drive can work for other Macbook types too. Difficulty rating 2/10, maybe even 1/10, super easy!
This is the process I used to create a bootable USB drive of Mountain Lion OS X for my Macbook pro.
Why Make A Bootable USB Install Drive for Mac Mountain Lion OS?
The other major reason to want a bootable Lion installer is for emergency booting and repair of. To create a bootable USB drive from a DMG file on Windows, you will need to have the right utility. That's because DMG is not native on Windows. Dec 06, 2020 How to create a OS X Mountain Lion Bootable USB drive on Ubuntu? Ask Question Asked. The Mac image is a.dmg file, so you must to convert this file into.iso, and then install it. Image, with which you will make the LiveUSB. Several tools and answers exist to help you create bootable USB drives, some are specific to PC/MBR booting. May 31, 2020 Oh dear you need to open the InstallMacOSX.dmg (double-click on it) it will open to the InstallMacOSX.pkg. Double-click on the InstallMacOSX.pkg and an installation window will open, this does not install El Capitan. But creates the Install OS X El Capitan.app in your Downloads folder. Use that to create the bootable USB. Bootable USB Installers for OS X Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra. First, review this introductory article: Create a bootable installer for macOS. Second, see this How To outline for creating a bootable El Capitan installer. Simply replace the Terminal command with the one from the preceding article by copying it into the Terminal. Un-archive the zip archive and you will get the app Installer. A bootable ISO or bootable USB can be made directly from the InstallESD.dmg disk image found under Contents/SharedSupport/. Instructions on how to do that are on the Internet/Youtube.
The main reason to make the bootable USB drive is to not have to download the 4GB file every time you want to do a reinstall of the Mountain Lion operating system.
The second reason to make a bootable USB OS drive is it makes reinstalling the operating system faster. Using a USB drive method without the downloading makes a full reset take 30 minutes. Without the USB drive it will take hours.
Tools you will need:
- Macbook Pro. I have not tested this with other Macs, it should work 9/10.
- Internet Connection to download the 4GB Mountain Lion install file from Apple.
- OS DOWNLOAD USB DRIVE. 12GB or more USB Flash Drive. I used a 32GB USB drive, 12GB is the minimum amount of Geebees you need. More is okay, like 32GB is fine.
- OS BOOT USB DRIVE. Optional 8GB or more Flash drive for a permanent USB drive, or you can reuse the OS DOWNLOAD DRIVE. This is optional because you can copy the files onto your hard drive and then on to the OS DOWNLOAD USB flash drive again whenever you need it. I used a separate 8GB USB Flash drive for my OS BOOT DRIVE to keep a permanent solution. I got my 8GB USB drive from Ebay for $6.
No extra Mac software is required to make or use the USB boot drive method.
Preparing the USB drive
Turn the Macbook pro ON. Insert the OS DOWNLOAD USB Flash Drive into the Macbook Pro.
Open the Disk Utility Program. (Hold the CMD key and press space bar -> Type “disk utility” without the quotes -> select disk utility from the list that is shown). Motorola wimax usb adaptor usbw 35100 driver for mac. Cara buka file excel 2010 yang di password generator.
Now we will partition the OS DOWNLOAD USB drive and make it bootable. In disk utility, select your OS DOWNLOAD drive on the left panel by clicking on it. Make sure you click on the part of it that is most to the left on the left panel. Not the sub heading of it, the main heading. The main part that might say something like “28.36 GB NAMEOFCOMPANY”.
Now in the big panel on the right choose partition at the top, it should be the middle tab, between Erase and RAID. If you do not see the option to partition you did not click the correct drive on the left or clicked the sub heading. Make sure you clicked the main entry for the Flash drive.
In the partition area first click on the “choose” above the big box (in the “volume scheme” area) and change it to “1 partition”. Then click options just below this box and select the GUID partition table option, then click OK.
Now on the right of this area enter a name for your drive, like “OS X Installer” and change the format to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled). When you’re happy choose Apply and agree to the question that asks if you are happy to erase the Flash drive. Check to make sure it is the correct drive before agreeing! I am not responsible for your mistakes here!
Once it is complete you will have a clean USB drive ready for the Lion Operating system download.
End of formatting and partitioning the OS DOWNLOAD USB drive procedure.
Downloading the OS Install Files From Apple
Now with the formatted and partitioned OS DOWNLOAD USB DRIVE inserted shut down the macbook pro. Once the Macbook pro is off hold the CMD and r keys. Now turn on the Macbook pro while keeping hold of the CMD and r key. This will activate the Macbook Pro restore feature. Every Macbook Pro has this feature to reinstall the operating system at anytime.
Once it has loaded, release the CMD+r keys and choose the second option – “Reinstall Mac OS X”, and hit continue. Now it will ask for verification through your internet connection. Agree to this and select YOUR USB FLASH DRIVE AS THE LOCATION to install. This is important because we want to download the files from Apple onto our USB drive. Once you agree, it will start the download.
IMPORTANT PART!
Once the download is complete you must pull out the USB Flash drive as soon as the black screen shows. If the screen is black, pull out the flash drive! Don’t wait, just pull it out. If you wait it will start the installation and delete the files from the USB and you’ll have to do it all again. You need these installation files to create a bootable USB Lion drive. So, once the timer is close to 0 BE READY. A few seconds after the timer goes to zero seconds remaining the the screen will turn black. Remove the USB at the black screen! Not before, and not after.
END OF IMPORTANT PART!
You pulled out? great. Now you have a USB Flash drive with OS Mountain Lion! That was the hard part completed, now the easy stuff.
Keeping the OS DOWNLOAD USB drive OUT of the Macbook pro and start the Macbook. It will load as normal. Press CMD+SPACEBAR and type “disk utility”, then select disk utility from the list. Now insert your USB drive with the operating system on it. Copy all the files from it to any location on your hard drive. I copied them into the Download folder, but you can put them anywhere you like.
Now open the folder you copied onto your hard drive. Look inside and you will find a big 4GB file ending in .dmg. This is the main file you need.
Insert your OS BOOT USB DRIVE. You should have already partitioned this drive, with a GUID and with “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. Use the usb guide above to do this. If you are reusing your OS DOWNLOAD DRIVE partition and format it again using the above procedure once you have copied the operating system folder to your hard drive (we just did this in the last paragraph!).
Click on this big .dmg file to open and it will mount the .dmg file. Now go back to disk utility. You should have your OS BOOT USB DRIVE attached to your Macbook Pro and you will see the “InstallESD.dmg” file shows as mounted at the bottom of the left panel of disk utility.
Click on the InstallESD.dmg file on the left. At the top of the right pane choose “restore”. It shows two area you need to enter. Source and Destination. Source should already be filled with InstallESD.dmg. If it is not, then enter that now by browsing to the big file and inserting it into the Source box.
For the destination we want our BOOT USB DRIVE. So drag and drop that from the left panel to the Destination part.
When you are happy click the restore button to start the restore process. This takes around 30 minutes. Once complete you have your complete USB BOOT DRIVE!
How To Use Your OS X USB BOOT DRIVE
To use the USB boot drive on your Macbook Pro, first insert the drive into the Macbook. Then shut down, or restart the computer. As it is turning on hold down the ALT key. This will show a special screen allowing you to select a startup disk drive. Select the USB drive (it is usually orange). The Macbook will shut down and restart using the USB drive as the Boss.
There was a problem installing Mac OS X, try reinstalling. If you get this error you will need to zap PRAM. This sounds bad, but it’s nothing really. Simple instructions for zapping P RAM below.
To zap PRAM shut down the Macbook Pro. Now hold down CMD+OPTION+p+r and turn on the Macbook Pro. OPTION is the “Left ALT” key and has a small bird symbol. It is near the CMD key on the left of a Macbook Pro keyboard.
When you turn on the Macbook Pro with the above keys held it will quickly reset and the screen will go to full brightness. This is the indicator that the PRAM has been cleaned. The PRAM holds simple hardware variables, like brightness level and it’s a safe procedure recommended on the Apple website. I take no responsibility if any of the advice here or on this website damages anything! I have completed every step here myself and have no fear doing it again, it is safe as far as I am concerned.
After zapping the PRAM insert the Installer USB Flash Drive into the Macbook Pro and turn off. Then turn on again while holding the ALT key on the left of the keyboard. Yes, just the ALT key and nothing else. The ALT key is near the Cmd key which is on the left of the space bar. Just hold this ALT key and start the Macbook Pro.
When it starts it will show you some hard drive options. Choose the orange Hard drive that represents your USB drive. Click it and it will take you to the install Lion screen. Now just follow the simple instructions to complete the installation of Lion! It takes about 8 minutes to prepare installation and 35 minutes to complete the installation process itself. You Macbook Pro will restart when the process is complete.
Congratulations! You have used a Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Mountain Lion OS X. You can now repeat this process at any time to reinstall OS X on your Macbook Pro without needing an internet connection. This process can work for other Macbook Pro versions too.
Leave a comment below if you found this guide useful or want to clear anything I missed, thanks
This is the end of the guide on how to make a bootable Mountain Lion USB Install Drive.
[Editor’s note: This article is part of our series of articles on installing and upgrading to Lion (OS X 10.7). We also have a complete guide to installing and upgrading to Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8).]
Create Bootable Usb From Os X Lion Dmg
Unlike previous versions of Mac OS X, Lion (OS X 10.7) doesn’t ship on a bootable disc—it’s available only as an installer app downloadable from the Mac App Store, and that installer doesn’t require a bootable installation disc. Indeed, this lack of physical media is perhaps the biggest complaint about Lion’s App Store-only distribution, as there are a good number of reasons you might want a bootable Lion installer, whether it be a DVD, a thumb drive, or an external hard drive.
For example, if you want to install Lion on multiple Macs, a bootable installer drive can be more convenient than downloading or copying the entire Lion installer to each computer. Also, if your Mac is experiencing problems, a bootable installer drive makes a handy emergency disk. (Lion features a new recovery mode (also called Lion Recovery), but not all installations of Lion get it—and if your Mac’s drive is itself having trouble, recovery mode may not even be available. Also, if you need to reinstall Lion, recovery mode requires you to download the entire 4GB Lion installer again.) Finally, a bootable installer drive makes it easier to install Lion over Leopard (assuming you have the license to do so).
Thankfully, it’s easy to create a bootable Lion-install volume from the Lion installer that you download from the Mac App Store; just follow the steps below.
Stardock fences 3 product key. Update: When this article was originally published, the Mac App Store version of Lion would not boot any Macs released in mid-2011 or later, as those models shipped with a newer version of Lion preinstalled. However, unlike with the CD- and DVD-based Mac OS X installers of old, Apple can—and does—update the Mac App Store version of the Lion installer. So if you create a bootable Lion-installer drive using the current version of the Lion installer—which, as of 2/10/2012, installs OS X 10.7.3—that drive will work with all current Lion-capable Macs. If your only Mac was released after Lion, so you can’t download the Lion installer from the Mac App Store, I’ve also provided instructions for creating a bootable Lion-install drive for newer Macs.
Part 1: For all types of media
- Once you’ve purchased Lion, find the Lion installer on your Mac. It’s called Install Mac OS X Lion.app and it should have been downloaded to
/Applications. - Right-click (or Control+click) the installer, and choose Show Package Contents from the resulting contextual menu.
- In the folder that appears, open Contents, then open Shared Support; you’ll see a disk-image file called InstallESD.dmg.
- Launch Disk Utility (in
/Applications/Utilities). - Drag the InstallESD.dmg disk image into Disk Utility’s left-hand sidebar.
The next steps depend on whether you want to create a bootable hard drive or flash drive, or a bootable DVD. I recommend a hard drive or flash drive—a DVD will work, but it takes a long time to boot and install.
To create a bootable hard drive or flash drive
- In Disk Utility, select InstallESD.dmg in the sidebar, and then click the Open button in the toolbar. This mounts the disk image’s volume in the Finder. The mounted volume is called Mac OS X Install ESD.
- Click Mac OS X Install ESD in Disk Utility’s sidebar, then click the Restore button in the main part of the window.
- Drag the Mac OS X Install ESD icon into the Source field on the right (if it isn’t already there).
- Connect to your Mac the hard drive or flash drive you want to use for your bootable Lion installer. This drive must be at least 5GB in size (an 8GB flash drive works well), and it must be formatted with a GUID Partition Table. Follow Steps 1 through 4 in this slideshow to properly format the drive.
- In Disk Utility, find this destination drive in the sidebar and then drag it into the Destination field on the right; if the destination drive has multiple partitions, just drag the partition you want to use as your bootable installer volume. Warning: The next step will erase the destination drive or partition, so make sure it doesn’t contain any valuable data.
- Click Restore and, if prompted, enter an admin-level username and password. The restore procedure will take anywhere from five to 15 minutes, depending on your Mac and the speed of your drive.
Note: In versions of the Lion installer prior to 10.7.4, you didn’t need to first mount the InstallESD.dmg image—you could simply drag the image itself into the Source field. However, with the 10.7.4 installer, you must use the mounted Mac OS X Install ESD volume or you will get an error at the end of the restore procedure and the newly created bootable drive may not function properly.
Part 2b: To create a bootable DVD
In Disk Utility, select InstallESD.dmg in the sidebar
Click the Burn button in the toolbar.
When prompted, insert a blank DVD (a single-layer disc should work, although you can use a dual-layer disc instead), choose your burn options, and click Burn.
You can now boot any Lion-compatible Mac from this drive or DVD and install Lion. You can also use any of the Lion installer’s special recovery and restore features—in fact, when you boot from this drive or DVD, you’ll see the same Mac OS X Utilities screen you get when you boot into restore mode.
Note: As explained in our main Lion-installation article, if you leave the Lion installer in its default location (in /Applications) and use it to install Lion on your Mac’s startup drive, the installer will be automatically deleted after the installation finishes. So if you plan to use that installer on other Macs, or to create a bootable disc or drive as explained here, be sure to copy the installer to another drive—or at least move it out of the Applications folder—before you install. If you don’t, you’ll have to re-download the entire thing from the Mac App Store.
If you’ve already installed Lion—so it’s too late to move the installer—you’ve may find that the Mac App Store claims that Lion is already installed and prevents you from downloading it again. As I explained in our main Lion-installation article, you should be able to force a re-download using one of the following three tricks: First, Option+click the Buy App button in the Mac App Store. If that doesn’t work, switch to the Mac App Store’s main page and then Option+click the Purchases button in the toolbar. If that doesn’t work, quit the Mac App Store app and then hold down the Option key while launching the Mac App Store again. One of these three procedures should get rid of the “Installed” status for Lion and let you download it. Update: Apple appears to have recently made this process easier: If you previously purchased Lion from the Mac App Store, the button next to Lion in the Store should simply say Download—click it to re-download the installer.
Updated 7/20/2011, 10am, to add note about moving the Lion installer package to prevent it from being deleted.
Updated 7/22/2011, 11:10am, to add instructions for forcing a re-download of the Lion installer, if necessary.
Bootable Lion Usb From Dmg Mac
Updated 8/8/2011, 9:19am, with additional information about thumb-drive capacity and drive format.
Updated 8/19/2011, 2pm, to clarify compatibility.
Bootable Lion Usb From Dmg
Updated 2/10/2012, 12pm, with information about compatibility when using the latest Lion installer, and to note easier re-downloading of Lion installer.
Bootable Lion Usb From Dmg Drive
Updated 6/27/2012, 9pm, to add note about Disk Utility error message introduced with the 10.7.4 installer, and 6/29/2012, 8:20am, to update instructions so they work when creating a drive using the 10.7.4 installer.