Plug the external drive into the Mac that you want to install the macOS on. Start up the Mac, holding down the Option/Alt key while it is booting up. Your Mac will display the Startup Manager. The USB drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled, if its not, its time to format it in Disk Utility usb-format-osx-extended-lion 6) Finally in still in Disk Utility, select the “Restore” tab – drag the mounted volume “Mac OSX Base System” into the Source field and drag the USB drive “Volume” (mine is called.
I was given a MacBook Pro to use after the earthquake. I dropped it during an aftershock and it froze up and couldn't find the OS after I restarted. I managed to get to Disk Utility but in my poking around I wiped the drive. The reinstall option in Disk Repair keeps failing. I bought a licensed copy of Mac OS X Lion because that was what it was asking for, intending to format a USB drive to Mac, put the installation disk image on it, and reinstall from that but I don't have a download link, just a redemption code for the Mac App Store that I can't access. How do I get a Mac OS X install image onto a thumb drive when I don't have a working Mac, just access to emergency PC laptops?
MacBook
Posted on Jul 16, 2019 10:56 AM
There are many reasons why you may want to use a USB Flash drive to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion. If you need to install multiple copies on a few computers, or even prefer not to have to download a new copy every time you have to install the Mac OS. And from what I’ve experienced, installing from a USB Flash drive is faster than installing via downloading a new copy from the Mac App Store or even from DVD. Also USB Flash drives don’t scratch, DVDs do.
The steps necessary to create a Flash drive to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion are fairly simple. There are just certain parts that need extra attention however, I will highlight these areas.
Also check out: How to Install OS X Mavericks from USB Flash Drive
Step 1 of 3 – Preparation
Sep 14, 2020 A broken Mac computer with Mac OS X. A trial copy of the TransMac software. One high quality USB flash drive with 16GB of storage. A copy of Apple’s macOS (DMG file). Now that you have all the necessary ingredients, you’re ready to make a Mac OS X bootable USB using the DMG file of the operating system with the steps below. The Apple Mac OS X Lion Thumb Drive was incredible simple to use. Plug in and follow the prompts. They process was simple, easy, and no-hassle at all. I would recommend this to anyone who need to update their software, and I will be looking for Thumb Drives for additional updates in.
Fl studio 11 mac os x beta. Firstly you actually have to have the OS X Mountain Lion install app downloaded, you can purchase it from the Mac App Store. Once Mountain Lion has been downloaded, you’ll be able to find it in your Applications folder.
![Mac Os X Lion Format Usb Drive Mac Os X Lion Format Usb Drive](https://thetechjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/mac-lion-usb.jpg)
If the downloaded Mountain Lion app automatically pops up after downloading, don’t install it yet, just close the window. What we’re looking for is a DMG file. Go to your Applications folder and locate the “Install OS X Mountain Lion” app. Right click it and select “Show Package Contents”. Once opened there’ll be a folder called “Contents”, open it, and finally open the “SharedSupport” folder. Inside this folder there should be 2 files, one called “InstallESD.dmg” and the other “OSInstall.mpkg”, copy the InstallESD.dmg to the Desktop. This will be the file that we’ll be using to create the bootable disk image onto the USB Flash drive.
Step 2 of 3 – Prepare the USB Flash drive
Format USB drive
To create the bootable disk image, your UBS drive has to have at least 8GB of storage. Nowadays USB Flash drive are really cheap and can be purchased at almost any electronics store (the Flash drive I use is 16GB and only cost $15). Plug it into your Mac, and launch Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities). We’re going to format the USB drive, so make sure there isn’t anything on it that you need, as formatting will erase everything on the USB drive.
Select the USB drive that is to be formatted, then select the Erase tab. Under the selection for “Format:” select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)“, and name it anything you’d like. It would probably would be best however to make it something recognizable like “Mac Install” or “Mountain Lion Installer”. Up to you though. Then simply press the “Erase…” button on the bottom right when done. The USB Flash drive will then start to format; in most cases it takes less than a minute.
If you don’t already have a USB flash drive, or want a USB flash drive that is already compatible with Mac OS X then you can purchase one from the MacMall. It’s a good place to buy Mac friendly stuff. Here’s an affiliate link to a 16GB USB drive that comes already properly formatted for the purpose of installing Mac OS X:
For more information on formatting check out my other post: How to Format & Repair a Drive with Disk Utility
Step 3 of 3 – Restore Disk Image
How To Format Usb Mac
Once your USB flash drive has finished formatting, it’s time to “restore” the drive image. In Disk Utility select the partition that was just formatted and click the restore tab. Make sure to select the partition that you’ve created and not the drive itself. To elaborate, as you can see in the screenshot, I’ve selected the partition I named “Mac OS X Install ESD”, not the drive itself. If you select the drive instead of the partition, then it won’t restore the disk image onto your USB flash drive.
Mac Os X Lion Usb
There are two input boxes. One labelled “Source:” the other “Destination:”.
For the “Source:” box either drag the “InstallESD.dmg” file in, or click the “Image…” button, navigate to your desktop and select “InstallESD.dmg”. The destination will be the partition you’ve created. Simply drag the partition that’s on the USB drive that you formatted into the “Destination:” box from the panel on the left of Disk Utility. Next simply press the “Restore” button on the bottom right.
This could take a while to complete, let it do its thing. Once the process is done, your USB drive is ready to go.
If you want to use the USB to format a new computer or re-format your current computer, there are 2 ways of getting it installed. One is to go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk -> and select the USB drive. This will load up the Mac OS X Mountain Lion installer as soon as you restart your computer. The other method is to simply hold down the Options key on the keyboard when your Mac is just turning on after being shutdown/restarted.
Once it’s done booting into the installer it’s a simple process of going through the provided setup steps (easy stuff).
Did you know you can run Mac OS X Mountain Lion from a USB Flash drive? Here’s how: Boot from portable USB disk
You can even boot from an old formatted iPod Classic, here’s a guide: How to Boot and Run Mac OS X from an iPod Classic