Sep 14, 2015 If your Mac doesn’t boot from an external volume or the drive doesn’t show up in Startup Manager even though it contains a bootable copy of OS X, it might need repair. The first order of business should be attempting to repair disk permissions in Disk Utility. In the worst case scenario, you might need to reinstall OS X on the external volume. Click “Clone” to start the cloning process. The content of the USB drive will be overwritten and replaced with the clone of the boot drive. Booting from a USB Drive. Once you’ve installed macOS on a USB drive or cloned your hard drive to a USB drive, you will need to restart your computer and boot from the clone drive. May 29, 2020 10 Fixes for USB Not Showing Up on Mac. The reasons behind the problem of a USB device not showing up are various, including the USB port is not working, USB drive corruption, virus infection, macOS faulty, etc.So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally. To connect a flash drive: Insert the flash drive into a USB port on your computer. You should find a USB port on the front, back, or side of your computer (the location may vary depending on whether you have a desktop or laptop). Open Finder and locate and select the. Mar 24, 2020 OS X El Capitan El Capitan downloads as a disk image. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder.
There are various ways to boot macOS. Aside from using the built-in Startup Manager, you can also boot into Verbose, Safe, and Target Disk modes. In addition to this, macOS users also have an option of picking a disk to boot the operating system from. But let’s delve into something more specific. You’re about to find out how to boot your Mac up directly from external storage, specifically flash storage or a USB-based flash drive. Learn how to create bootable flash drive for Windows 10.
Why You Need to Boot from External Drive?
There are many occasions you may have trouble with your Mac.
- Corrupted system files and Mac crashes unexpectedly.
- Mac runs very slow with sufficient storage.
- You have deleted some system files wrongly.
- You couldn’t login to your Mac.
- Troubleshooting purposes.
Let’s begin with the obvious question here; what are the basic requirements for creating bootable USB for Mac?
How to Create Bootable USB Drive for Mac?
- USB drive with sufficient storage space.
- Access to a working and supported Mac.
- Format USB to Apple supported file system.
- Get installer file for macOS.
- Create bootable USB.
- Booting Mac from Startup Manager.
If you are not able to login to your Mac, you need to use Time Machine backup disk. Otherwise you should have another Mac for creating a bootable USB.
1. USB Drive
The macOS installer file is large with approximate size of 6 to 10GB depending upon the version. Also the process needs to sufficient storage space on your USB. So ensure to have at least 32GB or greater storage space on your USB drive.
Remember to copy and backup the USB since you need to delete the entire content for creating the bootable drive.
2. An Intel Based Mac
Apple transitioned to an Intel processors in 2005. In other words, if your Mac is not older than 2005, you should be fine.
3. Format USB Flash Drive to Apple File System
First, plug in your USB drive. Press “Command +Spacebar” to access Spotlight, then type “Disk Utility”. You can view the current file system of the USB drive. In our example, we have FAT32 file system which is compatible on Windows. You need to erase and format the USB to be compatible with your Mac.
Click on the “Erase” button on “Disk Utility” and choose the format as either APFS or Mac OS Extended. In most cases, your Mac will show the supported format by default and you don’t need to change it. On older Mac, you will see an additional scheme option, choose “GUID Partition Map”. Click on “Erase” button to continue further.
Disk Utility will delete all content on the USB and format it in the selected APFS or Mac OS Extended format.
4. MacOS Installer File
In order to create a bootable USB drive for Mac, you need download Mac OS installer. Open App Store on your Mac and search for the latest macOS version. Remember, App Store will only have the latest version which is macOS Mojave at this point when we write this article. Search for “macOS mojave” and click on the “Get” button.
This will start downloading the installer file to your “Applications” folder.
5. Creating USB Installer
After downloading, the installer will automatically ask you to install macOS Mojave. Simply quit the installer without starting the installation.
- At this point, ensure you have inserted the formatted USB drive, let’s say the name of the USB volume is “Boot Disk”.
- Also make sure the downloaded macOS installer file is in “Applications” folder.
- Press “Command + Spacebar” and search for “terminal” to open Terminal app.
- Copy and paste the below command in Terminal and hit enter.
- You need to enter admin password to proceed further.
- Terminal will ask you to confirm erasing the volume, press Y and hit enter to confirm.
Ready to start.
To continue we need to erase the volume at /Volumes/Boot Disk.
If you wish to continue type (Y) then press return:
- Now the erase disk process will start to copy the installer file on the USB drive. After successful completion of the process, name of the USB drive will be changed similar to the installer file name like “Install macOS Mojave”.
Note that Apple discourages booting with an earlier macOS version than the version your device is shipped with.
6. Boot Mac from USB
Follow the below process to boot your Mac from bootable USB:
- Insert the bootable USB installer drive and go to “Apple Menu > Restart”.
- When your Mac restarts, press and hold the Option key till “Startup Manager” opens.
- The Startup Manager scans and lists the drives that are connected and bootable.
- Note that the Startup Manager will only list volumes that include bootable volumes. If you only see “Macintosh HD” like below then the USB drive is not connected to your Mac or not created properly with the installer file.
- Select your Wi-Fi network name from the “Choose Network…” dropdown and enter the password to connect to internet. Remember, you need to have an internet connection for installing from USB as the installer needs to get updates for your Mac from Apple’s server.
- Double click on your USB that contains the macOS installer or highlight it and press the return key.
- You will see macOS Recovery app and choose “Install macOS” option from Utilities.
- It may take long time depending upon your Mac to start booting with macOS Mojave.
Wrapping Up
As simple as the process seems, it tells you a lot about your system. For example, if a USB flash drive that contains a bootable copy of macOS doesn’t show up on the Startup manager, you may need to repair the disk permission. Also, remember to format the USB drive with a APFS or Mac OS Extended format.
That said, now you know how to boot up another version of or a copy of macOS and troubleshoot possible issues with your device.
If you don't get a startup chime then you may have a worse problem. Just be prepared.
What year is your MBP? From 2011 onward you would use Internet Recovery. Earlier you would need to install the original software that came with the computer on software restore DVDs.
Internet Recovery
Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion Using Internet Recovery
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your newly installed hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion. Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possiblebecause it is three times faster than wireless.
This should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.
DVD Installation:
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
After the chime press and hold down the 'C' key. Release the key when you see
a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
Download Mac Os X On Flash Drive
2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
(Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.