Creating a bootable Mavericks USB flash drive from Windows. How to properly create a bootable USB flash drive for Mac OS

24.06.2023

The OS X operating system is one of the most stable operating systems in the world. It is almost impossible for the user to “break” it. However, sometimes situations arise that require reinstalling the system from scratch. The easiest way to do this is to use a special installation flash drive. This instruction will teach you how to properly make such a flash drive at home.

Requirements

Mac computer with operating system 10.7 or higher
Stable Internet connection
Operating system installation image
Flash drive 8 gigabyte
DiskMaker X (download)

We will describe all actions using the latest current OS version as an example: OS X Yosemite (10.10.1). A bootable USB flash drive can only be created on a Mac computer running OS version 10.7 or higher.

Downloading the installation image

Open the application on your computer App Store. In the search field write " Yosemite", and press Enter. Select application " OS X Yosemite", and press " Download" If necessary, enter the login/password for your Apple ID.

Preparing a flash drive

While the image is downloading, prepare a USB flash drive. Open the program on your computer Disk Utility"(located in applications, in the Utilities folder). Connect the flash drive to the computer's USB port. Select it on the left side of the application, and click on the “ Disk partition" Select partition scheme " Section 1", format " Mac OS Extended (Journaled)».

Click the button Options" Select " Guide Section Layout", and press " OK».

After that, click the button Apply" In the confirmation window, click the button Split disk" In a few minutes the flash drive will be ready for use.

Creating an installation flash drive

So, the image is loaded, the flash drive is prepared. Now comes the fun part.

Download and run the program (download link at the beginning of the instructions).

In the program window, click the button Yosemite (10.10).

The program itself will find the previously downloaded system image. You only need to click on the " Use this copy».

DiskMaker will prompt you to select a disk to create the image. Click the button An 8 GB USB thumb drive" In the next window, select your flash drive and click the " Choose this disk" Next, click the button “ Erase then create the disk».

Your user rights will need to be verified. Click the button Continue" Then enter your administrator password, and click the " OK».

On September 20, Apple finally presented the official release of macOS Sierra. Now all Mac owners can evaluate all the innovations of the operating system by downloading the distribution kit from the App Store.

But what if you have not one, but several poppies? Should I wait every time until 4 GB of OS is loaded onto the computer? But what if you don’t want to just upgrade, but install the system “from scratch” and thus not drag around various system garbage with you? Here, creating a bootable flash drive can be very helpful. Do it once and update at least a thousand Macs.

Compatible Mac Models

Keep in mind that you can install macOS Sierra on the following macs:

MacBook Pro and Air - models from 2010.
Mac mini and Mac Pro - also from 2010
MacBook - from 2009
iMac - from 2009.

Preparatory operations

There are two simple and reliable ways to create a bootable USB flash drive. But before we begin to consider them, we will do a number of preparatory actions that are necessary in both cases.

So, we need:
1. USB flash drive (at least 8 GB) Make sure in advance that it does not contain the information you need, since the media will be formatted.
2. Mac distribution. You can download from the link
3. The mac itself

Method No. 1 (standard) using the Terminal

Make sure the downloaded image is in the applications folder

We connect the flash drive
Open the Terminal (programs>other. Or through Spotlight, control+spacebar)
Attention! Follow the next steps very carefully!
We write sudo and press space
Now through Finder we go to the folder programs(Applications), then right-click on “install macOS Sierra” and then “show package contents”
Open the folder Resources, find the file createinstallmedia and drag it into the Terminal window
After the lines that appear we write --volume(required two dashes) and press space
Now we transfer the flash drive icon from the desktop to the terminal window
Add - applicationpath and again a space
There's still a little bit left. Drag the “macOS Sierra installation” distribution kit into the Terminal from the program folder and click enter
Enter the password and enter again
If confirmation is required, please write y and enter again
We wait 15-20 minutes and the macOS Sierra bootable flash drive is ready.
"Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%...100%...
Copying installer files to disk…
Copy complete.
Making disk bootable...
Copying boot files...
Copy complete.
Done."

By the way, you could simply copy and paste this entire block of commands into the Terminal at once, but practice shows that rarely does anyone get by without syntax errors in this case. So it’s better not a couple of minutes longer, but it’s reliable.

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/Untitled –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app –nointeraction &&say Done

Method number 2. Bootable macOS Sierra USB flash drive using the utility DiskMaker X

Read on topic: — preparing Mac for the transition to macOS Sierra

This method is also very reliable, and also quite simple.

Insert the flash drive
Download the DiskMaker X utility
Launch and press the button macOS Sierra (10.12)
The utility informs you that it has found the installer in the program folder. Click Use this copy
At this stage, DiskMaker warns that all data on the flash drive will be erased. Click An 8 GB USB thumb drive
Select a flash drive from the list and click Choose this disk
Another warning that data from the flash drive will be deleted, click Erase then create the disk

Today we'll touch Windows a little again. More precisely, we will touch on two main categories of users, and Windows will “touch” itself :) In my little experience of communicating with blog readers, I have identified several main types of Mac users:

Future “hackintosh people” are “Windows people” who want to try what Macintosh is, but don’t want to buy a Mac.
“Strange Mac users” are those users of Apple computers who buy a Mac, but completely remove Mac OS X from it and install the main and only Windows system, but then, having come to their senses, want to install Mac OS X again.
“Mappy addicts in surprise” are real “poppy addicts” who, for some reason, “screwed up” Mac OS X (it happens) and now they need to install a new clean version of the OS, but they don’t have another computer with Mac OS X at hand to “deploy” the installation image.

The content, so to speak, is quite different, but the only thing that unites them is the question: “How to create a bootable USB flash drive with Mac OS X from Windows?” or “How to make a bootable USB flash drive for a Mac on Windows?” It would seem that the question is complicated, but in fact it is not. If, of course, you know how and with what to do it;) And in this article we will look at one of the possible methods. From the title of the article you already understand that to help you out (us) there will be a Windows program TransMac. In general, this utility is designed to work with disks in the file system HFS+ and images in the format .DMG. But besides the usual work with the Mac file system TransMac can format drives with images. It sounds strange, but there is nothing strange about it, since in essence this function is similar to full cloning of an image onto a physical device. Well, okay, probably enough stories, let's move on to the instructions. We will need:

USB flash drive, SD card or any other 8 GB USB drive (or more);
Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8;
TransMac (~1.5 MB);
installation image with Mac OS X in .DMG format.

When all the components are assembled, we begin to shamanize. Install and launch TransMac. It is worth noting that The application can be used for free and fully for 15 days , after which you need to buy a license (or use other alternative methods to get it), although 15 days is enough to create an “emergency flash drive” :) For Windows 7 and Windows 8, TransMac must be run as system administrator A:

After launching, we are greeted by a rather boring interface of the application, we do not pay attention to the paucity of appearance;) In the menu on the left, we find and select our USB drive, then right-click on it, select from the context menu Format Disk > Format with Disk Image B as the picture shows:

In the Explorer window that opens, select the pre-downloaded installation image from Mac OS X in .DMG format. After opening it, a window will be displayed warning us that all data on the selected drive will be destroyed. We agree:

Well, that's basically it. At this stage, we see the process of creating an installation drive:

Creating a drive can take a fairly long period of time - this depends on a number of reasons: the USB drive itself and the speed of its interface, system performance and, in fact, the size of the DMG image. After successful completion of the procedure, you can click on your drive and see the tree of folders and files that appeared on the “flash drive” - this is the structure of the “expanded” installation image:

All is ready! Owners of original Macs can boot from such a flash drive in the usual way: hold down the alt ⌥ or Option ⌥ key (which is the same thing) When the computer starts, before the “gong”, we wait for the boot manager to load in which we select our created USB drive. “Hackintosh people” need to use some kind of EFI bootloader: Chameleon, Clover, PC-EFI and so on…

Creating Clover & Chameleon Boot USB Flash Disk
under Windows XP and higher.

Full (partial - format only) installation of Clover bootloader on USB Flash drive:

On the menu Options->Configuration choose:

1. Boot Data set (set of loader files):

Built-in (built-in revisions " Clover&Chameleon«),
External (external) - downloads a zip archive with a folder and file structure similar to the installed bootloader,
Not Install (do not install) - formatting only with installation of boot sectors.

2. Format options (formatting options):

Boot records (boot sectors) -> Clover ,
Align to sectors: 8192 (default)
Align to sectors: 63 (if some strange/old BIOSes don't see the flash drive)
Rest default.

3. Multi Partitioning (breakdown into volumes):

Boot Partition Size (the size of the boot volume is up to your taste) - uncheck this box if you do not plan to create a second volume on the same disk (for example, for the MACOSX distribution).

4. Enable Fixed Disk (activation of work with non-USB drives) — warning -> « at one's own risk«!
5. Press the button " OK «.
6. In the main program window -> Destination Disk (destination drive) - select the required object (USB Flash Drive) for installation.
7. Press the button " Format Disk «.
8. We wait and enjoy the result of the program.

Edit (if necessary) the loader configuration files

Extract the HFS(HFS+) partition image from the distribution package for deployment to a USB Flash drive:

The 10.9 Mavericks image is not bootable! Therefore, we use the converted image from here

For use:
Unpack the .zip archive, and the 5.hfs file in it can be immediately deployed to a flash drive via BDU.

Uploading the MACOSX distribution onto the second volume of a bootable USB Flash drive:

1. We carry out a complete installation of Clover bootloader on a USB Flash Drive with the checkbox checked Boot Partition Size.
2. We get USB Flash Drive , divided into two volumes . (Note: Unfortunately, by default, the OS Windows does not support multi-volume USB Flash Drive, therefore, only one partition will be available under Windows.)
3. Download the MACOSX distribution selected for installation. This distribution, of course, must meet all necessary requirements for installation on PC
4. Extract the image from the distribution kit HFS(HFS+) partition (this will be a file with the extension hfs )
The path to obtain the desired HFS image will depend on the degree of nativeness of your source distribution:

For various distro assemblies, you can try extracting through the menu: Tools -> Extract HFS(HFS+) partition from DMG-files .
What you are using may not be the original InstallESD.dmg taken from the retail packageInstallOSXMountainLion.app/Contents/SharedSupport/ but the original image once again packaged into another image and with a different name, for example OSXMountainLion.dmg. InstallESD.dmg from the repacked archive is easier to find and extract with the 7zFM.exe program. And only then, from it, get the HFS image we need.

5. In the main program window -> Destination Disk - choose our USB Flash Drive -> Part2 .
6. Press the button " Restore Partition «.
7. In the Explorer window that opens, select the unpacked file with the extension *. hfs . The file size must be no larger than Part2 .
8. We wait and enjoy the result of the program

Note!!!

When installing OS X from this flash drive, the Recovery HD partition is not created automatically!

If you really need the Recovery HD section, download a separate package from the Apple website:
RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg
Using this package, follow the link to create a full-fledged Recovery HD partition for OS X Mavericks

At the moment, the only way to get the coveted update for the Mac is to download the image from the online Mac App Store. The company's decision to switch to digital distribution of software caused a lot of negative reviews - if there are several Macs, the user is forced to download the installation file from the Internet on each of his computers. You can solve this problem by creating a bootable USB flash drive with OS X Mavericks.

You will need:

Access to the Mac App Store with an active Apple ID to download OS X Mavericks;
USB flash drive 8 GB.

If everything is ready, you can start.

How to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive with OS X Mavericks

Step 1: Download a licensed copy of OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store. For the first time, Apple offered an upgrade to its OS for free, which allows us to hope that in the future platform updates, which have recently become annual, will also be available for free.

Step 2: Launch Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.

Step 3: Select your USB drive in the left pane and go to the Disk Partition tab on the right.

Step 4: Select “Partition 1” in the Partition Layout drop-down menu, on the right – “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format. Name the drive Mavericks.

Step 5: Click the Options button at the bottom. Click on the GUID Partition Scheme option and confirm your choice. Click Apply in the lower right corner of the program. Disk Utility will begin formatting the USB drive.

Step 6: Launch Terminal from the Utilities folder.

Step 7: Check that the USB flash drive is in place and that “Mavericks” is the only volume with that name.

Run the following command in Terminal to create a bootable USB flash drive. Enter the administrator password.

Sudo "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" --volume "/Volumes/Mavericks" --applicationpath "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app" --nointeraction

After 10-15 minutes, the Terminal will complete creating a bootable USB flash drive.

Step 8: Reboot your Mac with the flash drive installed while holding Alt on your keyboard.

Step 9: You can start installing OS X Mavericks!

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