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How To Create A Bootable Installer For Macos

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These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.

What you need to create a bootable installer

  • A USB flash drive or other secondary volume, formatted as Mac OS Extended, with at least 12GB of available storage
  • A downloaded installer for macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or El Capitan

Follow these steps to take to create a bootable USB installer drive for macOS Sierra to deploy version 10.12 of Apple's OS on supported devices. Under the pop-up menu, you'll see Select the OS X installer. (macOS used to be called OS X.) If you have only the Catalina installer on your Mac, Install Disk Creator will automatically select it. And there are several different methods to create a bootable installer for macOS. Today, I am going to cover what I believe is the easiest way to create an installer. Other methods will work well, but there is no need to overcomplicate things. Create Bootable USB Installer for Mac OSX Using TransMac. To create bootable USB installer for Mac to Install Mac OS X El Capitan on Windows, on Mac or VirtualBox, you have to create bootable USB flash drive. Let's get started on how to do it. First, you have to download TransMac software for Windows and install it on your computer. The Mac App Store is the default way to upgrade or install macOS, but it doesn't work for everyone. Maybe you've got multiple Macs and a limited amount of bandwidth, and don't want to download the entire operating system for every system. Or maybe you're looking to install the operating system from scratch.

Download macOS

  • Download: macOS Big Sur, macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, or macOS High Sierra
    These download to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS [version name]. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
  • Download: OS X El Capitan
    This downloads as a disk image named InstallMacOSX.dmg. 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. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.

Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal

  1. Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer.
  2. Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  3. Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're using. If it has a different name, replace MyVolume in these commands with the name of your volume.

Big Sur:*

Catalina:*

Mojave:*

High Sierra:*

El Capitan:

* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath argument and installer path, similar to the way this is done in the command for El Capitan.

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After typing the command:

  1. Press Return to enter the command.
  2. When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
  3. When prompted, type Y to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the volume is erased.
  4. After the volume is erased, you may see an alert that Terminal would like to access files on a removable volume. Click OK to allow the copy to proceed.
  5. When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Big Sur. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
How To Create A Bootable Installer For Macos

Use the bootable installer

Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:

Apple silicon

  1. Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
  2. Turn on your Mac and continue to hold the power button until you see the startup options window, which shows your bootable volumes and a gear icon labled Options.
  3. Select the volume containing the bootable installer, then click Continue.
  4. When the macOS installer opens, follow the onscreen instructions.

How To Create A Bootable Installer For Mac Os Lion

Intel processor

  1. Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
  2. Press and hold the Option (Alt) ⌥ key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
  3. Release the Option key when you see a dark screen showing your bootable volumes.
  4. Select the volume containing the bootable installer. Then click the up arrow or press Return.
    If you can't start up from the bootable installer, make sure that the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility is set to allow booting from external media.
  5. Choose your language, if prompted.
  6. Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.

Learn more

For more information about the createinstallmedia command and the arguments that you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter the appropriate path in Terminal:

  • Big Sur: /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  • Catalina: /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  • Mojave: /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  • High Sierra: /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  • El Capitan: /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia

A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the internet, but it does require an internet connection to get firmware and other information specific to the Mac model.

If you're going to make your own Hackintosh, you'll need a bootable installer. Creating a bootable USB installer is the easiest, most universally accepted way. You can create an installer for any macOS version, from Mojave to any other version.

New to hackintosh? – take a look at our what is hackintosh guide.

And there are several different methods to create a bootable installer for macOS.

Today, I am going to cover what I believe is the easiest way to create an installer. Other methods will work well, but there is no need to overcomplicate things.

What You'll Need to Get Started

You'll need a few things before getting started, and this will include:

  • UniBeast– you'll need an account
  • macOS that you want to install (check the App Store)
  • USB drive (I recommend a minimum of 16 GB of space)
  • Mac device

How do i transfer pictures from my phone. If you have everything ready, you'll then be able to proceed.

Creating a Bootable Installer for macOS Using UniBeast

You've downloaded everything that you need to get started and have your USB drive handy. Now, you'll want to search for 'Disk Utility' by hitting Command+space. You'll need to do this to prepare your USB drive.

Open the Disk Utility, select your USB drive that you'll be using as your installer and choose the following options when erasing it:

  • USB as the name
  • Mac OS Extended Journal as the format
  • GUID Partition Map as the scheme

Note: Make sure you choose the right device or you'll be erasing a device that may have data that you want to save. Everything on your drive will be deleted, so make a backup of any important documents or files that may exist on the USB.

Open UniBeast and continue through the terms and any prompts that come up.

Finally, you'll be at the Destination Select option, and this is where you'll be choosing the USB drive that you just formatted. Click continue after selecting the drive. Finally, you'll be choosing your operating system that you'll be making for the bootable installer.

How To Create A Bootable Installer For Macos High Sierra

Let's use macOS Mojave as an example. Select the operating system and continue.

If you didn't have your desired operating system listed, make sure that the operating system is stored in the Application folder.

After this, you'll enter into the Bootloader Configuration. Follow these steps:

Bootable Mac Os Installer

  1. Select UEFI Boot mode, but if your device doesn't support it, choose Legacy Boot mode and click continue.
  2. Inject ATI or NVIDIA if you have either graphics card. Otherwise, click
  3. Verify all of your options and then continue.

Download Bootable Mac Os

You're just about done at this point. You'll need to enter your password before the app will continue, and once you do, the app will start to create your bootable device. While everything is copying over and being created, it's important that you don't restart or power down. How to program a 3d printer.

The app will alert you when the installation was successful.

UniBeast will take about 10 minutes to create the bootable USB.

What's nice about UniBeast is that a basic bootloader is created based on other people's testing of their Hackintoshes. You can also choose to use Clover or another advanced application, but there's no reason to do that with the majority of UniBeast bootloaders.

The only thing left to do is test out your installer. Make sure that it's plugged into your USB port and then restart the computer. When it's booting, you'll want to choose which boot device to load up.

Every motherboard and BIOS can be different, but the main motherboards have the following hotkeys to choose a boot device:

  • ASUS – F8
  • ASrock – F11
  • Gigabyte – F12

How To Create A Bootable Installer For Macos

You'll then choose your USB as your boot device, and you'll then follow the installer for the rest of the setup.

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