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.
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. Downloaded the iso image and proceeded to make a Mac OS X bootable USB on windows. To create a bootable media to install Mac OS X leopard on my old macbook A1181. I used imageusb and installed. I was very happy to find this 10.5.4 version which worked perfectly. Many thanks to all. But to install or reinstall a recent version of OS X, you must either download a non-bootable installer from the Mac App Store or (via OS X’s invisible, bootable recovery partition) download 6GB.
Download macOS
Find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version:
macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, ormacOS High Sierra
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. Important: 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.
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. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.
- Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is still 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.
Catalina:*
Mojave:*
High Sierra:*
El Capitan: - Press Return after typing the command.
- When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
- When prompted, type
Y
to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the bootable installer is created. - When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Catalina. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath
argument, similar to the way this argument is used in the command for El Capitan.
Use the bootable installer
After creating the bootable installer, follow these steps to use it:
- Plug the bootable installer into a compatible Mac.
- Use Startup Manager or Startup Disk preferences to select the bootable installer as the startup disk, then start up from it. Your Mac will start up to macOS Recovery.
Learn about selecting a startup disk, including what to do if your Mac doesn't start up from it. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the Internet, but it does require the Internet to get information specific to your Mac model, such as firmware updates. If you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network, use the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.
- Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Mac Boot Disk Image Download
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 this path in Terminal:
Catalina:
Mojave:
Mac Boot Camp Windows 10 Download
High Sierra:
El Capitan:
Traditionally, bootable images have been stored in floppy and CD disks. However, we have experienced tremendous progress in technology, and there have been a lot of improvement. Presently, the majority of the devices available do not have slots for such media, and thus it is important to match up to the technology. To be able to install a bootable software, you will need to have a USB bootable software and here are some of the best.
Related:
Rufus
Rufus is a USB bootable software that presents the users with an easy way of creating bootable USB drives and it is free to use and distribute. The software supports multiple languages and can run on all versions of Windows starting from XP. This is both in the 32 and 64 bit systems.
Win Setup From USB
WinSetupFromUSB is a great Windows application that allows users to create bootable USB drives. The software is designed to work on the Windows OS though it has the ability to make bootable images for the others platforms and program. The software is easy to use and greatly convenience.
Other Platforms
With the majority of the software in this category, you can be able to create bootable drives for various applications and even for different operating systems. However, it is important to make a consideration on the platform that the software will be riding on.
Xboot – Multiboot ISO USB Creator
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool is the ultimate software for creating USB bootable drives on the Windows platform. To be able to use the software, your PC will need to have an installed the .NET framework which is also free and easy to install.
USB/DVD Download Tool for Windows
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool is the ultimate software for creating USB bootable drives on the Windows platform. To be able to use the software, your PC will need to have an installed the .NET framework which is also free and easy to install.
UNetbootin for Mac
UNetbootin is an App that will let you create a bootable USB drive for Ubuntu and other Linux variations on your Mac machine. With this, the process of creating live USB is easy and by convenient from the graphics based interface and a step by step approach.
Universal USB Installer for Linux
Universal USB Installer is abbreviated as UUI and is a simple and easy to use application that is used in creating different Linux live USB drives. The software deeply relies on its simplicity and the interactive interface to ensure that virtually anyone can be able to run the application.
Most Population Software for 2016 – Zotac WinUSB
Zotac WinUSB is a leading USB bootable software. The software is the free and open source and is extremely lightweight at under 1 MB. With this, you enjoy, fastest file copy from directory or file using a dedicated memory stream allocation, Drag, and Drop based for all the functions that need to user data. It is compatible with all DPI scales (100% +). You can also see USB Security Software
What is USB Bootable Software?
A USB bootable software is a computer program that enables the users to create bootable or live USB drives. Essentially, the role of the software in this category is to load the OS in the USB drive and in a manner that can be deployed directly by the BIOS. They offer great functionalities as they eliminate the need to have disk drives deployed most of which are smaller than most recent OS. You can also see USB Port Lock Software
At the same time, a considerable number of the modern computers don’t come with a disk drive and thus greatly depend on them.USB drives are highly preferred due to their small size and the fact that they can be reused for different applications. When it comes to creating bootable drives, they are the ultimate choice and the software that we have discussed above could be of great help.