Usb Boot Drive Mac Os X



You set your Mac or Macbook which disk to start up from when more than one startup disk is connected. This works for USB drives including the NinjaStik

Getting your Mac to load from a USB drive is fairly straightforward. Insert the USB boot media into an open USB slot. Press the Power button to turn on your Mac (or Restart your Mac if it’s already on). When you hear the startup chime, press and hold the Option key. Kootion 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive 128 gb USB Drive 3.0 Large Thumb Drive Blue USB Flash Drive 128GB Bootable Pendrive 128GB Memory Stick for Game Box/Windows/Linux/Mac OS 4.5 out of 5 stars 719 $16.99 $ 16.

For 2018 to 2020 Macs with the Secure Boot T2 Chip, see the 2020 Macbook Pro Boot from USB instructions.

A “startup disk” is a volume or partition of a drive that contains a bootable operating system.

You can set your Mac to automatically use a specific startup volume, or you can temporarily override this choice at startup.

Set the default startup disk
You can change the startup disk your Mac automatically uses from System Preferences.
  1. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences.
  2. Click the Startup Disk icon in System Preferences, or choose View > Startup Disk.
  3. Select your startup disk from the list of available volumes.

The next time you start up or restart your computer, your Mac starts up using the operating system on the selected volume.

Temporarily change your startup disk with Startup Manager

Startup Manager allows you to pick a volume to start from while the computer is starting up.

Use these steps to choose a startup disk with Startup Manager:

  1. Turn on or restart your Mac.
  2. Immediately press and hold the Option key. After a few seconds, the Startup Manager appears. If you don’t see the volume you want to use, wait a few moments for Startup Manager to finish scanning connected drives.
  3. Use your mouse or trackpad, or left and right arrow keys to select the volume you want to use.
  4. Double-click or press the Return key to start up your Mac from the volume you selected.

If you have an optical drive connected to your computer, you can insert an installation disc to see it in Startup Manager. You can also attach FireWire or USB external hard drives that contain an operating system to add to the list of startup volumes.

Startup Manager automatically adds bootable volumes as you connect them.

Restart in OS X from Boot Camp

If you have started up your Mac in Windows using Boot Camp, you can use the Boot Camp system tray to switch your startup disk default back to OS X.

  1. In Windows, click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray.
  2. From the menu that appears, choose Restart in OS X.

Start from OS X Recovery

You can also start your Mac from OS X Recovery or Internet Recovery if your Mac was manufactured after 2011.

To start your Mac from the Recovery System, use these steps:

  1. Start up or restart your computer.
  2. Hold down the Command and R keys on your keyboard until you see the Apple logo appear onscreen.

If you don’t see a volume listed

If you don’t see the volume you want to start your computer from, check the following:

  • If you’re using an external drive, make sure it’s connected and turned on.
  • Make sure you’ve installed an operating system, like OS X or Windows on the drive you’re trying to start from. Volumes that don’t contain a valid operating system aren’t listed in Startup Disk or Startup Manager.
  • If you’ve installed an operating system on a drive but it isn’t listed, the volume you’re trying to start from might need repair. If the volume contains OS X, start your computer from OS X Recovery and use Disk Utility to repair the volume, or reinstall OS X on the volume using the Recovery System.
  • Depending on the Mac you are using and the version of OS X that is installed, the Recovery System volume (Recovery HD) might not show up in Startup Manager. Press Command-R during startup to start your Mac from the Recovery System.

For 2018 / 2019 Macbook Pro with the Secure Boot T2 Chip, see the 2018 Macbook Pro Boot from USB instructions.

If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, you might need a bootable macOS USB installer to make repairs. But how do you create such a disk if all you're left with is a Windows 10 computer? Fortunately, there's a great tool that you can use for free to create bootable macOS media on a USB drive in a Windows 10 environment. This article shows you how to download a macOS DMG file, format a USB drive using a GUID Partition Table, burn the DMG to the drive and boot your Mac from the USB. All the steps except the last one are done on a Windows 10 machine.

Bootable Usb Drive Mac Os X Mountain Lion

Part 1: Download macOS or Mac OS X DMG File

The first step is to get the DMG disk image file for the version of macOS that you want. You can get a copy of the latest macOS version from Apple download portal or App Store here. There are also several other direct download sites that offer various versions of Mac OS X in DMG format rather than the standard APP format that runs on Mac. Since you're working in a Windows environment, you need the DMG rather than the APP file.

macOS DMG Download Link:

Part 2: Format USB Drive to GPT (Optional)

Updates (Dec 8, 2020): The latest version of UUByte DMG Editor is able to format the USB automatically, so this part is optional. Follow the steps only when the burning process failed in Part 3.

Install Mac Os From Usb Drive

Mostly, the USB drive was formmated to FAT32 in default when being shipped out from the factory. However, FAT32 can be only used for installing OS with legacy BISO, which doesn't work for macOS. So the next step is to format your USB drive in the GPT partition style in order to burn installation files to the desired USB drive. You can do this in Command Prompt as admin. In elevated Command Prompt (Ctrl+Shift+Enter), input the following series of commands followed by Enter after each line:
Diskpart
List disk
Select Disk X (X stands for the USB drive name that appears after the previous command)
Clean
Convert GPT
Create partition primary

Part 3: Create Bootable macOS USB from Windows 10/8/7 PC

You have now formatted the partition of USB drive. It's time to download UUByte DMG Editor for Windows. Although this is a premium software, you can use the initial free trial period to create a bootable macOS USB on Windows 10. After installing the application, follow the sequence of steps shown below:

Step 1: Right-click the software icon on desktop and select 'Run as Administrator' from the contextual menu. Choose 'Run' when prompted.

Mac os x boot from usb

Step 2: Insert your formatted USB drive, and click 'Burn' tab on the main screen.

Step 3: Click 'Browse' button to import macOS dmg file into the program. And select the USB drive name from the second row. You can also set a volume labe for that USB drive.

Usb Boot Drive Mac Os X Catalina

Step 4: Click 'Burn' button at the bottom to start the process. You will see a progress bar and wait around 10 minutes to get it done.

Step 5: Once the progress bar is at 100%, a bootable macOS USB is ready. After that, you can use that USB drive for installing macOS.

This is one of the easiest way to create a bootable macOS USB on a Windows PC. The steps are simple and instructions are pretty clear.

Part 4: Boot Mac from macOS USB Drive for Installation

Create A Mac Os X Usb Boot Drive On Windows

Now remove the USB drive and insert it into the Mac computer. To boot from the disk, you need to hold down the option key when you hear the boot chime. This will take you to the Startup Disk Manager, where you should be able to see the USB drive. It might have a different name, but as long as it is bootable, you'll be able to see it there. Once you select it, the computer will boot from the disk and the macOS installation will begin.

Usb Boot Drive Mac Os X Versions

Conclusion:

Usb Boot Disk Mac Os X

The whole process might look a bit complicated if this is your first time, but just follow the instructions in this article and you should be fine. That being said, you need to be careful when downloading the DMG file and formatting your USB drive. If you don't do these two steps correctly, the output drive from the UUByte DMG Editor software won't be bootable, which means you can't install macOS from that USB drive, and you may need to do the whole thing over again.





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