Make sure the destination disk is the USB thumb drive you've inserted. It can take about 20 minutes to format and set up the USB installer on the Mac. How to Create a Bootable Hackintosh Installation USB Drive. The first step in installing macOS on a PC and creating your own Hackintosh is to create a bootable USB with macOS on it. This requires a working Mac that has access to the Mac App Store, a USB thumb drive, and some time. It isn't difficult, but it is a little time consuming, and it's. 'SSD VS HDD, I want to use SSD as my boot drive since it has a better performance. MiniTool ShadowMaker can easily transfer my HDD to SSD without reinstalling OS.' In addition, if you only want to migrate Windows OS from HDD to SSD, you can ask another hard drive cloning software, MiniTool Partition Wizard, for help. Insert a USB thumb drive and select its drive letter (in this example, drive E). Click the Write button. The image will be written to the USB thumb drive. Once completed, you should see a message like this: NOTE: If the burned image fails to boot, wipe the USB stick before trying a second burn using a utility such as Active@ KillDisk. Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” or your preferred format type. The former option can help ensure that the USB drive is made fully compatible with your Mac, since most USB drives are preformatted for Windows computers by default.

For those of us who rarely transfer files physically across devices, file-format capability may be a distant memory. It used to occupy a lot of attention. But it still crops up whenever you’re trying to put files on a USB thumb drive to hand off to someone else. If you’re both Mac users, swell; with Mac and Windows in the mix, you might be tempted to pick FAT32 when formatting that thumb drive.

But FAT32 is distinctly out of date. Designed for an earlier time, it can’t handle files larger than 4GB. Instead, pick ExFAT, its replacement (and still quite old), best used on drives of 32GB or larger capacity.

While first ensuring you have a copy of any data on a drive you want to format as ExFAT, as formatting will erase the drive’s contents, follow these steps:

1. Sibelius 8 crack mac. Attach the drive to your Mac.

2. Launch Disk Utility (from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).

3. Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar.

4. Click Erase.

5. From the Format menu, select ExFAT.

6. From the Scheme menu, select Master Boot Record.

7. Click Erase and follow prompts to confirm.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Robin.

Ask Mac 911

We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.comincluding screen captures as appropriate, and whether you want your full name used. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.

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 14GB of available storage
• A downloaded installer for macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or El Capitan

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:*

Boot Macbook Air From Usb Thumb Drive

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.

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.
   

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Use the bootable installer

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

Apple silicon

Boot From Thumb Drive Mac

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.

Boot From Usb Drive Mac Os X

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:

How To Boot From Thumb Drive Mac

• 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

Virtualbox Boot From Usb Drive Mac

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.