Creating a mountain lion bootable flash drive. Creating a bootable Linux flash drive on Mac OS
Every self-respecting user should have at least a disk with an operating system on hand in order to boot the computer from it and perform a recovery if for some reason it was unable to boot on its own. This applies not only to Windows, but also to Mac OS. True, you need to create such an image in advance, so as not to suddenly find yourself disarmed. In Apple's OS, you can use programs such as MacDaddy Install Disk Creator and DiskMaker X for these purposes, but what if trouble happened and you never bothered to create bootable media with the Apple system in advance?
It’s unpleasant, but not catastrophic, because you can create it on another Mac, and if it’s not available, a PC running Windows will do just fine, you just need to install the TransMac program on it. This simple application is designed to view the contents of optical drives, hard drives, flash drives, and Apple File System volumes, as well as dmg, dmgpart, sparsebundle, and sparseimage files. The program supports working with HFS, HFS+ file systems, creating, editing and splitting DMG images, writing them to optical and flash drives.
Creating a bootable Mac OS USB flash drive
To create a bootable Mac OS flash drive, you will need a DMG installation image with Apple's operating system, a 16 GB flash drive, and TransMac installed on a Windows computer. Before you start recording, the flash drive must be properly prepared by creating a GPT partition on it. To do this, open a command prompt as an administrator and run the following commands:
The first command launches the Diskpart utility, the second and third commands display a list of media connected to the computer and select the number of the desired disk, in this case flash drives, the fourth and fifth commands clean and convert the disk to GPT, the sixth command creates a primary partition on it. Finally, the exit command exits the Diskpart utility.
Having prepared the media, run the TransMac program as an administrator, right-click on the connected flash drive in the left panel and select the “Restore with Disk Image” option from the menu.
Confirm the action in the dialog box that opens, then in the new dialog box
Apple's policy, according to which the company installs its own operating system on computers produced under its brand, makes them extremely stable. By purchasing a MacBook and regularly updating the OS, you may never have to reinstall it. If you have Internet access, the system can be easily reinstalled over the network. If circumstances require you to install macOS from a flash drive, you need to do it correctly.
Since 2013, Apple has stopped selling the operating system to users. By purchasing any Mac, be it a laptop or a mini version, you receive macOS for rent and are provided with free updates for the entire life of the device.
- Find the App Store icon in the Dock and open it.
- On the main page on the right side, under the account settings, there is a link that can take you to the site with the current OS. Currently the latest version is 10.3 High Sierra.
- Click on the “Download” button. The distribution weighs more than 5 GB, so the time it takes to receive it will depend on the speed of the connection used.
- When the download is complete, the installer will automatically launch.
- We don't need it at the moment. Since we are going to create an offline bootable media, we need to close it. Click on the program window so that the controls appear on the top panel. Select the marked item. A similar operation can be performed with the keyboard shortcut ⌘Q. In macOS, this is a standard shortcut that allows you to close any active window.
Old OS versions
If you want to install another, older version of the operating system, you can also find them in the App Store. El Capitan, Yosemite or Mountain Lion are placed in the purchase section, provided they have been used before. This is due to the company's licensing policy. The operating systems shown in the screenshot are considered purchased, and subsequent ones are rented by the user from Apple.
Creating a bootable USB flash drive
To create an installation disk on a MacBook, just use the terminal. macOS works perfectly with the Windows FS and does not require the installation of Transmac analogues. The NTFS format is supported out of the box in read mode, and FAT32 and exFAT are fully supported.
You will have to format the flash drive if it uses any Linux file system, for example, ext3. Before use, the removable disk must in any case be cleaned of the information on it.
Formatting
Formatting in macOS is done using Disk Utility. You can find it by opening Launchpad in the Others folder or using Finder. Let's choose the second option as it is more convenient. Traditionally, a flash drive for modern operating systems should be at least 8 GB.
- Open Finder and select “Applications” in the navigation area. Open the folder marked in the screenshot.
- Select the specified utility.
- We are looking for external drives. Select the name of the flash drive specified by the manufacturer, highlighting it. In the top control menu, the “Erase” button is activated. Click on it to open the next dialogue.
- The system will automatically offer us the format and layout of the sections. They should match those shown in the screenshot. To clean and format the flash drive with the selected parameters, press the marked button.
Now there is zero information left on the external media and you can write the distribution kit to it.
Recording a distribution
The file we downloaded from the App Store is not an ISO image. This is a full-fledged installation wizard with its own set of utilities. For this reason, the system places it in the programs folder and not in downloads. From there we will record it onto external media.
- We return to the “Utilities” folder and launch “Terminal”.
- Enter the following write command on behalf of the system administrator:
Quotes are not required, but instead of Kingstone we indicate the name of the flash drive used.
- Enter the password. The symbols will not be displayed. We complete the set by pressing the Enter button.
- The system will ask you for confirmation to clear the selected volume. Type “Y” and press the enter key.
- Before copying data, the system erases the flash drive.
- The recording ends with the appearance of information messages about the creation of bootable media and the transfer of the data required by the installer to it.
The write command syntax varies for each distribution. Therefore, if you are planning to make a flash drive to reinstall macOS other than High Sierra, please visit the Apple support page provided. The finished command from there can be immediately copied to the terminal.
Installing macOS
After connecting the media to the USB port, we reboot. Mac computers do not use the usual BIOS, so there is no additional configuration required.
- Our task is to prevent the computer from booting from the SSD and launching the initial volume selection menu. Therefore, immediately upon reboot, hold down the “Option” key. Hold it until the dialogue shown in the screenshot appears. The Windows volume will be present if it is installed on the Boot Camp partition. Here you will need to translate the specified arrow symbol from Macintosh HD to the installer icon.
- Select the language in which menus and dialogs will be displayed.
- For a “clean” installation, we need to open Disk Utility.
Some people think that to create it you only need a real Mac, others prefer to install an entire virtual machine and install Mac OS (!) on it to make this ill-fated flash drive there :)
Friends, everything is much simpler, we only need 7-zip, an OS X installation image and BootDiskUtility. ALL!!!
Let's get started:
1
. Checking the size of the boot partition with Clover V Options —> Configuration.
There must be a check mark next to Boot Partition Size and its size, click OK. By the way, now the downloader will come to us from the Internet, as evidenced by the checkbox “Download” D.L.
in sources for Clover Bootloader Source.
2
. In the main window of the BootDiskUtility program, select Tools, then in Clover Fix Dsdt Mask Calculator.
Although all the checkboxes have already been checked in advance, we check the partitions in the DSDT table, this action will greatly help when installing Mac OS, because you not only need to emulate the boot environment EFI, but also clearly explain how to work with your “special” equipment.
3 . After that, format the flash drive by pressing Format Disk in the main program window, then OK. With this radical approach, two partitions will be created on the flash drive - the first with the Clover bootloader, and the second, for now, empty. But Windows is not able to perceive such a charming picture, so in Explorer Only the first partition with the bootloader will be displayed.
4a. El Capitan [for Mac OS X 10.11] Let's just download the 5.hfs section from the latest OS from Apple, already prepared for deployment and installation.
4b. Yosemite [for Mac OS X 10.10] I suggest you immediately download a ready-made partition image for installing partition 5.hfs, which includes such necessary changes as copying and replacing the Packages folder to a flash drive in /System/Installation/ from OS X Install ESD/Packages and placing the BaseSystem.dmg and Basesystem files .chunklist in the root directory.
Please note that the Mavericks (10.9), Yosemite (10.10) and El Capitan (10.11) systems have the same recovery partition names - 5.hfs.
4c. Mavericks [for Mac OS X 10.9] It’s even easier here - unzip the file from the dmg archive with OS X Mavericks 5.hfs this is our boot partition. Or just download it right away and go to step 5!
4d. Mountain Lion [for Mac OS X 10.8.4 or 10.8.5] Let's leave the flash drive alone for now and work with the installation image. In order for the installation to begin, you will need to unpack it several times, because DMG — just an archive, open it in the program 7-zip or we can go the other way and immediately download the much-needed unpacked section 3.hfs.
And extract the file from it 2.hfs
Then, in the same way as we opened the first archive, we go inside the file 2.hfs and look at the size of the packed folders. By choosing the largest one, we will quickly get to what we need InstallESD.dmg living at the address... 2.hfs\Mac OS X 10.8.4\Install OS X Mountain Lion.app\Contents\SharedSupport\ bring it out into the white light
Opening our new InstallESD.dmg and extract from it... Another one InstallESD.dmg located in the InstallMacOSX.pkg\ folder. Life is an unpredictable thing, but it’s too late to turn away from the path, so let’s move on. When extracting a file, the archiver will notice the coincidence of names and offer a replacement, but we will choose Rename automatically and our newly extracted file will be called InstallESD_1.dmg
Here we are. From our InstallESD_1.dmg extract for the last time 3.hfs it is the boot partition of Mac OS X 10.8.4
5
. Let's go back to BootDiskUtility and choose second partition on the flash drive, we need to restore the installation partition, so we select Restore Partition- and then our precious 3.hfs for OS X 10.8 or 5.hfs to install Mavericks or Yosemite/El Capitan, based on what was selected in points 4a-d. Copying will take some time and after that you can safely move on!)
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 “ 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».
In the last article about Hackintosh, we talked about how. A significant drawback of this method was the need to perform basic actions on the installed previous version Mac OS X. Now we continue to use Clover, but we use a ready-made flash drive image, with the help of which all actions can be performed in a more accessible Windows.
So, the desired image OS X for PC (OS X v10.10.5) take it on your favorite Rutracker: . There, in the development of the topic, there are also tips for all sorts of difficult cases; more than 80 pages have already been written. Here we will take a closer look at the installation process itself.
We need a computer with Intel CPU And flash drive at least 8 gigabytes. All additional programs are contained in the distribution. First we mount image 10105usb.iso, then we register the MBR sector, then reboot, installation Yosemite, reboot again and install the bootloader and kexts. Step by step it looks like this:
1. Insert the flash drive.
2. Prepare a flash drive in the standard program diskpart, which is called from the “Run” line. We write in the window list disk– we get a list of disks in the system, determine the number of our flash drive by size. Next we write sel disk x(instead of x is the number of the flash drive disk) – this is the disk selection. Next step - clean- we clean it. And the team exit we exit the program. 
3. Now, after cleaning, directly mount. Produced in the program R-Drive, which is in the distribution. It’s quite simple to work with it, mount the image in detail Mac OS X for PC we discussed in the article “The easiest installation of OS X on a PC. We are deploying the finished image.”
Now we do the same thing, only in two steps - in an additional step we add a bootloader to the image Clover:
Select the downloaded image. 
Select the first section of the image, which is smaller. We choose where to mount it - on a prepared flash drive. Set the file system for the selected partition " FAT32", and the drive letter " Default" We mount it. 
After completing the operation, select “ Add another object».
Now we select its second, larger part from the image, and also select the larger unallocated space on the flash drive. At this step we set the file system for the selected partition " HFS+", and the drive letter " Do not connect». 
4. Registering the MBR sector (this step is for UEFI can be skipped).
Let's launch BOOTICE. Selecting a process MBR and check the boxes as in the picture. 
5. Reboot the PC from the USB flash drive and install Mac OS X Yosemite.
6. Reboot again and start again from the flash drive, but now in the bootloader menu we select the partition of the newly installed OS X Yosemite.
7. After a successful download, install the bootloader and kexts for your equipment.
Everything is yours Hackintosh on PC ready! Although, in fact, not everyone goes smoothly the first time. Answers to many questions are given, as already mentioned, in the Rutracker forum thread, from where we downloaded the image. It will also be useful to look at the Full description of the bootloader Clover.
