- Boot Mac from USB Option l: Startup Manager. If your Mac won't boot up normally, you can set it to boot from a different drive, such as a USB stick containing macOS installation files in bootable format. The drive will have to contain a version of the OS that is compatible with the Mac. As long as you have the bootable installation USB, you can.
- However, now that I have the Bootable drive containing Mac OS El Capitan, I cannot find good information on how to actually install from it. When I turn on my iMac 2011, it takes me straight to the Recovery screen (because I previously Erased the main drive). In Disk Utility, I see my USB drive.
First, right-click the USB drive in Disk Utility and click “Erase.”. Format your USB drive as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and choose the GUID Partition Map scheme. If you can’t find the option to set the partition table, make sure you’re selecting the “View - Show All Devices” option. Right-click on the USB drive, click Erase. Install older OS X onto an external drive. The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks. Start your Mac holding down Command + R. Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage). Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X. Select external drive as a source. Enter your Apple ID. Here’s how you can create it. Make sure the USB drive is at least 8GB in size, and nothing else is stored on it. Download the macOS Catalina installation file using this link. Turn off the Mac and then insert the bootable USB drive. Now turn the Mac back on while holding the Option key. It will take you to the boot menu where you can select.
Though many people will disagree, installing an operating system like macOS isn't such a daunting task. If you're willing to follow the prescribed steps, you can do it even without having the expertise of a systems administrator. What makes it confusing is that there are usually several ways to clean install, re-install or upgrade macOS. Each type of installation requires a slightly different approach. In this article, we'll outline one of the simplest ways to clean install macOS Mojave from a USB flash drive. It's split up into four parts. Read each one carefully and make sure you understand what to do.
Part 1: Download macOS Mojave or High Serria DMG File
DMG is the format that Apple now uses for packaging software as a disk image. It's somewhat similar in function to ISO for Windows environments, but there are many differences as well. The one thing they can both do is to be burned as bootable media so an OS can be installed from a portable storage medium like a pen drive.
To download a macOS DMG file, you'll need to go to the Mac App Store and look at your Purchased section. If you already have it installed on that machine, it will appear there. You can also search for a particular version in the store. Make sure that once you download the file, it doesn't automatically start the installation. If it does, quit the process. You need the installation files, which will be deleted if the OS is installed.
Part 2: Burn macOS DMG File to USB Drive
This step requires some care because you can't create bootable media by just copying a DMG to a USB stick. You will need a disk authoring software that can write the DMG file with all relevant boot information to make it bootable. If you cannot boot from the drive you create in this step, you can't proceed with the installation. You can use the third-party apps to burn DMG to USB and follow the steps shown below:
Step 1: Get the DMG file from the Mac App Store.
Step 2: Install and launch DMG to USB burning utility such as UUByte DMG Editor, and insert a USB drive with at least 12GB of space (for macOS 10.14 Mojave; some require up to 16GB.) Since the drive will be formatted for the macOS installation, make sure you back up any important information that's already stored there.
Note: Your USB may need to be formatted with Disk Utility before it can be used to create bootable media. To do this, go to your USB drive within Disk Utility and click on the button or tab that says Erase. Now fill out Name, Format and Scheme fields, click Erase and Done. The format should be set to Mac OS Extended (journaled) and the scheme, if required, should be GUID Partition Map.
Step 3: Import the macOS installer and click the Burn function after selecting the appropriate USB drive.
Step 4: You may need to specify certain parameters such as burn speed, but in most applications, you can leave the default values as they are.
What you now have is a bootable USB drive containing the macOS installation files in the DMG format. The next step is to boot your Mac from this installer, and there's a special way to do that.
Part 3: Boot Mac from USB
Install Macos Dmg From Usb
You can now insert your USB drive into the Mac you want to install macOS on. Restart the Mac, but when you hear the startup chime, hold down the Option (alt) key on your Mac until you see the Startup Manager. Several drives will be displayed, but only the ones that have bootable media installed. Pick your USB drive using a double-click with the mouse pointer or by using the arrow keys and Return (enter) on a keyboard. Now the Mac is booting from external USB.
The process of installation has now begun. Let's go through the final steps to install macOS from USB.
Part 4: Clean Install macos Mojave or High Serria from USB
The last part of the installation process is simple. Just choose a language when prompted, and follow the instructions shown on screen as macOS Mojave is installed. You will need to first choose the right OS version and select Reinstall a New Copy of macOS. Click on Continue, and then on Continue again when the installer opens, and click Install to complete the process.
This is one of the easiest ways to install macOS from a USB. You don't require any experience and you don't need any additional tools. The key things to be careful about are the creation of the bootable USB, formatting it properly and booting your computer from the media instead of from the regular installation files. If you can replicate the steps shown in this article, you'll be installing macOS like a pro in no time!
If you use pkgutil to expand the InstallMacOSX.pkg it opens to three items, the Distribution file, InstallMacOSX.pkg and Resources. You can alter the Distribution file to ignore the supported platform check, see below.
Creating the Install OS X El Capitan.app on a mac that came with a newer OS than El Capitan.
Install Mac Os From Usb El Capitan
Download the InstallMacOSX.dmg from Section 4 of How To Upgrade To El Capitan
Double-click to open InstallMacOSX.dmg to Install MacOSX.pkg.
Drag InstallMacOSX.pkg to the Desktop.

Open Terminal, enter the text
A folder will be created on the Desktop after a while with the contents of the .pkg file.

In there you will see an item called Distribution, Control-click on that and select Open With
go to Other and select Text Edit.
When the file opens scroll down to the section that reads,
function isSupportedPlatform(){
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/CreateMediaCommandmacOSSierra-577ebdc45f9b5831b56c92ad.jpg)
type in at the end return true; so it now reads as,
Mac Os Install From Usb Not Working
function isSupportedPlatform(){return true;
Now click Save and close the document.

Go back to Terminal and enter the text,
press Return, after several minutes, be patient, (check to see if the prompt has returned to Terminal) a new package will be created on the Desktop.
When created double-click on that and an installation window will open where you will now convert the
new InstallElCapitan.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app which will be placed in your Applications folder.
You can now create a bootable USB using the install app and createinstallmedia,
If you have the time I would be grateful if you could give this a trial, it works here on my mac, but I would like confirmation from yourself or any others reading this that the procedure works on macs that came with macOS Sierra or newer pre-installed. Oh and tell me if my description of the procedure is easy to follow and understand..
Jan 15, 2020 12:58 AM