Usb Flash Drive For Mac Os X



Every operating system can crash at one time or another. While it's safe to say that macOS is more stable than Windows, it can still be affected by issues that prevent your computer from booting up. In such cases, you might need to boot your Mac from a USB flash drive to fix the problem. This article shows you two ways to boot Mac from external USB stick, as well as some troubleshooting tips in case Mac won't boot from the target USB.

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 start your Mac from the USB by accessing the Startup Manager. Here are the steps to be followed:

If you want to use your USB stick with an Apple Mac, you will need to restart or power-on the Mac with the USB stick inserted while the Option/alt (⌥) key is pressed. This will launch Apple’s ‘Startup Manager’ which shows bootable devices connected to the machine. When OS X shipped on a DVD a good number of years ago, you always had the convenience of a bootable installer—an OS X installer that could be used to boot your Mac if its own drive was having.

Step 1: Insert the bootable USB into Mac and power it on.

Step 2: As soon as the startup process begins, hold down the Option (alt) key and keep it depressed until you see the Startup Manager on your screen. If there is a firmware password on your Mac, hold down the Option key until you're asked to enter that password.

Step 3: You will now see the various startup disk options, and your USB will be listed there. If you click on the Up arrow right below the icon for the USB, the computer will only startup once using this disk. If you press and hold down the Control key while making your selection, it will be saved, and your computer will boot from the USB every time, as long as it is left in the computer.

At this point, you can also use the Mac installation disk to boot your Mac from. It will appear as EFI Boot, and it works on all computers running macOS 10.9 or higher.

Boot Mac from USB Option 2: Safe Mode/Recovery Mode

As an alternative, you can start your Mac in Safe Mode (Recovery Mode). This will allow the system to automatically detect and repair directory issues. Safe Mode will only allow required kernel extensions to load, preventing login items and startup items to load automatically. It can also help you isolate the issue depending on whether or not the issue goes away in Safe Mode. If the issues you have during normal startup don't show up in safe mode, they are most likely fixed. That means you can reboot normally and your system should be back to normal.

Step 1: Start your Mac and hold down the Shift key. You will see the Apple logo on your screen.

Step 2: When you see the login screen, you can release the Shift key and login to your Mac.

Step 3: To check whether your Mac has booted into Safe Mode, click on the Apple logo on the top left and then on About this Mac. In the window that opens, click on System Report… You should be able to see this:

How to Fix Mac Won't Boot from USB Drive

Sometimes Mac won't boot from USB as expected. If you are unable to select a different startup disk, it's possible that your disk is not showing up in Startup Manager. If you try Method 1 above but don't see your USB drive listed there, it could mean one of the following problems:

Compatibility: It is possible that the version of macOS or Mac OS X that you have on the USB drive is not compatible with the hardware. That means you won't be able to see it in the Startup Manager so, of course, you won't be able to boot from it. In such cases, you may need to burn a compatible macOS version on USB drive in order to be able to boot Mac from it.

Startup Security Utility: In certain cases where your Mac has the Apple T2 Security Chip (2018 and later devices), it may be your Startup Security Utility settings that are preventing you from booting from USB. In this situation, restart your Mac and hold down the Command + R keys when you see the Apple logo. This will put your Mac into Recovery mode. In macOS Utilities, go to Utilities >Startup Security Utility and sign in as admin. Under External Boot, select the second option - Allow Booting from External Media.

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Option ROM Firmware: Another known issue is that Option ROM firmware will not load in Startup Manager until you press certain keys manually. To do this, use Method 1 to access Startup Manager. Once you are there, press Option-Shift-Command-Period. You should now be able to see the USB drive. This is not exactly a problem as much as a feature. If the USB contains Option ROM firmware, you will need to press those keys everytime to boot from your pen drive.

These two methods and the troubleshooting tips should allow you to boot from USB or in Safe Mode so you can then isolate the problem that's preventing your Mac from booting up normally.

I had a guy bring me in an old Mac Book Pro that had a corrupted hard drive. I saved his Data but then realized his computer was so old that I was going to have trouble getting a copy of OSX installed. His computer was no longer supported on current OSX releases. To make things worse his DVD drive wouldn't read a install disk. So this post is the result of me finding a way to resurrect an old Mac Book Pro. I hope it will help someone else in a similar situation.

Note:

Before starting this tutorial, ensure that you have a USB drive with at least 8GB of storage as well as a Leopard, or Snow Leopard retail DVD or disk image. Grey DVDs that were included with a Mac at the time of purchase cannot be used to make USB boot drives as they do not include drivers for Macs other than the computer it was shipped with. In this tutorial I will be creating a Snow Leopard USB install disk. The steps are the same to create one for Leopard.

Drives

Creating a Snow Leopard USB Boot Drive Using Disk Utility

Start by launching Disk Utility on the Mac. To do this, you can either search for the application in Spotlight or find it in the Applications folder. Locate the USB drive on the left-hand side of the window and click on its name, not its partition.

Format the USB drive

  • Click the Partition tab
  • Under the Partition Layout header click on the 1 Partition option in the drop-down menu
  • Click the Format drop-down menu and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Bear in mind that this will erase all data from the USB drive, so backup any important files before proceeding.

  • To format the USB drive drive, click the Apply button in the lower right-hand corner of the Disk Utility window.

Snow Leopard, DVD or Disk Image

  • Locate a Snow Leopard disk image or DVD on the Mac
  • If you're using a disk image, mount it to the desktop
  • In the Disk Utility window, click the Restore tab in the USB drive's menu

In the center of the window you'll see two boxes: one labeled Source and another Destination.

Mac
  • Drag-and-drop the USB drive's partition into the Destination box
  • Drag-and-drop the Mac OS X Install Drive disk into the Source box
  • At the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and click the Restore button

Disk Utility will restore the OS X Install DVD or disk image to the USB drive; this process may take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on how quick the Mac is.

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Using The Snow Leopard USB Drive

Now that you've created a Snow Leopard USB drive, let's use it to install OS X Snow Leopard as well as access Terminal, Disk Utility, and other OS X utilities.

  • Power down the Mac and reboot while holding the Option key
  • Select the OS X Install DVD from the boot menu using the arrow keys on the Mac's keyboard
  • Select the language you'd like to use when prompted

Installing OS X Snow Leopard

To install OS X Snow Leopard from the USB drive, you'll need to reformat the Mac's hard drive. To do this, look towards the top of the screen and click on Utilities from the top menu and then click Disk Utility from the drop-down menu.

Formatting The Mac's Hard Drive

  • Click on the Mac's hard drive name
  • Click the Erase tab
  • Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format drop-down menu
  • Name the drive whatever you'd like

Please note that all data on the Mac's hard drive will be erased, so backup all important files before proceeding.

  • Press the Erase button to format the Mac's hard drive

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Starting The Snow Leopard Installer

  • Quit Disk Utility by pressing Command-Q on the keyboard
  • Press the Continue button
  • From the center of the window, select the Mac's hard drive
  • Press the Install button

OS X Snow Leopard may take a bit of time to install depending on the Mac's hardware. Upon completion, the Mac will restart and prompt you to create an account.

Disk Utilities on the Snow Leopard USB Drive

Additionally, you can access Disk Utility, Terminal, Safari (to access Apple help articles. not general browsing) and other Mac utilities from the Snow Leopard USB drive.

Boot the Mac to the USB drive using the steps shown above and click on the Utilities button from the top bar. You can access all available utilities from this drop-down menu.

It's nice to have these utilities available to use from the USB drive, especially Disk Utility. For example, if you believe your hard drive has died or is corrupted, you can boot your Mac from the USB drive and use Disk Utility to check the the hard drive's SMART status and repair said drive.

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OS X Snow Leopard USB Drive, Completed

Flash Drive For Mac

In this tutorial, I've shown you how to create a bootable OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard USB drive. You can now use the USB drive to upgrade, maintain and restore Macs to OS X 10.6.