Using an external hub to connect several USB storage devices may cause your Mac to fail to recognize them at boot time. Try connecting the USB drive to another port on the hub. Should that fail, connect the disk directly into your Mac’s USB port. When the USB drive is ready you can plug it in you mac and press alt (option) while booting, you have inserted a firmware password, it will ask you to unlock the firmware by inserting that password, else it will take you to all the bootable drives, including your USB device. In this article we'll run through the steps necessary to create a bootable installer of the Mac operating system. You'll also benefit from USB 3, or USB Type C, or Firewire. How to make a bootable install of Mavericks on Flash USB Drive? Discussion in 'OS X Mavericks (10.9)' started by 212rikanmofo, Oct 4, 2013.
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UPDATED 6/14: It doesn’t matter whether you’re a macOS Sierra or a Windows 10 user, it’s just a matter of time until your device refuses to start, which could happen for many reasons, including file corruption, hardware failure, and buggy update (just to name a few). If the unexpected happens with Apple computer, you can use a macOS bootable USB with the installation media to repair it.
Our FAQ: Start up your computer from external bootable media with Avast Rescue Disk explains in more detail how to boot up your infected computer using the USB flash drive or CD/DVD that you created. The Avast Rescue Disk wizard will walk you through the steps to.
This is one of the main reasons why you should always consider making a macOS bootable USB when your device is working properly. However, if it happens that none of your devices (MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro or Mac Mini) aren’t working when you need them the most, then you can use a PC to rescue your Apple device. You can use a Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 7 device to quickly create a USB bootable installation media to reinstall macOS Sierra on your Mac.
In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to create a macOS Sierra bootable USB installation on Windows 10, which you can use to reinstall or upgrade Apple’s OS.
Things to know before proceeding
Before you dive into this guide, you’ll need a few things, including:
- A broken Mac computer with Mac OS X or macOS Sierra (version 10.12 or later).
- A trial copy of the TransMac software.
- One high quality USB flash drive with 16GB of storage.
- A copy of Apple’s macOS (DMG file).
How to make a macOS bootable USB installation media
Use these steps to create a bootable USB drive with the latest version of macOS:
Download and install TransMac on your Windows PC. This is a paid software, but it gives you a 15-day trial, which is more than enough time. (If this works for you and want to support the developer, you can purchase the full version.)
Connect the USB flash drive you want to use to fix your Mac. If you have any data on the USB, remember to make a backup, as everything on it will be erased.
Right-click TransMac, and select Run as administrator.
If you’re using the trial version, wait 15 seconds, and click Run.
On the left, right-click the USB flash drive, select Format Disk for Mac. You want to do this before creating the bootable media because there is a good chance that the drive was formatted using a Windows device. If this is the case, chances are that it’s using a MBR partition, and the USB drive needs a GPT partition to work on a Mac.
On the warning message, click Yes to format the drive.
Enter a name for the drive, such as “macOS bootable USB” and click OK.
Click Yes to confirm.
If the formatting completed successfully, click OK to continue.
Right-click the USB flash drive, and select Restore with Disk Image.
On the warning message, click Yes to confirm the data on the USB drive will be erased.
Click the browse button on the right, locate the .dmg file with the macOS installation files.
Click Open.
Click OK.
Click Yes to create the macOS USB bootable media.
Once the process completes, you can now insert the USB flash drive on your Mac computer to install, reinstall, or upgrade the operating system to the latest version of macOS, which can be Sierra or later.
How to create a GPT partition on a USB flash drive
Create A Bootable Usb Mac
If the USB flash drive is not working using TransMac, it could be still a partition problem. In this case, you want to redo the entire process again, but this time use the following steps to use the Diskpart command-line utility on Windows to create the appropriate GPT partition.
Use these steps to create a GPT partition on a removable drive:
Open Start.
Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result and select the Run as an administrator option.
Type the
diskpart
command and press Enter.Enter the
list disk
command to view all drives connected to your computer and press Enter.Type the
select disk
command followed the number assigned for the USB flash drive (e.g.,select disk 4
), and press Enter.Enter the
clean
command and press Enter.Type the
convert GPT
command and press Enter.- Enter the
create partition primary
command and press Enter to complete the process.
Once you formatted the USB flash drive to a GPT partition, you can use the instructions mentioned above to use TransMac to create a bootable media, but this time skip the steps 5 through 9, and continue on step 10.
After the process completes, which can take up to an hour, connect the USB flash drive and power on your Mac holding down the Option key, select the USB drive to begin the installation of macOS.
If you’re having problems creating the bootable media, you can get a USB flash drive that comes with macOS Sierra on it with the link mentioned below. (I personally haven’t tried it, but it’s worth the try if nothing works.)