Simple Steps to Make Your Mac Boot from a Flash Drive

Easy-to-follow steps for booting a Mac from a USB drive

Last Updated: June 21, 2023 Tested

CD/DVD drives are disappearing from computers, leaving USB storage as the only option when re-installing an operating system. The process is fairly painless and, if you have a bit of time and patience you can complete the task on a Mac.

Things You Should Know

Get your version of macOS from the App Store and create a backup of it on your desktop.
Right-click the file on your desktop and make a bootable USB drive.
Go to Package Contents in that file and go to "Disk Utility", then drag the "InstallESD.dmg" file in that package to Disk Utility.

Steps

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The latest versions of the Mac operating system are only available through the App Store.
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Don't worry if you lose connection halfway through download, it will resume as soon as you are re-connected to the App Store.

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Under no condition should you work on the original installer file.
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This is your ticket to creating a bootable copy of OSX Mountain Lion.
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Drag the “InstallESD.dmg” file from installer folder into the white box on the left side of Disk Utility, and the disk image will be added.
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“InstallESD.dmg” should already be present in the source tab.
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Drag the drive you just added to Disk Utility from the source list in the top left of the app white space to the “Destination” path.
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This can take some time so please be patient.
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You now have a bootable USB disk drive with Mac OS X Mountain Lion installed and good to go!
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You can now use this disk to verify/repair disk partitions, repair current installed OSX, upgrade to new OSX, or perform a clean install of existing or better OSX.

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Question

What button combination do I use to get the boot menu on a Mac G4?

OPJustin

Community Answer

Holding the "alt" (option) key should open Apple's native boot menu. That should list available drives to boot from.

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Once I get to Step 28 - then what? That's what I'm trying to figure out, and all the how-tos take you to that step and then end. What do I do?

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That's just the OS utilities menu. If you restart, it should boot into the normal OS.

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Tips

There are some third party apps like "Lion Disk Maker" which specialize in creating bootable disk for Mac.

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Always insist on original software as supplied by Apple Inc. and downloaded from Mac App Store.

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Warnings

Always keep a backup of your installer file before copying to USB/external drive.

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A bootable Mac disk will work on Mac Computers ONLY.

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Always backup your system using Time Machine before installing any new OSX.

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Do not disconnect the USB drive in the middle of the entire process.

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Things You'll Need

8GB+ USB external drive
Mac OSX Installer from App Store

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Simple Steps to Make Your Mac Boot from a Flash Drive

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