Thursday, August 4, 2011

Create a bootable Mac OS X Lion USB Flash / Pen Drive

Create a bootable Mac OS X Lion USB Flash / Pen Drive
As a result of my post about making bootable Leo 10.7 install DVD, here's how to make bootable USB flash drive.
You will need the following: -
A Mac
A copy of the lion Installer-App (available from the AppStore)
A USB Flash Drive / Pen Drive with 4.2GB (approx) space
** Note ** Unfortunately, this does not appear to quite fit the 4GB pen drive, you may find otherwise, but for me as a Disk Utility and "not enough space error" above (eg, 8GB) should be good.
1 - Go to the Applications folder and right click (or Control-click) the 'Install Mac OS X Lion "and select" Show package contents.

2 - Go to Content> SharedSupport folder

3 - Copy InstallESD.dmg to someplace (eg. your Desktop)

4 - Open Utilities > Disk Utility.app and click on your USB drive in the left pane.  Then click 'Partition'.

5 - Enter a name for the partition and make sure the format is set to 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'.

6 - Click 'Options' and choose 'GUID Partition Table' as the partioning scheme.

7 - Click OK, then Apply, you will then have to confirm and authenticate you want to go ahead.  This will erase all data on your Flash drive!

8 - Now click the tab, return, select (or drag) a copy of InstallESD.dmg you made earlier in the "Source" box.
9 - Pull your USB flash drive to "Destination" box and click Restore, again you may need to authenticate.

10 - After several minutes of your USB drive will be ready to do ... How long really depends on the speed of your USB drive, but most have a faster read speed of write and you just need to write again.
11 - To test your USB drive, or go to system prefrences> startup disk and select any, then hit restart, or just hold down the Option / Alt key while you restart your computer.

12 - Enjoy some peace of mind!


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