If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, you might need bootable macOS install USB to make repairs. But how do you create such a disk if all you're left with is a Windows 10 computer? Fortunately, there's a great tool that you can use for free to create bootable macOS media on a USB drive in a Windows 10 environment. This article shows you how to download a macOS DMG file, format a USB drive using a GUID Partition Table, burn the DMG to the drive and boot your Mac from the USB. All the steps except the last one are done on a Windows 10 machine.
- Create Bootable Usb
- Make El Capitan Usb Installer
- How To Make Bootable Usb Mac Os X El Capitan On Windows
- Mac Bootable Usb Drive
There is a link on the Apple website How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan that will download a file that can be used to create the Install OS X El Capitan application. However, if the model Mac is too new to allow the installation for El Capitan, then message given below will occur when trying to create the Install OS X El Capitan application. I like to create a bootable USB drive because it’s blazing fast to install the OS. For El Capitan, it took me +- 15 minutes with a USB3 stick. Luckily it is fairly easy to create a bootable USB drive for OSX El Capitan! Create a bootable USB drive. Have a USB stick ready (USB3 is really fast!
Part 1: Download macOS or Mac OS X DMG File
The first step is to get the DMG disk image file for the version of macOS that you want. You can get a copy of the latest macOS version from Apple download portal or App Store here. There are also several other direct download sites that offer various versions of Mac OS X in DMG format rather than the standard APP format that runs on Mac. Since you're working in a Windows environment, you need the DMG rather than the APP file.
Part 2: Format USB Drive to GPT
Mostly, the USB drive was formmated to FAT32 in default when being shipped out from the factory. However, FAT32 can be only used for installing OS with legacy BISO, which doesn't work for macOS. So the next step is to format your USB drive in the GPT partition style in order to burn installation files to the desired USB drive. You can do this in Command Prompt as admin. In elevated Command Prompt (Ctrl+Shift+Enter), input the following series of commands followed by Enter after each line:
Diskpart
List disk
Select Disk X (X stands for the USB drive name that appears after the previous command)
Clean
Convert GPT
Create partition primary
Diskpart
List disk
Select Disk X (X stands for the USB drive name that appears after the previous command)
Clean
Convert GPT
Create partition primary
Part 3: Create Bootable macOS USB from Windows 10
You have now formatted the partition of USB drive. It's time to download UUByte DMG Editor for Windows. Although this is a premium software, you can use the initial free trial period to create a bootable macOS USB drive on Windows 10. After installing the application, follow the sequence of steps shown below:
Step 1: Right-click the software icon on desktop and select 'Run as Administrator' from the contextual menu. Choose 'Run' when prompted.
Step 2: Insert your formatted USB drive, and click 'Burn' ta on the main screen.
Step 3: Click 'Browse' button to import macOS dmg file into the program. And select the USB drive name from the second row. You can also set a volume labe for that USB drive.
Step 4: Click 'Burn' button at the bottom to start the process. You will see a progress bar and wait around 10 minutes to get it done.
Step 5: Once the progress bar is at 100%, a bootable macOS USB is ready. After that, you can use that USB drive for installing macOS.
This is one of the easiest way to create a bootable macOS USB on a Windows PC. The steps are simple and instructions are pretty clear.
Part 4: Boot macOS Install USB on Mac
Now remove the USB drive and insert it into the Mac computer. To boot from the disk, you need to hold down the option key when you hear the boot chime. This will take you to the Startup Disk Manager, where you should be able to see the USB drive. It might have a different name, but as long as it is bootable, you'll be able to see it there. Once you select it, the computer will boot from the disk and the macOS installation will begin.
Conclusion:
The whole process might look a bit complicated if this is your first time, but just follow the instructions in this article and you should be fine. That being said, you need to be careful when downloading the DMG file and formatting your USB drive. If you don't do these two steps correctly, the output drive from the UUByte DMG Editor software won't be bootable, which means you can't install macOS using it, and you may need to do the whole thing over again.
Create Bootable Usb
Everytime when Apple releases new software, I can’t help it to format my computer. I just don’t seem to trust an update of a operating system. I like to create a bootable USB drive because it’s blazing fast to install the OS. For El Capitan, it took me +- 15 minutes with a USB3 stick.
Luckily it is fairly easy to create a bootable USB drive for OSX El Capitan!
Create a bootable USB drive
Make El Capitan Usb Installer
- Have a USB stick ready (USB3 is really fast! :-))
- Format it with the Disk Utility tool (Mac OSX extended format, give the drive the name Untitled)
- Download OSX El Capitan from the Mac App Store, but quit the update application when it is downloaded.
- Open Terminal
- Use the following command