Install Macos Yosemite From Usb

The instructions I found that worked, using Disk Utility, were located at How to Make a Bootable OS X Mavericks USB Install Drive and How to Create a Bootable Install USB Drive of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Download the Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. First, download the latest Mac OS X version, which is 10.10 Yosemite. For more info see my video helps you please like it.This video will show you how to do a clean install of OS X Yosemite from USB.For.

A previous commenter on our How To Speed Up Your Mac article noted that the biggest speed up they experienced for their Mac was to re-install OS X from scratch from a USB disk. Whilst this is a bit disappointing because it’s one of the things I had hoped to escape when I made the switch from Microsoft Windows all those years ago, it makes a fair bit of sense – particularly if you’re one who often plays with software then deletes it again like I do for reviewing stuff, since lots of cruft gets left laying around… (I tried using Parallels Desktop 10 to run an alternative OS X platform for doing my reviews – it was too slow).

The process isn’t all that straight forward and the commenter asked if we would do a How To, so here it is.

The first thing you need to do, as with any major undertaking you might do with your Mac, is to BACK IT UP. Get yourself a Time Capsule from Amazon, eBay or (if you’re in Australia) somewhere like JB Hi-Fi and back up your Mac using Time Machine. Or check out our article about Crashplan if you prefer not to shell out exorbitant amounts of money on a Time Capsule. We can’t stress this enough – you must back up your Mac before continuing. The process outlined below will delete all your data. Everything. Kaboom. So back it up.

While your Mac is backing itself up somehow, go to the Mac App Store and download Yosemite. It’s a big download and if you’re in Australia like me it’ll take a while thanks to our ageing infrastructure and lack of government foresight to get us into the 20th Century of broadband (but I digress into a political debate). DONT OPEN IT. The download will create a link in your Applications folder called ‘Install OSX Yosemite’. Don’t open it yet. Doing so will install Yosemite indeed, but it’ll be an upgrade over the top of what you already have and it’ll delete itself after it’s re-installed. This is not what we want if we’re putting it on a USB. If it opens automatically, simply close it.

You’ll need an 8Gigabyte USB key – which you can pick up at just about any corner store these days.

Plug the USB key into your Mac and if necessary re-format it using Disk Utility so that Yosemite can be written to it. To do this, open Disk Utility, select the USB key on the left and choose the Erase Tab. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and leave the title as ‘Untitled’ for now. The process of putting Yosemite onto the USB key will rename it anyway.

Now we’re (unfortunately perhaps) going to have to get a little bit familiar with the Terminal application. Open up Terminal (its under Applications -> Utilities if you’ve never used it before). The instruction you need to type assumes you have simply downloaded the ‘Install OS X Yosemite’ application into your applications folder. You’ll need to modify the locations if you’ve managed to download it somewhere else.

sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/Untitled –applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app –nointeraction

The sudo command at the beginning will ask you for your login password. If your Mac logs in automatically, it’s the same password that you may have used in the pop up windows that occasionally come up when you install new programs.

The createinstallmedia command will give you some (fairly inaccurate) feedback about how far through the process it is, but you can expect it to take anywhere up to 20 minutes depending on how quick your Mac can read from the internal disk and write to the external USB which are typically quite slow. Don’t interrupt the process – don’t turn off your Mac, don’t pull out the USB key, don’t eject the USB key from Finder. Doing so will corrupt the flash key and you’ll need to start again. The process is finished when you see ‘Copy Complete. Done’ in the terminal window.

That’s the hard part over with. Now you need to reboot your Mac ( hope you’re reading this on an iPad or something similar so you can still follow while you reboot! ).

As soon as you hear the Mac bootup ‘Chime’ hold down the Option (or Alt) key and select the USB drive (which should be an orange colour). Double click the icon with the mouse or use the cursor keys to move to that image and then press Enter. This will start the Yosemite Installer, which may take a few minutes depending on the speed of your USB key. When everything is started you’ll see an Installer screen with a number of options. You need to choose the Disk Utility option first of all. If you miss this step you’ll end up just installing Yosemite over itself and you won’t benefit from a fully clean install. When Disk Utility is started click on Macintosh HD (or whatever your internal hard drive is called that you’re going to install Yosemite to) – it’s probably the top drive listed. Just as you did for the USB key, do now for the hard drive – i.e., choose the Erase Tab, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and set the title to whatever you want. This will erase all your files from that disk. Everything. You did backup didn’t you?

Once that process is complete, Exit Disk Utility and choose Install OS X – choosing the freshly erased Hard Drive when the installer asks you.

Once everything is finished and you reboot, you’ll see your shiny new Yosemite install and if your Mac was anything like mine, you’ll probably think you have a new machine too because mine was considerably faster after a fresh install.

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Mac Os Yosemite Review

After successfully created a macOS bootable USB, the next step is how to use it to install macOS from external USB drive. This is not normal case because macOS is very stable and have less bugs/virus than Windows PC. So many Mac users don't know how to perform a clean install of macOS on their Mac when the device was broken or could not boot into desktop.

Please don't worry. We will share detailed steps on how to install macOS/Mac OS X from an USB drive. Even you had issues during this process, it is not thing to be afriad as we have offered the troubleshooting guide as well.

How to Install macOS on Mac from USB Drive (Normal Way)

If the target Mac computer already had a macOS or OS X on it, then installing macOS from USB is straightforward and this is called the normal way.

Step 1: Insert the macOS bootable USB drive on a USB port of Mac computer.

Step 2: Shut down the Mac and wait for 1-2 minutes. This will make sure the Mac is powered off.

Step 3: Hold the Power and Option key simultaneously for 15 seconds. This will bring up the Startup Manager on Mac.

Step 4: You will see all bootable devices attached to this Mac, including Macintosh HD and external USB or DVD. Click the drive name of your macOS bootable USB to start the installation process.

Step 5: Agree the terms and conditions and wait for the installation process to be done.

How to Install macOS on Mac from USB Drive (Advanced)

If the drive was not partitioned or the partition table was corrupted, then you can not install macOS on Mac with the normal way. You have to boot Mac into Recovery mode and format the hard drive or SSD to Apple file system first.

Step 1: Shut down your Mac and press the Power key to turn on the Mac; then immediately press Command and R keys.

Step 2: You will be directed to the macOS utility section and here you need to select 'Disk Utility' to format the USB drive. From the Disk Utility app, select Mac drive name under Internal section and then click on the 'Erase' button.

File

Step 3: You will get a couple of options from the Format. Pleasec choose APFS (macOS) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for old version Mac OS X.

Step 4: After the completion of the formatting process, go back to the macOS utility section and this time, select 'Reinstall macOS'.

Step 5: Further, go to the Startup Manager, move to the External drive section, and select your bootable macOS USB drive.

Step 6: Now, the configuration of MacOS will start. As soon as the process starts, it will provide Terms and Agreement page and your job is to agree with the same and then click on the continue button.

Step 7: After that, click on the 'Continue' button to start the installation process. This will take 30-45 minutes and once it gets completed, restart Mac.

Step 8: As you are using the fresh copy of MacOS on Mac machine, so you need to set up the OS and for that connect the Mac with the Wi-Fi and then sign in with the Apple account.

Step 9: After signing in, you can access the several products of Apple such as iCloud, DropBox and many more.

Mac Os Yosemite Download

Quick Troubleshooting Tips if You Got Stuck during MacOS Installation

Could not write installation information to disk

If you see the message like 'Could Not Write Installation Information to Disk' when you are trying to install the OS, it means, some important files are missing from the bootable USB device. Mostly, this error happens when you download Mac OS file from an unauthorized site.

You can fix this issue just by downloading the original OS file from the Apple store and then create a fresh bootable USB using the same.

Compatibility error

If you are upgrading the OS X after having an older version, you can get the compatibility error message. In such case, just cross-check the system requirement for the OS you want to install on your Mac system.

You can fix this issue just by downloading the original OS file from the Apple store and then create a fresh bootable USB using the same.

macOS could not be installed on your Computer

If you see the error message similar to 'macOS Could Not Be Installed on Your Computer' that means, either your system is not compatible or the Date and Time settings in your system is not up to date..

To resolve the problem, first, check the system combability for the OS X. If it's fine and still you are facing the error, then just update the system Time & Date with the option of 'Local Apple time server'.

Application is damaged, can't be used to install macOS

You the message 'application is damaged, can't be used to install macOS' appear on your screen, it means the OS certificated has been expired. And so, you won't be able to proceed further for installation.

The simple solution is; you need to create a fresh bootable USB by downloading the MacOS file from its official website.

MacOS couldn't install on this computer

Sometimes, the thirty-party tool which you use to create a bootable USB is the culprit. If the OS files will not be copied successfully using the bootable tool, then you may see the message like 'MacOS couldn't install on this computer'.

Os X Yosemite Download File

In this case, you should avoid using a third party bootable tool despite you should create a bootable USB with the help of command.

Conclusion

Clean Install Os X Yosemite From Usb

The above tutorial covers most of the issues you could come across during the installation process. If you had other issues not mentioned in this article, please contact us and our technical team will help you fix it.