If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, you might need a bootable macOS USB installer 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.
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.
Create a bootable USB drive for macOS X El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur. Insert your USB drive into your Mac's USB port. Open Finder to find your USB or if your Finder preferences have been set, you can find it on the Desktop. Create a bootable USB drive for macOS X versions including El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur.
macOS DMG Download Link:
Part 2: Easily Create a Bootable macOS USB from Windows 10/8/7 PC
- Therefore, you can create bootable USB for your Mac using Transmac on windows 10/7/8/8.1 here you will learn the easiest method of creating bootable USB. As you know that Mac OS EL Capitan is the newest version among Mac. In here just follow my steps to create a bootable USB installer for your Mac. Is the twelfth major of the Mac operating system.
- Posted November 18, 2015. Hello, I love your bootables versions of OS X, Yosemite was perfectly installed on my FusionDrive with UEFI. But I think I have a problem with the El Capitan version. With the Yosemite bootable USB untouched, Clover shows the good FusionDrive partition ' Macintosh HD'.
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 on Windows 10. After installing the application, follow the sequence of steps shown below:
Updates (Dec 8, 2020): The latest version of UUByte DMG Editor is able to format the USB automatically.
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' tab 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 3: Format USB Drive to GPT If Failed
If the USB drive created in above step was not seen as a bootable device on your Mac, then you need to take an addtional step before burning. That's formatting the USB 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
Part 4: Boot Mac from macOS USB Drive for Installation
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.
Troubleshooting
Flashing Error: You might receive a flashing error message at the end of burning process. Please don'y worry and ignore this error. The USB becomes a bootable disk and you can use it to install macOS even this error pops up.
About Official EI Capitan DMG: There has a serious bug in the official release of OS X El Capitan, which contains .pkg installer only. The burning process will fail for sure. Please use this modified EI Capitan DMG file instead, which was approved a good option.
Registration Failed: Please make sure the computer is connected to Internet and no proxy or VPB is running during registration. If the problem still exists, please send an email to support team asking for a new code.
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 from that USB drive, and you may need to do the whole thing over again.
Created a bootable USB with El Capitan installer
booted from it, erased my MBP (mid 2009), clean install from USB installer
decided to use migration assistant, most apps not working plus all the clutter from pre clean install
decided to do another clean install but MBP won't boot from USB and uses the recovery version instead.
tried to get Maverick back and basically ended up with a non-working MBP that went into a boot loop
did a reinstall from MAS, ended up DLing the entire Installer again, went to bed and in the morning and 'working'
MBP again, plus all the clutter and non working apps.
Made a new bootable USB key using terminal and yes it finished and yes it said bootable at the end as well as in Disk Utilities.
However when trying to boot from USB, start+Option, or start+cmd+r still no sign of the USB stick, which i guess would leave me
with a non clean install again.
Any help, suggestions.....?
Bootable Os X El Capitan
Cheers
Ralf
Bootable Usb Mac Os X El Capitan
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X El Capitan (10.11)
Posted on Oct 4, 2015 7:57 AM