Comments on: Make a bootable USB flash drive to run & repair Mac OS X

By: john

john — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:49:22 +0000

Is it possible to boot Win7 natively running a USB drive using this method?

I could use my work mac to run windows games natively?

By: ricky L

ricky L — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:10:57 +0000

hey there I have a macbook 2007 copy of leopard 10.5 it came with two discs and i put disc 1 on the flash drive and it worked but then it asked me to install disc 2..what do I do now?..I also tried 10.6 DMG i downloaded and after it finishes installing it jus gets stuck on the gray screen. how do I fix this?!?! any help please is appreciated. I don’t know if I need to download disc 2 and put that on the flash drive also and then load it also when it asks me for it somehow?….

By: Ant

Ant — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:53:23 +0000

Phone_trouble,
As long as all the Macs you’re trying to repair have the same operating system as what’s loaded on the USB drive, they should all work. But if one computer has 10.5 installed, for example, a USB drive with 10.6 will not boot.

By: Phone_trouble

Phone_trouble — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:53:54 +0000

If I make this boot able thumb drive, can I use it on other Mac’s to repair them as well, or do I need to make one for each mac in the house.

By: Ant

Ant — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:19:35 +0000

Omar,
To gain access to Disk Utility you can either boot to the Mac OS X DVD or make another partition on the USB/Firewire drive (assuming it is large enough) with a copy of the OS X disc itself. Then you can boot to that partition to run Disk Utility and transfer the image from the other partition to the computer’s hard drive. Again, I don’t know for sure if this will work but it’s certainly worth a shot!

By: Omar

Omar — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:17:31 +0000

Thanks for the response Ant and i’m going to try.
My new question is when using an image to transfer on a new computer(Mac of course :), There is no disk utility which is the usual way to transfer an image on to new machine from a working computer. What or how do I get this image to load and install on the new machine?

Thanks in Advance

By: Ant

Ant — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:30:34 +0000

Omar,
I believe the answer to both of your questions is yes. The image will be slow to load/transfer, but it should work.

By: Omar

Omar — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:26:32 +0000

Thanks for this guide. My question is, can I load an image instead of the install disk? We do a lot of imaging of mac’s and have all needed features and add ons that we use were I work. I’m also wondering if this will work on an ext. firewire HD.

Thanks again.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:54:12 +0000

Thanks a lot for the help. I’ll just get a 16GB flash drive and use it to store music and pictures on the rest of the space.

By: Ant

Ant — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:06:58 +0000

Gary,
The files on the OS X installer disc (and the DMG you created from it) are compressed. Once they are extracted and actually installed on a drive, no matter what kind it is, they expand to their actual size – which is more than the 6.7GB you mentioned.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:45:40 +0000

I don’t understand. The .DMG file of Leopard that I had (made it earlier) is only 6.7 GB in size. Does the install take more space on a flash drive? Do you know if you can possibly rent a flash drive from somewhere? Would it be possible to buy a flash drive then return after you are done using it? Thanks for your help.

By: Ant

Ant — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:34:41 +0000

Gary,
An 8GB flash drive will unfortunately not be large enough. Snow Leopard used just over 9GB on my 16GB drive and 10.5 Leopard will use even more.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:48:16 +0000

Great guide! Just recently my friends’ MacBook Air had a hardware error. This is the way that I will use to fix it. Exactly how much space does the install take up on the flash drive? I want to try to install Leopard 10.5 on an 8 GB flash drive. Do you think this would work? Thanks!