By Michael Argentini
Managing Partner, Technology and Design
How do you erase your Mac hard drive and install OS X Yosemite without a startup disk? Normally the answer would be to boot into recovery mode. But what if you need to partition the hard drive, wiping the recovery partition? You need a bootable OS X Yosemite installer. Here's how to make one using Apple's built-in boot drive creation tool.
What You Need
Download the Yosemite installer from the Mac App Store and make sure it’s in your main Applications folder (/Applications)—it’s called Install OS X Yosemite.app. Connect to your Mac a properly. Oct 22, 2014 There is a very simple on line command to create the full Yosemite. Installer on a USB stick. The command line function is hidden. Inside the Yosemite installer itself. First, obviously the USB stick needs to be formatted to a single GUID. Partition with OS X extended, journaled filesystem. You will also need to. Head over to your Applications folder and check that there is a file which says Install Yosemite. Prepare a USB Flash Drive (Must be 8Gb or larger) Plug the USB Drive in to your Mac and open “Disk Utility” (found under applications / utilities in finder) Select the USB Drive; Select the Erase tab; Ensure that the format is Mac OS.
- The 5GB OS X Yosemite installer app that downloads into your Applications folder when you first install it via the Mac App Store. The file name is Install OS X Yosemite. After you upgrade to Yosemite, this file is deleted. So you have to quit the installer once it appears in order to keep this file.
- A flash drive, external hard disk, SD card, or the like, with at least 8GB of capacity.
- Your Mac user account must be an Administrator. If it isn't, go to Users & Groups in System Preferences and assign Administrator to your user account. You can change it back to a standard user when you're finished. You can also sign in to your Mac as the administrator to create the bootable drive.
Step 1: Format Your Drive
First, you must partition and erase the drive so that it can be bootable. To do this, launch Disk Utility and choose the destination drive in the drive list (left column). On the right, in the Erase tab, choose to format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). These are the defaults, so just confirm the settings.
Next go to the Partition tab and under Partition Layout choose '1 Partition' in the dropdown menu. Change the name from 'Untitled 1' to 'Untitled'. This is so that the Terminal command below will find the drive. Once the process is complete, the drive name will be 'Install OS X Yosemite'.
Click the 'Options' button. In the dialog that appears, choose 'GUID Partition Table' as the partition scheme, then click 'OK'. Again, this is the default, so just confirm the setting.
Finally, click 'Apply' to confirm the settings and prepare the drive.
Step 2: Make the Drive a Yosemite Boot Installer
In a single command you'll create the bootable install drive. Pretty sweet! To do this, launch Terminal and enter the following command. Note, this assumes that you haven't moved the installer out of your Applications folder. If you have, simply replace '/Applications' with the location of the installer:
Os X Yosemite Install Hdd
The sudo command will ask for your password. As you type it will not appear. This is normal. Just enter it and press return to create the boot drive.
During installation, you'll see a progression of status messages.
Wait until you see a status of 'Done.' When you do, you can safely eject the drive and quit Terminal. Who do i look like quiz.
Step 3: Start Up from the Install Drive
If you open the new bootable drive in the Finder, you'll notice that it appears empty, other than the Install OS X Yosemite app. No worries. The boot files are hidden, and the installer app allows you to upgrade without booting from the drive if you don't need to.
To boot from this new installer, shut down the Mac, plug in the bootable drive, and hold down the option key while powering back up. You should eventually see a series of bootable drives. Click on the one named 'Install OS X Yosemite' and press the return key.
Where to next?
One of the most awaited Operating System of 2014 i.e. Mac Yosemite is now available for use. Apple has recently released the beta version of the latest Yosemite OS with new and advanced features. Who wouldn’t like to try this latest version? Every Mac user would love it! You can easily work with and get familiar with all features of this new Yosemite that too without disturbing the already running Mac installation in simple steps. Yes! you can achieve this by just creating a bootable USB flash drive with Yosemite and then connecting it to the Mac desktop or laptop to install Yosemite from USB securely.
It’s just a few simple step procedure and within minutes you can create Yosemite bootable USB. The process involves two stages – creation of bootable USB flash drive and then installation procedure. Below is the complete step-by-step procedure to achieve this, just read on…
Stage 1: Create Bootable USB Flash Drive
- First connect your USB drive to the Mac computer and launch Disk Utility tool. Now select drive indicating USB flash drive (select the USB drive you want to make the bootable installer) from the available drives list
- Then just click on the “Erase” tab and format the drive as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”
- Then just click on “Erase” and confirm the selection
- Go to “Partition” tab and under ‘Partition Layout’ section click on the pull-down menu and change the layout to “1 Partition” from “Current”
- Change the partition name from “Untitled 1” to “Untitled” and then click on “Options” button
- Choose the partition scheme as “GUID Partition Table” and select “OK”
- Once done click on “Apply” to confirm the creation of the partition
- After the partition is successfully created download the Macintosh OS X 10.10 Yosemite installer from Mac App Store, once done quit the installer and set the downloaded file's name to Install OS X Yosemite app.
Create Bootable Yosemite Usb
After completion, launch the Terminal app (located in Applications/Utilities) and type or copy - paste the following command, and then hit Enter:
Mac Os Yosemite Installer
sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app –nointeraction
Once done Quit the Disk Utility; With this your OS X Yosemite bootable USB flash drive will be ready for use and you can start the clean installation process.
Stage 2: Clean Install OS X Yosemite on Your Mac
- Now, connect the bootable USB flash drive into your Mac and restart the computer, once the start-up chime plays, just press the Option key (Alt).
- On the start-up drive selection screen choose the USB drive and hit Enter / Return on the keyboard.
- The process might take few minutes, just wait until the Yosemite installer appears on screen
- Once it appears, click on Disk Utility and then hit Continue.
- From the left hand-side pane of the Mac, find and click on Macintosh HD and then on the top-right portion hit Erase tab. Select default values for all options and then hit Erase button at the bottom right; by doing this all files stored on the startup hard drive will be wiped off.
- After completion of the erasing process just return to the first screen and click on Install OS X and then hit Continue.
- Now, select the Macintosh HD partition that was erased in step 5 and then click Install
By following all the above steps correctly, your computer will now boot into the newly installed OS X Yosemite, and you could just enjoy all its stunning new UI and advanced features. However, before performing the process make sure you have proper data backup, as there are chances of losing your data due to interruption or by selecting improper option. In such cases Remo Recover software could help you to perform Mac lost data recovery in just few minutes.
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