Apple Bootable Usb Catalina

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With the USB drive, you can boot the Mac, start system recovery and format the system before installing the operating system. It is very easy to create a macOS Catalina bootable USB installer, and the steps to do so are detailed below. This article guides you through the process of performing a clean installation of macOS 10.15 Catalina using the bootable USB drive method, rather than upgrading your Mac using Apple's standard.

macOS Catalina is a hugely exciting upgrade for the Mac. In some ways, it's like having a completely new computer. You may have already taken the plunge and installed it, or maybe you're waiting to see how it settles down before you install it. But whichever camp you're in, it's a good idea to create a bootable installer for macOS Catalina. That way, if anything goes badly wrong with your Mac, you'll be able to boot from the installer and get going again quickly.

Why do I need a bootable installer for macOS Catalina?

There are a number of reasons for creating a bootable USB Mac installer.

  1. If you have more than one Mac, it allows you to install Catalina on all your other Macs without having to download it from the App Store each time.
  2. You may want to clean install Catalina, in which case you'll completely wipe your startup disk and will need to boot from an external drive to do that.
  3. It's good protection against a catastrophe striking your Mac's startup disk, especially if you don't have a stable internet connection. Normally, if you need to reinstall macOS, you can just boot from the recovery partition and do it from there. However, that means re-downloading the installer. So, if you don't have an internet connection or it's very slow, you need an alternative.

What should I use as a bootable installer?

You can use an external hard drive, an SSD or a USB stick. Anything that has at least 16 GB of free space. You'll need to create a new partition (or container if it's formatted as AFPS) for the installer so if you have data on it you need, you should copy it to another drive first.

How to create a bootable USB drive for macOS Catalina

Whoa! Not so fast. There's one more thing you should do before you create the installer: clear out the junk on your Mac. Before you undertake any major task on your Mac, and especially before you install a new version of the operating system, you should clear out junk and old files you no longer need. I don't normally recommend software tools, but in this case, the nest way to clear out the clutter is to use CleanMyMac X. It can scan your Mac at the press of a button, identify all the files you don't need, and allow you to get rid of them with one more click. Here's how to use it:

  1. Install, and launch CleanMyMac X — download a free edition here
  2. Choose Smart Scan from the list of utilities in the sidebar.
  3. Press Scan.
  4. When it's finished, press Run to delete files immediately, or Review Details to see what it has found.

Once you've cleared out the clutter, you can go ahead and create your bootable installer. Here's how:

  1. Launch the App Store app and search for macOS Catalina. (If you're reading this before Catalina has been launched, you'll need to use the public beta. You can sign up for Apple's public beta program and download it here Apple Beta Software Program)
  2. When the results appear, click on Catalina, then click ‘Get'.
  3. Wait for it to download. When it's finished, the installer will launch. Quit it immediately.

The installer has now been saved in your Applications folder. You can go ahead and check, if you like. You now have two options for creating the installer. If you're comfortable with using Terminal, you can go ahead and jump to the instructions for that, below. If you'd rather not use Terminal, there's a neat utility called Diskmaker X that will do it for you. All you need to do is download and install it and then, when you run it, point it to the macOS Catalina installer you just downloaded. There are full instructions on the download page.

How to create a bootable installer using Terminal

  1. Plug the USB stick, hard drive or SSD into your Mac.
  2. Go to Applications>Utilities and double-click Disk Utility to launch it.
  3. Select the disk you want to use for the installer and choose the Erase tab.
  4. Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format and choose GUID partition map from the options, if it's available.
  5. Give the disk a name and press Erase.
  6. When it's finished, quit Disk Utility.
  7. Go to Applications>Utilities and double-click Terminal to launch it.
  8. Type:

    sudo /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/Untitled

    where ‘Untitled' is the name of your USB stick or external hard drive

  9. Press Return and wait for the word Done to appear in Terminal.
  10. Quit Terminal

You now have a macOS Catalina installer on an external disk or USB stick. Eject it, unplug it and keep it safe. You can use it to install Catalina on any Mac that supports it.

One more step: update applications

Once you've used tour new installer to install Catalina on a Mac, it's a good idea to update all your applications so that that are Catalina compatible. You can do this manually, from the App Store and by launching non-App Store apps and choosing check for updates, but that's a long and tedious process. It's much quicker and easier to use the updates in CleanMyMac X. Here's how you do it.

  1. Launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Select the Updater tool in the Applications section.
  3. Press Select All.
  4. Press Update.
Apple Bootable Usb Catalina

And that's it. You're done. CleanMyMac X checks all your installed apps for updates and then updates them all.

Creating a bootable installer for macOS Catalina isn't difficult. If you have a spare disk or USB stick and are comfortable using Terminal, you can do it right away. If you'd rather not use Terminal, use the Diskmaker X tool described above. Whichever method you use, make sure you use CleanMyMac X to clear out the junk on your Mac before you start, and use it again to update your applications when you've finished.

If you're using both Windows and macOS, you've to deal with when mac refuses to boot. The reason behind can be from a number of things that could go wrong. This includes system failure, bad updates, power failure, hardware failure. Unless there is a hardware problem that only can be diagnosed at the apple center you can fix your Apple computer.

It is an excellent practice always to have a bootable macOS USB, which you can easily create using macOS operating system. But since we're here, you probably can want to make bootable USB using Windows 10. Let's be real, and there are more Windows computers compared to MAC. Fortunately, you can use a Windows computer to create a bootable USB flash drive.

In this article, we'll help you with the instructions to create a bootable MacOS USB installation media from a Windows 10 computer. So that you can use that USB to install or reinstall (upgrade) Apple's MacOS. You can create a macos Catalina/sierra bootable USB using this guide to fix your operating system.

What's needed?

You will need a few things before you get started. The first essential thing in it is a USB drive would be awesome if you use a USB 3.0, but you can get the work done using slow USB as well. So, in contrast, you need these following things.

  1. One high-quality USB flash drive with 16GB of storage.
  2. TransMac software.
  3. MacOS operating system image (DMG file).

How to Create a macos Catalina bootable usb

The guide is simple and straightforward if you follow thiese step.

Download and install TransMac on your Windows PC. It's paid software with 15-day trial, so you can use it within the time to create a bootable MacOS USB flash drive. If you like the software and to support the developer you can buy the full version.

Plug the USB drive to your Windows computer that you'll be using to fix your MacOS. And we are going to tell you something straightforward – backup if things stored in USB Drive.

Step 1. Open the TransMac, and select Run as administrator. If you're using the trial version, wait 15 seconds, and click Run.

Step 2. Use your USB drive right-click on it and select format disk format this will format the USB drive so that it can be used to store the Mac OS operating system. One thing you need took care of that the USB drive needs in GPT partition in order to work on a Mac computer otherwise it won't boot.

When it prompts select a name for your USB it doesn't matter but just do it and click ok. If the formatting completed successfully, click OK to continue.

Step 3. Again from the left sidebar right-click on the USB drive and select restore with disk image.

Step 4. Now browse to the location where the Mac OS system image file is located and click ok to load it.

Step 5. Click Yes to create the macOS USB bootable media.

It will take a few minutes to complete the process because the Mac Operating System is larger than any other operating systems like Windows and LINUX in size. Now plug the USB drive to Mac computer in order to install, install or upgrade the operating system to the latest version of Mac OS, which can be Sierra or later.

THE TOOL CAN

  • Apple File System (APFS) volume read support.
  • Open Mac APFS/HFS/HFS+ format disk drives, flash drives, CD/DVD/Blu-ray media, HD floppies, dmg, dmgpart, sparsebundle and sparseimage files.
  • Copy files to Mac HFS+ disks and dmg images.
    Format as HFS+ for Mac .
  • Save and restore images of disks and flash drives.
  • Create, compress, expand and split dmg files.
  • Built in burner functionality to burn ISO and dmg files directly to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
  • Read Mac multisession and hybrid CDs.
  • View partition layout.

How to create a GPT partition on a USB flash drive

If the USB flash drive is not working using TransMac, it could be still a partition problem. In this case, you want to redo the entire process again, but this time use the following steps to use the Diskpart command-line utility on Windows to create the appropriate GPT partition.

  1. Open Command Prompt as an administrator. Type cmd in run dialog or open it from the start menu.
  2. Type the diskpart command and press Enter. This will display that is connected to your computer.
  3. Enter the list disk command to view all drives connected to your computer and press Enter. This command will show all of the partitions inside of a disc.
  4. Type the select disk command followed the number assigned for the USB flash drive (e.g., select disk 4), and press Enter. This command will select the disc partition of your choice.
  5. Enter the clean command and press Enter. This erases and formats the disc.
  6. Type the convert GPT command and press Enter. This convert master boot record to new GPT.
  7. Enter the create partition primary command and press Enter to complete the process.

Quickly create a macOS bootable USB on Windows

Boot

And that's it. You're done. CleanMyMac X checks all your installed apps for updates and then updates them all.

Creating a bootable installer for macOS Catalina isn't difficult. If you have a spare disk or USB stick and are comfortable using Terminal, you can do it right away. If you'd rather not use Terminal, use the Diskmaker X tool described above. Whichever method you use, make sure you use CleanMyMac X to clear out the junk on your Mac before you start, and use it again to update your applications when you've finished.

If you're using both Windows and macOS, you've to deal with when mac refuses to boot. The reason behind can be from a number of things that could go wrong. This includes system failure, bad updates, power failure, hardware failure. Unless there is a hardware problem that only can be diagnosed at the apple center you can fix your Apple computer.

It is an excellent practice always to have a bootable macOS USB, which you can easily create using macOS operating system. But since we're here, you probably can want to make bootable USB using Windows 10. Let's be real, and there are more Windows computers compared to MAC. Fortunately, you can use a Windows computer to create a bootable USB flash drive.

In this article, we'll help you with the instructions to create a bootable MacOS USB installation media from a Windows 10 computer. So that you can use that USB to install or reinstall (upgrade) Apple's MacOS. You can create a macos Catalina/sierra bootable USB using this guide to fix your operating system.

What's needed?

You will need a few things before you get started. The first essential thing in it is a USB drive would be awesome if you use a USB 3.0, but you can get the work done using slow USB as well. So, in contrast, you need these following things.

  1. One high-quality USB flash drive with 16GB of storage.
  2. TransMac software.
  3. MacOS operating system image (DMG file).

How to Create a macos Catalina bootable usb

The guide is simple and straightforward if you follow thiese step.

Download and install TransMac on your Windows PC. It's paid software with 15-day trial, so you can use it within the time to create a bootable MacOS USB flash drive. If you like the software and to support the developer you can buy the full version.

Plug the USB drive to your Windows computer that you'll be using to fix your MacOS. And we are going to tell you something straightforward – backup if things stored in USB Drive.

Step 1. Open the TransMac, and select Run as administrator. If you're using the trial version, wait 15 seconds, and click Run.

Step 2. Use your USB drive right-click on it and select format disk format this will format the USB drive so that it can be used to store the Mac OS operating system. One thing you need took care of that the USB drive needs in GPT partition in order to work on a Mac computer otherwise it won't boot.

When it prompts select a name for your USB it doesn't matter but just do it and click ok. If the formatting completed successfully, click OK to continue.

Step 3. Again from the left sidebar right-click on the USB drive and select restore with disk image.

Step 4. Now browse to the location where the Mac OS system image file is located and click ok to load it.

Step 5. Click Yes to create the macOS USB bootable media.

It will take a few minutes to complete the process because the Mac Operating System is larger than any other operating systems like Windows and LINUX in size. Now plug the USB drive to Mac computer in order to install, install or upgrade the operating system to the latest version of Mac OS, which can be Sierra or later.

THE TOOL CAN

  • Apple File System (APFS) volume read support.
  • Open Mac APFS/HFS/HFS+ format disk drives, flash drives, CD/DVD/Blu-ray media, HD floppies, dmg, dmgpart, sparsebundle and sparseimage files.
  • Copy files to Mac HFS+ disks and dmg images.
    Format as HFS+ for Mac .
  • Save and restore images of disks and flash drives.
  • Create, compress, expand and split dmg files.
  • Built in burner functionality to burn ISO and dmg files directly to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
  • Read Mac multisession and hybrid CDs.
  • View partition layout.

How to create a GPT partition on a USB flash drive

If the USB flash drive is not working using TransMac, it could be still a partition problem. In this case, you want to redo the entire process again, but this time use the following steps to use the Diskpart command-line utility on Windows to create the appropriate GPT partition.

  1. Open Command Prompt as an administrator. Type cmd in run dialog or open it from the start menu.
  2. Type the diskpart command and press Enter. This will display that is connected to your computer.
  3. Enter the list disk command to view all drives connected to your computer and press Enter. This command will show all of the partitions inside of a disc.
  4. Type the select disk command followed the number assigned for the USB flash drive (e.g., select disk 4), and press Enter. This command will select the disc partition of your choice.
  5. Enter the clean command and press Enter. This erases and formats the disc.
  6. Type the convert GPT command and press Enter. This convert master boot record to new GPT.
  7. Enter the create partition primary command and press Enter to complete the process.

Quickly create a macOS bootable USB on Windows

Now make bootable USB using the TransMac software (follow instructions that are given above). Now connect the USB and power on your Mac computer while holding the option key and then select the USB Flash media to run the installation.

How To Make A Bootable Usb For Mac Catalina

Learn using USB on MAC (Apple support page)

How To Make A Bootable Usb For Macos Catalina

Learn more about making bootable USB.

Macbook Boot From Usb Catalina

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