Advertisement Linux has long been synonymous with bootable flash drives, whether it’s to fix some sort of problem with your primary OS, or for trialling and installing USB drives are great, not just for installing portable versions of Linux but for protecting your computer when things go awry. Here are the 5 most useful Linux distributions for installing on a USB drive. There are a few ways to get a create live USB sticks that will boot on your Mac. You can go the freeware route for an easy option, or put a little bit of time into creating the drive yourself using Terminal. Today we’ll cover both these methods! First: Prepare Your USB Drive Make sure you choose the right USB drive for the job, and that it’s formatted correctly to avoid any problems. Some Linux variants may require larger volumes, so pay attention to the requirements when downloading. Others don’t have any strict requirements, but formatting to FAT beforehand is a good idea: Warning: Everything on your drive will be erased if you do this!.
Insert your USB drive into your Mac and launch Disk Utility (under Applications Utilities, or Today we're going to share our favourite good Mac habits, while desperately trying to forget the bad ones.). Select your USB device in the menu on the left, then click Erase.
Give it a name (or not) and choose MS-DOS (FAT) under “Format” and GUID Partition Map under “Scheme.”. Hit Erase to apply the changes. If it fails, try again — sometimes the system doesn’t unmount the volume in time and the process will be unable to complete. Generally speaking anything above 4GB will do the job (I used an 8GB Lexar for this tutorial). If you have persistent problems, try another USB drive.
Jun 22, 2013 How to Boot a Mac from an External Drive or Alternate. For OS X Mavericks or prior versions of Mac OS X, a mirrored external hard drive made through SuperDuper, or even a boot disc. Any Mac running Lion (10.7) or newer will also be able to use the Boot Manager to startup from the Recovery partition. To do a clean install of.
Method 1: Create a Live USB Using Etcher (Easy) is a free open source tool for burning disc images onto USB and SD drives. It’s a relatively recent addition to the When most people think open source, they think Linux. But Mac OS X has its share of quality open source programs as well — and a bunch of them aren't available for Linux or Windows., and it makes creating bootable devices completely foolproof:. Grab your desired Linux image, then and install it. Insert your USB stick, then launch Etcher. Click Select image and find the Linux image you downloaded — Etcher supports.IMG,.ISO and.ZIP among others. Ensure the correct USB device is selected — hit Change to see a list of connected devices.
Finalize the process by clicking Flash! And wait for the process to complete. You’ll likely see an error message warning you that your USB drive isn’t compatible with your Mac. That’s normal — simply eject and go. Your bootable Linux USB drive is now ready, you can now skip to the Booting Your USB Drive section below. Method 2: Create a Live USB Using the Terminal (Moderate) If for some reason you don’t want to use Etcher (maybe you’re on an incompatible version of macOS), you can accomplish this task using the command line.
This is possible using Terminal, your Mac’s built-in command line interface. While this method requires a little more thought and patience on your part, it’s actually pretty straightforward.
You might even learn a thing or two, plus you’ll feel smart afterwards. Assuming you’ve formatted your drive as per the instructions at the start of this tutorial, here’s how it works: 1.
Convert Your.ISO Launch Terminal and take note of where your Linux disc image is stored in Finder. Convert your image (usually an.ISO) to an.IMG file using the hdiutil convert command: hdiutil convert /path/to/downloaded.iso -format UDRW -o /path/to/newimage Replace /path/to/downloaded.iso with the location of your own.ISO (you can drag and drop directly into the Terminal window if you want) and /path/to/newimage to wherever you want the new image file to be created. You’ll likely be able to identify the drive by its name, it’s format, and its size using a process of elimination. Take a note of the listing under the IDENTIFIER column, then unmount the drive using the following command: diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX You’ll need to replace diskX with the corresponding number, e.g. Disk3 — if successful Terminal will report that the disk was unmounted.
If you’re having trouble unmounting a drive, you can launch Disk Utility, right click on a drive, then choose Unmount (don’t eject the drive, though). The final step is to write the image to your USB stick, using the dd command: sudo dd if=/path/to/newimage.dmg of=/dev/diskN bs=1m Replace /path/to/newimage.dmg with the path to the file we created in step 1 (again, drag and drop works best), and diskN with the location we identified earlier. You’ll need to authorize with your administrator password immediately afterwards, since we used the sudo command. You’re done, and your drive is ready for booting.
Booting Your USB Drive Assuming all went well, you’ll now have a USB drive that will let you boot Linux. You can plug it into the Mac you want to use it on, then shut down the computer. In order to access your Mac’s boot menu, you’ll need to hold the option (alt) key while it boots. The best way to do this is to shut down, hold the option key, start your Mac, and wait. If you did it correctly you’ll see a few options including your built-in hard drive, and the USB device we created earlier titled “EFI Boot.” To boot into Linux, select the USB device and click the arrow (or double click). Depending on what you’re using, you may get another menu which acts as a bootloader for your particular flavor of Linux.
If you have problems, or your USB drive won’t show up, try running the process again, try using an alternative method above, try a different USB stick or port, and consult your respective distro’s help documentation. The Best Way to Try Linux on Your Mac Assuming all went well, you now have Linux running on your Mac and you can test it out or install it outright if you’re tired of macOS. You still have an If you are looking to ditch macOS, you may want to delete your recovery partition for some extra disk space. Later you also may want to restore it. Here's how to do both. which can be accessed by holding command+r while your machine boots.
This can Need to restore your Mac to factory settings? Here's how to install a fresh copy of macOS and erase everything.
Among other things if you decide to go back. There are other tools that claim to help you do this, but not all of them work, and some cost money. Is still a popular choice for Linux and Windows users, but it hasn’t been able to create Mac-bootable USB drives for years.
I tested it again for this article, it failed miserably and was generally unpleasant to use. There’s also our old favorite, which is open source and actively maintained. It’ll cost you $5 for a pre-compiled binary, assuming you don’t want to download and compile it yourself. This low entry fee helps keep the project maintained, but it’s hard to justify paying for something Etcher or Terminal can do for free.
And, if you need help Want to install macOS from a USB drive? We'll walk you through this alternative method for installing macOS., we have you covered there as well. Explore more about:,.
There are many different reasons to make an exact clone of your hard drive. Suppose your laptop is damaged and you must send it in for repair.
In the meantime, you not only have to borrow another computer for the duration of the repair, you also don't have your data, applications and work environment exactly as they were on your machine. This lack of organization can be very frustrating and inhibit your productivity. When you get your machine back from repair, you have to deal with locating any modified documents on your loaner computer and copying them to your original computer. Also, Apple recommends that you backup your data before sending in a machine for repairs because they are not responsible for lost data. In this situation, it would be ideal to simply copy off the entire contents of your hard drive to an external hard drive — to create a 'bootable clone' of your production machine.
You can then boot a loaner machine from this bootable clone and work from it as if working from your original machine (see the related documentation below for common questions related to running another Mac from your backup). When you need a complete, simple backup of your entire hard drive:.
Open Carbon Copy Cloner. Choose the volume that you want to clone from the Source selector. Choose a from the Destination menu. Click the Clone button If you want to update your cloned volume in the future, simply run the same task (or schedule it so it runs automatically) and CCC will update the backup volume with only the items that have changed since your last backup. Use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to migrate data from a CCC backup to a new Mac Another scenario in which it would be desirable to do a full-volume clone is when you have purchased a new Mac and you would like to move everything from your old Mac to your new Mac.
When you get a new computer from Apple, though, it has a specific version of macOS installed on it, and further, a hardware-specific 'build'. Your new Macintosh cannot boot from the older version and build of macOS that is installed on your older Mac, so simply cloning your old Mac onto your new Mac won't work. Due to this limitation, we recommend that you use the Setup Assistant application (runs on your Mac's very first boot) or the Migration Assistant application to migrate content from your old Mac to a new Macintosh.
You can migrate directly from a CCC backup of your old Mac. Once you have migrated your user accounts and applications using Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, you can continue to use Carbon Copy Cloner to back up your Mac to the same backup volume that you were using for the old Mac.
Migration Assistant and the CCC SafetyNet If your backup volume has a 'CCC SafetyNet' folder, you can move that folder to the Trash before using Migration Assistant to avoid copying that folder during a migration. This is particularly important if that folder has a lot of data in it and you're migrating to a disk that is smaller than the backup volume. If you would like to retain the SafetyNet folder on the backup volume, don't empty the Trash. After Migration Assistant has completed, then you can move the SafetyNet folder back to the root of the backup volume. Related Documentation.