- How To Create A Recovery Disk
- Create A Recovery Disk Windows 8
- How To Create A Recovery Disk For El Capitan Drive
Dec 01, 2016 This tutorial will help you create a bootable USB flash drive for your Mac on a Windows computer. In order for this to work you should have a USB flash drive. The one I used in my tutorial was.
These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.
Download macOS
Find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version:
- 1) This will work with the Recovery partition from any other MacOS installations you have — including another Mac through Target Disk Mode — as long as they’re from El Capitan or newer.
- How to create an El Capitan USB install disk. Step 1: Download El Capitan from the Mac App Store. If you’re a developer, you can redeem a download code to use via the Apple developer center. If you’re a part of Apple’s public beta program, you can likewise redeem a code for the El Capitan GM via Apple’s beta website. Once El Capitan is.
- Disk Utility got a facelift with the launch of OS X El Capitan. But this makeover didn’t go well for a handful of Mac users. Some of them find difficult to perform regular disk management activities on Apple hard disk drives including partitioning the disk, creating, resizing and deleting a partition.
macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, ormacOS High Sierra
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. Important: To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. Important: To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
OS X El Capitan
El Capitan downloads as a disk image. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
El Capitan downloads as a disk image. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.
- Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is still in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're using. If it has a different name, replace
MyVolume
in these commands with the name of your volume.
Catalina:*
Mojave:*
High Sierra:*
El Capitan: - Press Return after typing the command.
- When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
- When prompted, type
Y
to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the bootable installer is created. - When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Catalina. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the
--applicationpath
argument, similar to the way this argument is used in the command for El Capitan.Use the bootable installer
How To Create A Recovery Disk
After creating the bootable installer, follow these steps to use it:
- Plug the bootable installer into a compatible Mac.
- Use Startup Manager or Startup Disk preferences to select the bootable installer as the startup disk, then start up from it. Your Mac will start up to macOS Recovery.
Learn about selecting a startup disk, including what to do if your Mac doesn't start up from it. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the Internet, but it does require the Internet to get information specific to your Mac model, such as firmware updates. If you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network, use the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.
- Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Learn more
For more information about the
createinstallmedia
command and the arguments that you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter this path in Terminal:Catalina:
Mojave:
High Sierra:
El Capitan:
When Apple updated Yosemite to Mac OS X El Capitan, it made huge changes to the Disk Utility. The streamlined interface is easy to use, but it’s missing some key functions. Some of them are there though if you know where to look.
Repairing Permissions in El Capitan
The most obvious feature that Apple seemed to take away was rRepair permissions. That feature solved a few Mac problems, but, for the most part, was unnecessary. The operating system checks permissions during software updates. At other times, those permissions aren’t allowed to be changed. Repairing permissions can still be an effective troubleshooting step. Some tech support providers won’t help you unless you repair those permissions. There are a few different ways to do it.
Cool El Capitan Features: If you recently upgraded, check out how to use Split View and the upgraded Mission Control.
If you like using terminal, this command will repair permissions.
sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs --volume /
If you don’t like messing around in Terminal, MarcPac wrote RiparaCapo. That free app does all the repair permissions behind the scenes. I think it’s a little safer to run that program as a terminal is a powerful tool on a Mac.
Secure Erasing a Volume
In previous Disk Utilities, you could specify how you wanted a volume erased under options. Originally, Apple gave you a 35-pass method as the most secure erase method. In Lion and later versions, Apple removed that option and left you with a 7-pass erase as the most secure. That’s enough for most users.
Securely deleting files: You don’t have to erase the entire drive to securely erase a file. You can do this through terminal with the diskutil
command. Apple removed Secure Empty Trash and replaced it with Delete Immediately.To access that option in El Capitan, you’ll need to select a Volume rather than a physical disk. If the disk is unformatted, you won’t be able to secure erase it. That’s an annoying change.
Again, the command line comes to the rescue. You can specify a 34-pass erase using the
secureErase
command. Without the GUI of OSX protecting you, it’s easy to select the wrong disk to erase. I’d avoid using this command unless the Disk Utility isn’t working for you.Creating a RAID
I’m not sure why Apple removed this from the main Disk Utility. Most likely the reason is simplicity. Creating a RAID is specialized functionality so they left it to Terminal and the
diskutil
command. Also, improper use of the RAID function could cause problems with the Fusion drive scheme.Another option is to reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode. The Disk Utility in recovery mode does support creating a RAID.
Disk Repair and First Aid
The options for repairing a disk changed. Instead of Verify Disk and Repair Disk, the options merged. Now you select the volume and click First Aid. That saves a few steps from previous versions.
Create A Recovery Disk Windows 8
Serious errors still need advanced utilities like Disk Warrior to fix the system.
Burning a Disk
While most new Macs don’t have an optical drive, some of us still need to burn CDs and DVDs. Disk Utility was a great way to copy a disk or convert it to an ISO. Apple removed those features in El Capitan.
Need to copy a hard drive? Check out our guide to creating a bootable backup.The good news is most of these functions moved to the Finder. If you select an ISO or other master image file and right-click, you’ll see a Burn Disk Image to Disc option. That saves you a few steps compared to using Disk Utility. If you want to burn a folder or file to a CD or DVD, right-click the item and select Burn to Disc.
If you want to create an image from an optical drive the process is the same as it was in previous versions. From the File Menu in Disk Utility select New Image and then pick Image From and the name of the item you want to copy. Under Format, if you want to be able to burn a copy, pick DVD/CD Master. That creates a .CDR file that you can burn directly from the Finder.
Encrypted Volumes: To keep your files secure, consider creating an encrypted volume or folder.New Feature: Disk Overview
This is a similar overview you get when you go to About This Mac and select Storage. The key difference between the two views About The Mac shows how much space is taken by backups. Otherwise, the views are the same. Disk Utility adds some information that’s useful in Terminal like what device it is and the drive format. I think it’s a waste having it in both places.
Most Everything Else is the Same
Other than these changes, most of the features remain the same. Creating a volume with different formats is the same. Erasing a PC formatted drive is still the same, although the button placement moved.
ALSO SEE: Alfred vs Spotlight: Which Works Best at Finding Stuff on Your Mac?
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#hard disk #OS X El Capitan
Did You Know
You can use Chrome to play some of the common audio and video file formats.