Can I Install Mavericks Fresh Without USB Flash Drive?

I have a dual SSD+HDD setup and want to do a fresh install of Mavericks. Do I need to produce a USB key like I've done with Lion and M.Lion? Or is there a way to install the OS from iCloud? Can I reboot holding Option key, format both drives and install Mavericks to the main drive from iCloud?

groberts1980 wrote:
... Do I need to produce a USB key like I've done with Lion and M.Lion?
You don't need to, but that would be the best solution for multiple installations. iCloud is not an option.
The easiest way to create a bootable USB flash drive Mavericks installer is to download and use Lion Disk Maker: http://liondiskmaker.com/?p=189
It is an AppleScript that performs tasks you can do for yourself using Disk Utility, only less tedious.
Read the developer's notes before using it. Despite its name it has been recently updated to support Mavericks.

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I got new hard driver for my MacBook I don't have the cd but I do have flash drive that has the software I need help because when I turn on my laptop it shows me a file with question mark how can I install the software from the flash driver?

I got new hard driver for my MacBook I don't have the cd but I do have flash drive that has the software I need help because when I turn on my laptop it shows me a file with question mark how can I install the software from the flash driver?

Hold down the Option key while you boot your Mac. Then, it should show you a selection of devices. Click your flash drive and it will boot from that.

(SOLVED) Full install on a 2gb USB flash drive?

So here's the deal, I am not sure if this is the best place to post this. I am a newbie so I am just thinking out of my %^& here.
I love Arch more than any other distro, and I want to bring it with me. As of now I use Arch on my laptop and desktop. However it's missing on my work computer. It would be best if I didn't mess with the work computers, so I am curious about installing Arch on a USB.
If I went with a minimal install, keeping things around 1.5gb with most applications and whatnot installed, would I be able to boot it and work with it and not have any problems?
How could this be done, would it be possible to:
- Partition the USB, one partition for the boot (ext 2, primary boot) and another partition for / and home etc.
If this does in fact work, would it be slow as death running completely off a USB? If that's the case how difficult would it be to copy the system to RAM but keep /usr running off the USB so configs and files could be saved?
I know there are other distros that work well off a USB like Puppy Linux (which supports saving configs and files etc.). I have been using lubuntu live because it is similar to my Arch setup, but doesn't support saving onto the USB. I would prefer to stick with Arch the whole way.
Last edited by Google (2010-06-24 14:34:06)

running from USB for me has been WAY worth the learning of grub2 and all the other things. I run a 16 gig stick and an 8 gig stick. standard installs and have grub 2 doing double duty to boot other ISOs when desired. The 8 gig stick has 2 partitions and arch boots sweetly off partition 2. I have gotten good enough at manually modifying the grub2 cfg file. I don't use any of the errr, clever stuff that's spread out in /etc for grub2. heck with that I thought!
Also: I just mount some other drive to save bigger files. Have a vbox file on the internal drive that can esily be moved around as well. Totally totally ARCH works fantastic as a stock install on USB. I figured why complicate/dilute my learning (as I'm only approaching advanced ability) by even thinking about other distro. If there's wasn't ARCH I'd go BSD, which would be very challenging due to drivers, flash, vbox etc. Just My brief though here.
UPDATE: forgot the point somewhat. Thinking to add here: I get (regular install of) ARCH to run on a 1 gig flash stick which coincidentally I'm creating right now. In fact it has a vfat partition 1 and an 800 meg ext2 partition 2. Lots of ways to trim stuff out after install. There's a couple of threads about deleting locals and stuff here. Can save, I think it was 2 or 3 hundred meg quickly.
One thing is running a windows manager and not a desktop environment of course/obviously.
best wishes to all!
Last edited by yvonney (2010-06-27 18:32:20)

Can i install snow leopard with a flash drive?

i purchased the snow leopard family pack to upgrade 3 computers. I have installed it on one macbook pro, and finally got it to go on a mac mini. i am having an issue with my macbook pro, as it wont read the disc. Can i use a flash drive to install it? and how big should it be?

It's probably easier to install it more directly; to use a (working) DVD drive, rather than building yourself a USB keydisk. Get yourself an appropriate cable (probably FireWire) and Google or Bing search around for details of installing using what is known as Target Disk Mode, or alternatively scounge up an external USB DVD drive and use that directly on the OS X box with the failed DVD drive.

Can i install Leopard on 8GB USB Thumb Drive

Can i custom install Leopard to make it install to 8GB USB Thumb Drive?
I know in Tech. Spec. said request 9GB space.
Can i only install basic Leopard and not install languages, printer drivers?
I just wish boot Leopard from USB Thumb Drive for troubleshooting.

tonycat wrote:
Can i custom install Leopard to make it install to 8GB USB Thumb Drive?
I know in Tech. Spec. said request 9GB space.
Can i only install basic Leopard and not install languages, printer drivers?
I just wish boot Leopard from USB Thumb Drive for troubleshooting.
Welcome to the Apple forum.
The answer is simple - try it - you don't have anything to lose.
Yes, the minimum is said to be 9GB and that does not include anything for programs or anything.
I suspect the real minimum is closer to 10 or 11.
Let us know how it goes.

Install Arch in an USB Flash drive from an existing image

I want to minimize the amount of writes to the flash drive by avoiding directly installing Arch into it.
I would like to know if it would be possible to install arch into an small partition, configure it, and then make an image of it and dump it at the USB drive(like when creating the USB install).
Does it worth the while doing so?
Thanks!
Last edited by cristian.rosa (2009-03-05 14:41:11)

Sure. You could do that, then just rsync or cp -ax it onto the Flash drive and set up GRUB.

Can i put movies from a usb flash drive onto itunes?

for example a dvd movie moved onto a flash drive then to itunes or is there an easier way
I have the dvd

Yes, just to play movies on your Air? Certainly easy yes. You need:
Apple Superdrive
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD564ZM/A/apple-usb-superdrive
This one is only $35, I have it and its well made, and works on Mac
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-External-GP60NB50/dp/B00C2AMK2M/re f=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385882859&sr=8-1&keywords=lg+external+usb+dvd+drive

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro, How can I install Windows 7 without an Optical Drive?

For clarity: I have a mid 2010, Macbook Pro. I recently decided to upgrade to a Crucial SSD drive, double the ram (8 gigs), and remove the optical drive in favor of using my old drive as a back up. I am also currently running Yosemite.
I want to install Windows 7 onto my SSD, using bootcamp. Unfortunately I no longer have an optical drive installed, which makes things difficult as Bootcamp does not even give me the option to create a bootable USB.
Now, this is where things get kinda fuzzy:
MId 2010 macbooks use EFI, and are quite capable of booting from USB. How do I know? Because I booted from a USB drive in order to do a fresh install of Yosemite on my SSD.
I have read mutliple forums and threads with claims that folks have had no problems doing this on 2008 Macbook Pros running Snow Leopard. However, what seemed to be required was some clever .plist modding. I have used both text wrangler, and x-code to do this, unfortunately upon booting of bootcamp, bootcamp instantly crashes. Naturally, I can restore bootcamp because I made backups of the .plist file.
It would seem that modffying the .plist file assumes that the option to create a bootable USB device is grayed out. In my case, it is non existent.
I have also read that folks have had success using rEFIt, however rEFIt has been forked to rEFIned, and the developer of rEFIned made mention on his site that Yosemite handles booting differently than previous versions of OSX.
WIth that, I was hoping that some kind person could explain to me whats going on, what I am missing, and what I can do to make this happen just shy of tearing down my MBP and reisntalling the Optical Drive and dusting off my Win 7 disc.
Also, my Model Number/Bootrom is MBP 6,2.
Thanks in advance!

Thank you for your reply, and the information. This is what I came up with:
I added the strings as instructed, however when I went to sign the script in terminal, I was told:
/Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant.app: replacing existing signature
/Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant.app/Contents/info.plist
Also, here are screen captures of the lines that I added. Mine are the top string entries:
Thank you for your help, thus far!

Installing Windows 7 from USB flash (Macbook Air mid 2012)

Hello,
I read some famous instructions, but they are not for Macbook air mid 2012 as there are some missing options in their Bootcamp Assistant and this on macbook air 2012.
Btw, they suggested some rEFIt program which supports installing windows from usb which is made in 2010 but it has not been updated since then. I tried it but it doesn't work like it is described in instructions.
I have my USB and Windows 7 on it, but i don't know how to install it on the Macbook Air 2012.
Any help will be appreciated.
Kind Regards,

Hello,
Thank you for the explanation that helped me to understand Windows 7 installation process!
Unfortunately i need more additional information as Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide is very poor with information that i need.
To explain you better what i mean on, i will quote Boot Camp Guide parts with underlined sentences that have been confusing me. Some sentences that have been confusing me more than other ones will be additionally bolded. I will explain you why i don't understand it after every part.
1. "Introduction"
"You can install Windows with an installation disc you provide or, on some Mac computers, with a USB flash drive that contains a Windows ISO images downloaded from Microsoft. Boot Camp Assistant helps you burn the image to the flash drive."
-But i already have my iso image on the USB flash drive. There is no need to be burned again?
2."What you need"
"Boot Camp Assistant erases the flash drive, and copies to it the Windows 7 ISO image and software drivers that let Windows work with your Mac hardware."
-Erasing the flash drive? Does it mean that it will delete my WIndows 7 which is already on my flash drive?
-Copying Windows 7 ISO image and software drivers to my flash drive? Why? I already have Windows on my flash drive! Software drivers? How do i get them and where shall i place them?
3."Prepare your mac for Windows"
"If you want to install Windows from a USB flash drive and you have a Windows 7 ISO image, select option to copy the image to a USB flash drive."
Why shall i select the option to copy Windows 7 ISO image?
1.I already have it on my flash drive.
2. I don't have it on my Macbook so there is no place in a ssd where Boot Camp will find Windows 7 ISO image.
Here is the overview:
Guide is telling me to select the option to copy image to a USB drive which will first erase my USB flash drive and then copy Windows 7 and it's software drivers to my USB flash.
-But only thing that i need is Windows support software and i don't know whether to download it to desktop, or to USB flash drive.
Kind Regards,

Install Arch on USB flash drive (partitioning and UEFI)?

I am trying to install Arch on a USB flash drive. However I have few questions... in particular about pratitioning and UEFI.
What partition table should I use? dos or gpt? and from this... what partitioning tool should I use? (cfdisk, parted, gdisk... etc)?
Also... I am going to be using this USB flash drive with a new computer that has a UEFI BIOS. Should I do anything different because of this? (Have a different boot flag?)

I think you need to read up on UEFI. Depending on what partitioner you use the boot flag can mean something entirely different.
MBR(dos) or GPT is a personal preference, so asking that is like asking someone else what your favorite soap should be. There is one exception though. I have heard of some systems that have firmware bugs that won't allow GPT/bios and some that won't allow MBR/UEFI. There are also some machines that won't do a damn thing if they aren't MBR partitioned, but those all tend to not be UEFI.
As far as the tool to use, if you want to use GPT then use gdisk and friends, of you want to use MBR(dos) use fdisk and friends. Or you can learn how to use parted, which can apparently handle both. But, for example gdisk offers a number of different tools that can all achieve the same thing. Again, it is like asking someone else if you should prefer boxers or briefs...

Installing Leopard from USB flash drive

Basically i need to install Leopard from a USB flash drive on my Macbook, but i will sum up my issue: (I'm afraid i'm not a computer-"geek", so bear with me when i try to explain the issue :-))
My macbook hdd recently died on me, so put in a new, clean hdd. I now need to install Leopard on the new hdd from a DMG-file.
So, i have an 8GB USB flash drive and DMG-file of Leopard.
I formatted the USB flash drive to NTFS, and copied the 6+GB DMG-file onto the flash drive.
I tried booting from the flash drive by holding down the option key, but a blank screen shows up with a mouse pointer. There is no Flash drive or install icon to select.
Can anyone tell me, what i'm doing wrong?

Hi Dweepe;
On top of everything else the other posters pointed out, I would suggest that formatting the USB flash drive to NTFS is not doing you any favors either. NTFS is a propriety file system from Microsoft which the Mac can only read with special software install.
My suggestion is to replace your optical drive. A new one can probably be purchased for much less then the problems you are creating for yourself in your attempts to work around replacing it.
Allan

USB flash drive defined as boot device but not visible by the boot driver.

I have installed Mountain Lion (10.8.2) over Lion a few days ago. In the follow-up operations, I tried to create a USB flash drive recovery device, using methods widely advertised over the web. I first tried this with an 8 GB "Kingston DT 101 G2" device. The creation of the device either manually through the use of the Disk Utility or using a small utility called Lion DiskMaker 2.0.2 worked OK.
However, after setting the resulting device as the boot device through "System Preference", it never booted on it, but instead on the normal system disk. Conversely, when booting with the option key depressed, I could only see as option the normal system disk or its recovery partition, but never the USB flash drive, although it was present.
After numerous tests, through the so-called "trial and error" method, I eventually found out that I obtained perfectly bootable USB devices with either a generic device seen as "USB 2 USB Flash Drive" by the disk utility, or with a "Kingston Data Traveler G3" USB flash drive (both being 8 GB devices).
Now, I can understand that, for whatever reason, some USB devices, although formatted as boot devices, will not be seen by the boot driver. But, in such a case, it is a serious issue that "System Preference" accepts to set them as boot devices. I would suggest that "System Preference" tests whether the boot driver is able to see them and, if not, issues an error message instead of accepting them as boot device.
I also have an unrelated side question: when restoring a disk through the Disk Utility, is the resulting new volume defragmented and compacted by the process or not?

I can only tell you that some USB flash drives don't work as expected on Macs, and I don't believe it is specifically related to the product since they often work for others. I have five flash drives from a particular manufacturer that when plugged into one of my computers are not recognized, yet they are on all my other computers. I have six or seven older ones from the same manufacturer, same model, that work fine on all my computers. I have two Kingston Travelers that would not work as a bootable device on any of my computers. Many other users here have had issues with San Disk flash drives.
I don't know if this helps any, but at least you can know that you aren't alone.
One thing I can suggest is when you prepare a new flash drive that you go through this process:
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
This may fix boot problems with new flash drives because they are often prepared by the manufacturer with NTFS. To fully clear the drive you must both partition and format the device. Writing zeros has in some cases helped make a drive bootable when at first it was not.

How to save your photos to a usb flash drive

Hi, I was wondering how I can remove my Photos using a usb flash drive. I know I can save them in the Cloud and prefer not too. Would appreciate any help. Thanks

You're going to need a computer to do this, no direct way. For instance you could send them to Dropbox, then from there use a computer to download the files from Dropbox to a flash. Or use a WiFi transfer App on the iPad to send the photos to a computer than has the desktop version of the App, and then copy to flash drive.

After I installed Lion, my MacBook Pro can no longer detect my external hard drives or my USB flash drives. What should I do?

After I installed Lion, my MacBook Pro can no longer detect my external hard drives or my USB flash drives. What should I do?

And me -- My Mac at work running Snow Leopard reads the drive normally. My home Mac (on Lion) can't even find it....
Yet another Leo let-down.....

Can I install windows 7 on a MBA using a USB flash drive?

I do not have an external DVD drive. Can I install windows 7 on a MBA using a USB flash drive? If so, what's is the procedure?

Hi,
have a look/read here http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-create-bootable-windows-7-usb-to-install-windo ws-7-from-usb-flash-drive-using-windows-7-dvdusb-tool/
Regards
Stefan

Can I Install Mavericks Fresh Without USB Flash Drive?

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