J.P. McGarrity.com » usb boot drive http://jpmcgarrity.com/blog Focusing on the Front End Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:40:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 How to Create a Bootable OSX USB Key http://jpmcgarrity.com/blog/2009/08/how-to-create-a-boot-osx-usb-key/ http://jpmcgarrity.com/blog/2009/08/how-to-create-a-boot-osx-usb-key/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:54:34 +0000 J.P. http://jpmcgarrity.com/blog/?p=415 vintage-color

I recently purchased the Asus eee pc 1005HA and needed to install OSX (actually on this machine I chose the iDeneb method). While working on a tight budget for this project I didn’t want to drop an extra $70 or so dollars for an external dvd drive. Instead I opted for a 16gig key drive that ended up costing around $30 and will definitely be put to use way more the a dvd drive.

Below are the instructions on how to get OSX on the key and have it bootable for installation. I’ll walk through the OSX method and the OSX86* method for you Hackintosh fiends.

OSX 10.6 method for bootable USB key install

  1. Insert your retail DVD into drive.
  2. Plug in usb key. I recommend getting at least a 16gig drive so you don’t run into capacity issues.
  3. Open Disk Utitlity. Locatied in Applocations/Utitilties/DiskUtitily.app
  4. Partition the USB drive and select GUID in the options so it will be bootable on a Mac.
  5. Select restore and drag the image of the DVD on the left into the input path.
  6. Drag the USB drive into the destination drive.
  7. Click the restore button.
  8. Sit back and relax cause you will be waiting for about 20-30 mins for the key to be formatted properly.

This method will also work on 10.5.

OSX86 Method (Tested with iDeneb ISO)

  1. Insert your retail DVD into drive.
  2. Plug in usb key. I recommend getting at least a 16gig drive so you don’t run into capacity issues.
  3. Open Disk Utitlity. Locatied in Applocations/Utitilties/DiskUtitily.app
  4. Partition the USB drive and select MRB in the options so it will be bootable on a Mac.
  5. Select restore and drag the image of the DVD on the left into the input path.
  6. Drag the USB drive into the destination drive
  7. Click the restore button
  8. Waiting for about 20-30 mins for the key to be formatted properly
  9. Once the USB drive have been formated you need to make it bootable with Darwin.
  10. Download OSX86 Tool Here.*
  11. Run OSx86 Tools, click install EFI/Run FDISK, choose to install PC EFI 8 on your USB Drive.

Note*: Some OSX86 users may encounter errors using OSX86 Tool. For my Asus eee pc 1005ha I had to use PC EFI v9, which worked fine. You can grab it here.

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