And while users historically would pop a boot media disk into their DVD or CD drive, many computers no longer come with optical disk drives. As a result, booting from USB media is becoming the standard.
How you start that rescue media can vary depending on the operating system you are using, but there are a few general guidelines that can help get your machine started, regardless of the OS you prefer.
So if your system is unstable, you need to run a diagnostic tool on the hard drive, or you just want to load a Linux desktop just to see what it’s all about, let’s look at how you start your machine using rescue USB boot media.

How to boot a Mac from USB media

Bootable Usb Flash Drive For Mac

Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc. It can be especially useful for cases where: you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.) you need to. Get an external drive and maybe an adapter Just about any type of USB external drive will work: thumb drive, hard drive, or SSD. The installer software will take up over 5GB. If you want to use a.

Macos sierra sierra mac apple how to boot drive usb. If you want to do a clean install of macOS Sierra, or you have multiple Macs to install it on, then a bootable flash drive for is your. Dec 05, 2019 Right Click on your USB drive option in TransMac and select Format Disk for Mac; After that, right-click the USB Drive and select Restore with Disk Image; Point to your Mac OS.dmg or.iso file by clicking the add button. After that TransMac will create bootable Mac OS USB within few minutes. Then you can insert it into your Mac, hold down the.

Getting your Mac to load from a USB drive is fairly straightforward.

1. Insert the USB boot media into an open USB slot.
2. Press the Power button to turn on your Mac (or Restart your Mac if it’s already on).
3. When you hear the startup chime, press and hold the Option key. Holding that key gives you access to OS X’s Startup Manager. Once the Startup Manager screen appears, release the Option key. The utility will look for any available drives that include bootable content.
4. Using either the pointer or arrow keys on the keyboard, select the USB drive you wish to boot from.
5. Once selected, either hit the Return key or double-click your selection. The machine will start to boot from the USB drive.

NOTE: Have multiple USB devices connected to your Mac? Don’t worry. The Startup Manager only lists drives that include bootable content.

Boot from USB: Windows

Starting your PC using USB rescue media is not difficult, although it first requires an adjustment in the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). That’s because the BIOS settings include the boot sequence the machine follows when starting up. The boot order tells the machine which devices to search for the software needed to launch the computer and the priority each device in that search.
If you’re booting from USB media, you must change the BIOS boot order so the USB device is listed first. Otherwise the computer will load from the hard drive as normal.
Start by plugging the thumb drive into a USB port. Then to change the BIOS boot sequence:

1. Press the Power button for your computer.
2. During the initial startup screen, press ESC, F1, F2, F8 or F10. (Depending on the company that created your version of BIOS, a menu may appear.)
3. When you choose to enter BIOS Setup, the setup utility page will appear.
4. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, select the BOOT tab. All of the available system devices will be displayed in order of their boot priority. You can reorder the devices here.
5. Move USB to be first in the boot sequence.
   NOTE: If you cannot find USB or Removable Devices among the device options, your BIOS may list it under Hard Drive Devices. In that case, you’ll need to:
   • Move Hard Drive Devices to the top
   • Expand to show all hard drive device options
   • Move USB device to the top of that hard drive list
     
6. Save the change and then exit the BIOS Setup.
7. The computer will restart using the new settings, booting from your USB drive.
8. Stay alert! Depending on your BIOS, you may be prompted with a message to Press any key to boot from external device and you will only have a few seconds to respond. If you do nothing, your computer will go to the next device in the boot sequence list, which will likely be your hard drive.

In the future, your computer will first check the USB port for boot media when starting up. That won’t be a problem, since the BIOS will move to the next device in the boot sequence ... unless you keep the boot media in the USB port. Then the system will launch from that device every time.

Linux USB Boot Process

To boot Ubuntu from USB media, the process is very similar to the Windows instructions above.

1. Confirm the BIOS boot sequence lists the USB drive first, or make that change as needed.
2. After the USB flash drive is inserted into the USB port, press the Power button for your machine (or Restart if the computer is running).
3. The installer boot menu will load, where you will select Run Ubuntu from this USB.
4. Ubuntu will launch and you can begin to working in the system – setting preferences, reconfiguring the system as needed, or running any diagnostic tools.

Creating USB boot media

Regardless of the operating system you are using, booting your machine from USB media does not need to be difficult. A general understanding how your system loads can provide the basics needed to understand what is going on when you use boot media.
Creating USB boot media doesn’t need to be difficult either, although there are several options to consider.
For Mac users, we recommend visiting Apple’s support page on USB boot media. It provides guidance that is specific to the iteration of OS X you are running (i.e. Sierra, High Sierra, Yosemite, etc.) to help you get the boot version you need.
Windows and Linux users might consider Acronis Disk Director 12, which includes an intuitive Boot Media Builder that streamlines the process and offers tremendous flexibility for the type and kind of boot media you can create, including WinPE media.

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.

Usb Boot Drive Mac Os

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.

Learn using USB on MAC (Apple support page)

Learn more about making bootable USB.

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