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I recently acquired a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro that I want to use as it does all I need it to. However, it came without a Hard drive so I need to install OS on it. It’s my first Mac computer and I have a windows one already so need to know how I can make a bootable USB on there for free.
According to the first answer here, https://superuser.com/questions/383235/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-from-a-dmg-file-on-windows, there's a tool with a free trial called TransMac that can do it. Just make sure the USB drive is formatted with GPT and not MBR.
What might be easier, however, is that that model has support for Internet Recovery. If you boot holding Command-R and you have a WiFi connection, it can actually boot into recovery mode without a recovery partition on a drive (or even without a working drive).
Having said that, your description of a crash right after the boot chime could signify a more serious hardware problem and you may not be able to boot anything. If you boot holding the option key down, the startup disk selection screen should appear. If it crashes anyways, you may be looking at a hardware problem.
I know this question is old but it is still valid. I was never able to write a Mac installer image to my Flash Drive and have it bootable, unless I did it on a Mac. Using Michael D. M. Dryden's Link, I was able to use the Diskpart command to clean and prep a GPT partition on a flash drive for an OSX Mavericks install image.
I used TransMac on Windows 7 to restore the image file I had to the Flash Drive, it created a bootable Mac image on my flash drive. Someone had reported that the method for using DISKPART did not work, but I have done this twice and it works remarkably well, and it's the only method I could find to create a Mac-Bootable Flash. I've been trying to post this to confirm that it works for some time, I just hope it helps someone else, because it is a very easy solution.
Here are the Diskpart commands used to prep the Flash Drive, just to have them here in case my Link does not work:
diskpart
DISKPART> list disk
(Find the disk number)
DISKPART> select disk x (from result of List Disk)
Disk x is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> clean
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
DISKPART> convert gpt
DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format.
DISKPART> create partition primary
Note: I use "Rufus" for all other USB writing and formatting for Windows systems, it's a great app, but I had previously tried to format the drive as GPT using that, as a Fat32 partition. When I tried to inject the image, Transmac told me that the drive was "write protected". So basically, the USB drive cannot have any high level formatting, the Windows system should detect the drive as "not formatted" for this to work, which it will if prepped right with Diskpart.
According to the first answer here, https://superuser.com/questions/383235/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-from-a-dmg-file-on-windows, there's a tool with a free trial called TransMac that can do it. Just make sure the USB drive is formatted with GPT and not MBR.
What might be easier, however, is that that model has support for Internet Recovery. If you boot holding Command-R and you have a WiFi connection, it can actually boot into recovery mode without a recovery partition on a drive (or even without a working drive).
Having said that, your description of a crash right after the boot chime could signify a more serious hardware problem and you may not be able to boot anything. If you boot holding the option key down, the startup disk selection screen should appear. If it crashes anyways, you may be looking at a hardware problem.
I know this question is old but it is still valid. I was never able to write a Mac installer image to my Flash Drive and have it bootable, unless I did it on a Mac. Using Michael D. M. Dryden's Link, I was able to use the Diskpart command to clean and prep a GPT partition on a flash drive for an OSX Mavericks install image.
I used TransMac on Windows 7 to restore the image file I had to the Flash Drive, it created a bootable Mac image on my flash drive. Someone had reported that the method for using DISKPART did not work, but I have done this twice and it works remarkably well, and it's the only method I could find to create a Mac-Bootable Flash. I've been trying to post this to confirm that it works for some time, I just hope it helps someone else, because it is a very easy solution.
Here are the Diskpart commands used to prep the Flash Drive, just to have them here in case my Link does not work:
diskpart
DISKPART> list disk
(Find the disk number)
DISKPART> select disk x (from result of List Disk)
Disk x is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> clean
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
DISKPART> convert gpt
DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format.
DISKPART> create partition primary
Note: I use "Rufus" for all other USB writing and formatting for Windows systems, it's a great app, but I had previously tried to format the drive as GPT using that, as a Fat32 partition. When I tried to inject the image, Transmac told me that the drive was "write protected". So basically, the USB drive cannot have any high level formatting, the Windows system should detect the drive as "not formatted" for this to work, which it will if prepped right with Diskpart.
OK. Here are some instructions from Gizmodo that will put the ISO onto the flash drive with a Mac... they won't make it bootable though... read on...
Open a Terminal (under Utilities)
Run
diskutil listand determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g., /dev/disk2)Run
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN(replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)Execute
sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.iso of=/dev/diskN bs=1m(replace /path/to/downloaded.iso with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./windows7.iso)Run
diskutil eject /dev/diskN, and remove your flash media when the command completes (this can take a few hours on slower drives)
Now... after you read all that, on the Gizmodo page it says that if you want to make it bootable you should use a utility called Live USB helper they link to (which isn't there any more) and use a Mac mounting tool (which isn't there either!) to force the ISO to mount on the Mac so you can copy the files over. So... that article may prove useful, but probably not. I can find other copies of Live USB helper out there, but they are all Windows executables.
One method that will work is to swap the hard drive out of the PC and into the Mac. Put your Windows 7 installation disc into the Mac optical drive, and install Windows 7 on that drive. Once it is up and running (don't worry about drivers yet), follow these steps.
- Run Command Prompt as administrator
- Type to Command Prompt:
%windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, and hit Enter - In sysprep dialog that opens, choose “System Cleanup Action” as “Enter System Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE)”, select “Generalize”, and select “Shutdown Options” as “Shutdown”. Click “OK”
- Sysprep generalizes now your Windows 7 setup and shuts down your computer. Do not run any other programs during this phase!
- Remove the drive from your Mac. Put it back into the PC.
- Boot the PC from sysprep generalized hard disk. You will notice Windows booting as if it was the first boot after installation, installing default and updating registry. One or two reboots are needed, depending on your system specifications
- When Windows finally boots up, you will need to enter all information as if this really was a new, fresh installation
All that is from here, but it applies in this situation a well, since you would be moving a Windows 7 installation from one computer to another. Considering that trying to make a Windows bootable USB stick with a Mac requires tools that either don't exist any more or are not being developed any more... this second method will most likely prove more dependable.
Assuming you have burnt your Windows CD into a ISO file with the tools like:
http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html
1. Jump into a folder here http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/
2. Get the latest version of zip archive with the keyword "mac" in the filename.
3. Download and open it up on your Mac OS X desktop.
4. On Unetbootin interface, choose [Diskimage]->[ISO] and then select the Windows ISO file on your local hard drive.
5. Select the right USB Drive and then click [OK] to start writing ISO data onto your USB drive.
Once done, you're ready to boot your computer with this bootable USB drive, like a DVD installation disk.