?: Problem with USB Yosemite Boot Drive

[greyhound rick]

Hello everyone,

Thanks in advance for helping me!

I recently created a usb boot drive for my 2009 MBP running Lion and everything worked fine when i installed my ssd (thanks to you folks).

My next project is to do the same thing on my friend's 2010 17" MBP running Yosemite 10.10.5

As I discovered, the creation of this particular usb bootable drive is different vs. the one I had previously done with Lion. I had never done a Terminal entry up until tonight.

After completing the boot drive I attempted to boot the 17" MBP using the thumb drive and I could not get past a certain point. When I selected the USB drive in System Preferences (under the Start Up Disk option) and also using the Start Up Mgr. I would in both circumstances get the screen that says "OS X" Installer" Then it says "To set up the installation of OS X click continue.

I thought i already had the OS X installed on the usb drive. I did a Verify Disk and it said all is well. Then I noticed that when I was choosing which drive to boot from that my USB thumb drive indeed showed up and was a viable option which i did select. However, every time I try to boot from the USB drive I keep getting the aforementioned screen.

I even chose the Installer at one point and it told me that the disk did not have enough space. Reason being is that the OS X is already installed on it I believe.

The name of the USB drive is now "OS X Base System".

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. I apologize if Ive missed something very obvious, but I am officially stuck!

best to you all,

rick

 

[harryb2448]

I would suggest Rick the owner of the 2010 MBP would be better downloading his/her own version of El Capitan from the App Store via his/her Apple ID.

 

[lclev]

If the USB installer had been done correctly when you started the computer and held down the Option key what should have been shown as the USB's name would have been OS X El Capitan Installer - or whatever the version was that had been installed on the USB.

Basically what the terminal command createinstallmedia does is make the USB bootable and move the install file you downloaded to the USB.

This article walks you through how to do it and also has a video that explains it:

http://osxdaily.com/2015/09/30/create-os-x-el-capitan-boot-install-drive/

Lisa

 

[pm-r]

I would suggest Rick the owner of the 2010 MBP would be better downloading his/her own version of El Capitan from the App Store via his/her Apple ID.

+1!!!! Or even more!!

And have they got a current backup of any data they want or need before doing any upgrade or installs????

 

[greyhound rick]

Thanks very much Harry, Lisa and pm-r. I appreciate your time!

Harry---If i were to upgrade his machine to El Capitan I believe I would get the installer in the Applications area of his Mac and could then make a bootable usb drive by using that installer. Is that correct? Are there any disadvantages upgrading him to El Capitan other than possibly having some compatibility issues with some of the apps he has? Thanks again for your help!!

Lisa---always great to hear from you!! Do you think i should continue with trying this with Yosemite or should i just upgrade him to El Capitan? Also, If i would have made an error creating the USB boot drive would it still have listed it as an option in the Start Up Manager? Im thinking the boot drive might be ok but there is another problem. Would I be better off with El Capitan's installer after he were to upgrade? I will check out the article. Thank you so much for all the help you've given me. I can't tell you how much its helped me!

pm-r---Yes, I did do a Time Machine back up for this project. To make matters more dicey, the MBP I'm working on now is running very slowly, lots of beachballs etc. I think if i can just get this done for him we will be in the clear with a new SSD. What do you think?

Thanks so much. Please tell me what you think. Your help is amazing. i just hope if/when I learn more about this I can help people half as much as you all have!

best always,

rick

 

[pm-r]

"pm-r---Yes, I did do a Time Machine back up for this project. To make matters more dicey, the MBP I'm working on now is running very slowly, lots of beachballs etc. I think if i can just get this done for him we will be in the clear with a new SSD. What do you think?"


I think, assuming that Mac has adequate memory installed, that you're going to be nicely surprised as to how well it works…!!! Maybe understatement here…




- Patrick
======

 

[harryb2448]

Yes Rick and use DiskmakerX to make that bootable USB thumb drive. 8GB required.


http://diskmakerx.com

 

[greyhound rick]

Thank you Patrick and Harry1

Ok, Ive learned that I need to go ahead and proceed with the install after I reboot the computer with the usb drive plugged in.

I have rebooted and held down the option key in the process and selected the "Install OS X Yosemite" drive from my choices which included that one and also the "Macintosh HD".

After I clicked on the OS X Yosemite drive i got a message that said i needed to free up space on my USB drive (it was a minimal amount). This is confusing me because on my usb drive "Install OS X Yosemite" it says that I still have almost 10 GIGs free.

I partitioned the drive with 1 partition.

Not sure what to do at this point (???)

Thanks for the help,

rick

 

[pm-r]

I have never used DiskmakerX or any other utility to install a downloadable OS X but it sounds like you're choosing the wrong volume/partition to install Yosemite, or it's just too small!!

Double check what you've got and setup, and what's needed, or maybe better yet, what's suggested for reality and normal use:
http://macs.about.com/od/OS-X-Yosemite/fl/OS-X-Yosemite-Minimum-Requirements.htm

 

[greyhound rick]

Thank you Patrick!

You were exactly right! Even though the tutorials I read indicated that a usb drive with 8+ gig would suffice (I used a 16gig) I found that I had to use a 32gig jump drive to get this done.

I went thru the process and now have Yosemite OS X installed on the 32gig usb drive.

When I use the usb drive to boot on the MBP that Im currently working on for my friend Im getting the default Yosemite desktop as if it were a clean install so I'm assuming that when I swap the old hard drive out for the new solid state drive that after booting with this newly created usb drive that I will then use the Migration Assistant to transfer the Time Machine files/apps to the new SSD. Is that correct?

Would there ever be a situation where I would want to use this newly created usb boot drive on a Mac that already has files/apps on it? I was thinking maybe if for some reason the start up portion of the MBP was damaged that this would do the trick. I would just have to migrate the files/apps from a Time Machine back up after using the usb boot drive. Is that correct?

Thanks so much for helping me!

best,

rick

 

[lclev]

When I use the usb drive to boot on the MBP that Im currently working on for my friend Im getting the default Yosemite desktop as if it were a clean install so I'm assuming that when I swap the old hard drive out for the new solid state drive that after booting with this newly created usb drive that I will then use the Migration Assistant to transfer the Time Machine files/apps to the new SSD. Is that correct?

Would there ever be a situation where I would want to use this newly created usb boot drive on a Mac that already has files/apps on it? I was thinking maybe if for some reason the start up portion of the MBP was damaged that this would do the trick. I would just have to migrate the files/apps from a Time Machine back up after using the usb boot drive. Is that correct?

To your first question - yes, you install OS X then use Migrations Assistant and your Time Machine backup to put back the apps and data.

To your second question - No one can predict when or what you will need in the future. I have learned to never get rid of something that I have created - like a bootable USB with a version of OS X on it. As for a mac having a startup issue - they are really stable.

Usually if there is a startup issue most likely there is a hardware issue and that means new hard drive and a reinstall of OS X. If it is an app issue and things are majorly messed up and with no other option possible - and it can happen - same thing, reinstall OS X. Both situations would require an up to date backup to get your apps and data back.

One thing that is nice about Time Machine backups is if an app is creating the issue you can choose to not reinstall it when you restore your apps and data after a reinstall.

BTW: I am still confused as to how you had to use a 32GB USB to create the bootable install disk. I have three different versions of OS X on 8GB USB drives. But if this worked for you I am happy.

Lisa

Lisa

 

[MacInWin]

Regarding the 8GB stick, if the drive was formatted once as an installer there is a "hidden" partition for the recovery partition which reduces the drive size as it appears to just under 8GB, so the drive appears to be too small. I had the same problem but reformatted the stick to FAT then the installer saw all 8 GB and worked fine.

 

[lclev]

That makes sense. Thanks Jake.

Lisa

 

[greyhound rick]

Thank you Lisa and Jake. Appreciate it!

The way my usb bootable drive is at this point is that it will boot the MBP and I see the default Yosemite desktop. Is there any way you can create a usb bootable drive that will allow the computer to boot up and contain all of the apps and files as if you were booting up from "Macintosh HD"?

Does the usb bootable drive always produce the default screen or once the initial Time Machine migration is complete do the apps, files etc. come up with future boot ups using the usb drive?

Thank you again!

Rick

 

[MacInWin]

If you got to the default screen, TM will not import into the account you have created. If you wanted it to be a copy of Mac HD, you should have taken the opportunity offered at first boot to migrate data from the backup. If you run MA now, it will put the data into a new account it will create and you will have a devil of a time getting to it to move it to your account, plus the permission will be set for that new account so you may have issues with tat, too. IT could be faster to just redo the USB drive and capture the offer to migrate data.

Now, having said that, I doubt your 32GB drive can hold what's on the internal in addition to the OS itself, unless the internal is really, really empty. 32GB is pretty small. But if it fits, you can definitely put all the apps and documents on it just like the internal. But to be honest, if that's your goal, you'd do better with a big external spinning drive.

 

[pm-r]

greyhound rick asked:Is there any way you can create a usb bootable drive that will allow the computer to boot up and contain all of the apps and files as if you were booting up from "Macintosh HD"?


Yes, as MacInWin explained. As long as all the OS and User data fits — plus some extra free space for running operational overhead. And it's usually referred to as as a bootable clone, that usually CCC or SD applications are used to create, also known as a bootable backup.

But be prepared and depending on the USB device used and the port connection speed, it can be s l o w to actually boot and use.

 

[greyhound rick]

Thank you Jake and Patrick.

So far on this second project I have done a Time Machine Back Up and also created a usb bootable drive w/ Yosemite.

I believe after I next swap out the drives that once the SSD is installed I will boot the SSD with the usb drive I created and then use Migration Assistant to move everything from Time Machine to the new SSD. Is that correct?

Thank you!

 

[MacInWin]

Well, technically you will be booting from the USB drive, then installing the OS to the SSD and using MA, but yes, that is correct. I presume you have the installer on the USB drive?

 

[greyhound rick]

Thank you Jake. Can you tell me how I verify that the installer is on my usb drive? Much appreciated!! best, Rick

 

[MacInWin]

It should be in the /User/<yourname>Applications folder, named Installer OS X Yosemite.

EDIT: That's "Install OS X Yosemite"