Geek Posted February 17, 2012 Posted February 17, 2012 <div class="KonaBody"><p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/os-x-mountain-lion-boot-installer.jpg" alt="OS X Mountain Lion Bootable Installer" title="os-x-mountain-lion-boot-installer" width="522" height="500" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27402" /></p> <p><a href="http://osxdaily.com/tag/mac-os-x-10-8/">OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion</a> will be offered exclusively through the App Store, familiar territory for Apple since OS X Lion was provided the same way. Thankfully it’s still possible to create a bootable OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installer from any USB drive, be it a flash key or external hard drive. </p> <p>By creating a bootable install drive, you can perform clean OS X 10.8 installs, install it on separate partitions, and install OS X Mountain Lion on Macs that don’t have internet connections. We’ll walk through the process here, but don’t forget to <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/16/os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-system-requirements/">check OS X 10.8 system requirements</a> for the destination Mac before beginning.</p> <p><span id="more-27401"></span> If you already have the Mac OS X Mountain Lion install DMG extracted, skip this first set of steps and jump directly to making the bootable drive below.</p> <h2 style="font-size:1.2em;">Download OS X Mountain Lion and Extract the DMG File</h2> <ol> <li>Download OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion from the App Store </li> <li>Go to the /Applications/ directory and right-click on “Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app” selecting “Show Package Contents”</li> <li>Open the “Contents” directory and then open “SharedSupport”, looking for a file named “InstallESD.dmg”</li> <li>Double-click on InstallESD.dmg to mount it on the desktop</li> </ol> <h2 style="font-size:1.3em;">Make the OS X Mountain Lion Install Drive</h2> <ol> <li>Launch Disk utility and connect a USB drive to the Mac</li> <li>Select the USB drive from the left menu and click on “Erase” tab, choose “Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)” as the format, then click on the “Erase” button in the corner</li> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/format-drive-as-bootable-for-os-x-mt-lion.jpg" alt="Format Drive as Bootable for Mac OS X Mountain Lion" title="format-drive-as-bootable-for-os-x-mt-lion" width="600" height="500" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27406" /></p> <li>Now select the formatted USB drive from the left side and click on the “Restore” tab</li> <li>Drag the previously mounted “Mac OS X Install ESD” image into the “Source” section</li> <li>Drag the formatted partition to the “Destination” section, then click on “Restore”</li> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/create-os-x-mountain-lion-installer.jpg" alt="Create the OS X Mountain Lion Installer" title="create-os-x-mountain-lion-installer" width="600" height="485" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27407" /></p> <li>Confirm that the USB drive will lose it’s data and enter the Admin password when asked</li> </ol> <p>Disk Utility will now create a bootable OS X Mountain Lion installer drive out of USB drive using the disk image, this can take a little while depending on how fast the drive and Mac are but 20-30 minutes isn’t unusual. </p> <p>When finished, reboot the Mac and hold down the Option key to bring up the boot menu:</p> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/mac-boot-screen.jpg" alt="Mac Boot Screen" title="mac-boot-screen" width="578" height="259" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27405" /></p> <p>Select the orange “Mac OS X” option and you will boot into the OS X Mountain Lion installer, from here installation is the same as normal. Click on Continue, select the destination drive, and install. </p> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/install-os-x-mountain-lion.jpg" alt="Install OS X Mountain Lion" title="install os x mountain lion" width="620" height="499" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27410" /></p> </div> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/4J_-UTtmaJqvghxAf2cRAXiva58/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/4J_-UTtmaJqvghxAf2cRAXiva58/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a><br/> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/4J_-UTtmaJqvghxAf2cRAXiva58/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/4J_-UTtmaJqvghxAf2cRAXiva58/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:D7DqB2pKExk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:D7DqB2pKExk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=7YKNdRNQ4tM:HkOb0TR6VDc:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/osxdaily/~4/7YKNdRNQ4tM" height="1" width="1"/> View the full article
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