One of the chancellor troubleshooting features of Lion ( Mac OS X 10.7 ) isLion Recovery . If you ever have system or drive issues , Lion Recovery lets you boot your Mac into a special recovery fashion to delay or repair your backbreaking drive , browse the Web for troubleshooting help , restore your driving force from a stand-in , or even reinstall Lion itself . ( See ourhands - on with Lion Recovery for all the detail . )
It ’s a commodious feature article that , in theory , means you no longer have to carry a Mac OS X Install disc or a bootable outside hard private road . But as I explain when Lion debuted , there are still dependable grounds to have a bootable installer magnetic disk or parkway . For example , if you want to establish Lion on multiple Macs , a bootable installer driving can be more commodious than download or copying the integral Lion installer to each computer .
But even for troubleshooting , a bootable installer drive has advantage over Lion Recovery . For starters , Lion Recovery does n’t let in the full Lion installer — it need you to download nearly 4 GB of datum before you could reinstall Lion — whereas a bootable installer drive contains the entire Lion installer , making installation much , much quicker . And if you ’ve arrive a Mac that does n’t support LionInternetRecovery — a version of Lion Recovery base on special firmware — recovery mode may not even be available if your Mac ’s drive itself is give problems , whereas a bootable install effort will always be there for you . ( Lion Internet Recovery is available on mid-2011 - or - later macintosh , as well as some older Macs that have obtain recent firmware update . )
The Mac OS X Utilities window you see when you boot into Lion Recovery and Lion Internet Recovery
The problem for newer Macs
When Lion debuted , I explicate how to create a bootable Lion - installer drive from the Mac App Store variation of Lion . But if you have a Mac that debutedafterLion ( any Mac from July 2011 or after ) , your Mac shipped with Lion pre - set up . In other words , you don’thavea downloadable version of the installer unless you happened to purchase Lion for another , older Mac . Apple does offer autility for create an emergency Lion Recovery drivebut , like the standard Lion Recovery feature , this drive requires you to download the full 4 GB of Lion each time you desire to install — it ’s better to have the full installer on a bootable driving . ( In our testing , the officialOS X Lion USB Thumb Drivedoesn’t work with Macs that shipped with Lion — it ’s designed for installing the OS on pre - Lion Macs . )
The solution
Fortunately , it ’s possible to create a bootable Lion installer even if your only Mac is a newer model , although doing so involve a bit more work .
Note : If you buy Lion for another Mac , so you have a variant of the Lion installer from the Mac App Store , you could use our original instructions for make a bootable Lion - installer thrust . As long as your download installer is translation 1.0.13 or by and by — select the installer in the Finder and use the Get Info bidding to check — there ’s no need to execute the procedure below . Those simpler direction will create a drive that works with all current Lion - compatible Macs . ( you could also copy the Mac App Store variant of the installer to your newer Mac , or download it — all 4 GB of it — from the Mac App Store straightaway to that newer Mac , and then start the installer . But because these may not be option if your Mac is have problem , it ’s still salutary to have a bootable installer campaign . )
When you use Lion Internet Recovery to reinstall Lion , your Mac touch Apple ’s servers , identify itself , and requests the appropriate Lion - install data . Apple ’s servers avow the Mac good example and then , take over it ’s a Mac compatible with Lion Internet Recovery , cater the roughly 4 GB of data for download . Once that data point has been download , Lion Recovery restarts your Mac , immediately installs the OS , and then deletes the installer information . The trick is to disrupt that process — safely — so you’re able to take hold of the installer data and keep it . Here are the steps to take :
You use Disk Utility’s Restore screen to create a bootable flash drive or hard drive.
The Mac OS X Utilities window you see when you boot into Lion Recovery and Lion Internet Recovery
Boot into recovery mode by holding down Command+R at startup ; you ’ll finally see a Mac OS X Utilities windowpane . ( If this does n’t work , re-start and adjudge down Command+Option+R , which should force your Mac into Lion Internet Recovery . )
In the Mac OS X Utilities windowpane , penetrate Reinstall Mac OS X and click Continue .
On the Mac OS X Lion projection screen , click Continue . You ’ll see the subject matter , “ To download and reinstate Mac OS X , your computing machine ’s eligibility will be verified with Apple . ” Click Continue , then click Agree ( twice ) on the next screen door to agree to the Lion license agreement .
Select the driving onto which you desire to install Lion . The important affair here is toselect your external drive .
Click Install to begin the download . Depending on your Internet connectedness , the download can take anywhere from under an 60 minutes to several hours ( or even , if you ’re unfortunate enough to be on averyslow connection , considerably longer ) .
IMPORTANT : Monitor the download ’s progression . As the progression saloon gets near the last , get ready , because once the status readsAbout 0 sec remaining , the progress bar will disappear , the installer will spend a minute or two clean up , and then your Mac will re-start . As soon as the screen give out drear , disconnect your external drive . If you wait too long , your Mac will boot into the Mac OS X installer on that drive , begin the installation process . Interrupting that process can leave your Mac ineffective to install operating system X unless you restart it and — I’m not joking — zap PRAM .
Once your Mac has booted from its normal startup volume , reconnect the international ride . or else , you’re able to connect the drive to another Mac and proceed with the follow step using that Mac .
unfold the external crusade , and you ’ll observe a leaflet called Mac OS X Install Data . The significant file is the one calledInstallESD.dmg , just under 4 GB in size of it , which is a bootable record image moderate the Lion installer . ( If the Mac OS X Install Data folder has a “ no access ” ikon , select the international drive in the Finder , select File - > Get Info , and expand the Sharing & Permissions folder in the Info windowpane . Click the padlock icon at the bottom of the window , provide an admin - level username and password , and then uncheck the box next to Ignore Ownership On This Volume . )
If you plan to use the same tough drive for your bootable installer effort that you used to download the installer , you ’ll demand to copy the InstallESD.dmg magnetic disk double to your Mac ’s inner cause , or another drive , before proceeding . expend that transcript in Step 12 , below .
Launch Disk Utility ( in / Applications / Utilities ) .
Drag the InstallESD.dmg disk image into Disk Utility ’s left - mitt sidebar .
Now you ’ve engender the latest Lion - installer disk image , and you ’re ready to employ that image to create a bootable installer ride or disk . As a bonus , the result Lion - installer drive should boot and endorse any current Lion - capable Mac . However , be mindful that when Apple release new Mac modeling , those mannikin will get along pre - instal with a newer version of Lion , so your installer drive wo n’t work with them . ( At some point , Apple will update the Lion installer on the Mac App Store to support those new Macs , so you could then download the updated installer and make an updated installer driving force that supports even those Macs . And so on … )
The next stair depend on whether you need to create a bootable hard effort or flash drive , or a bootable DVD . I recommend a backbreaking movement or flash drive ; a DVD will form , but it will take alongtime to bring up and install . And , of course , depending on your special Mac modeling — I’m looking at you , MacBook Air and recent Mac mini — you may not have an optical private road .
To create a bootable intemperate drive or show off drive
Note : In versions of the Lion installer prior to 10.7.4 , you did n’t involve to first climb the InstallESD.dmg picture — you could simply sweep up the look-alike itself into the Source field . However , with the 10.7.4 installer , you must habituate the mounted Mac OS ten put in ESD volume or you will get an misplay at the destruction of the restore routine and the newly make bootable drive may not function properly .
You use Disk Utility ’s Restore screen to create a bootable flash drive or hard drive .
To make a bootable DVD
In Disk Utility , prize InstallESD.dmg in the sidebar
Click the Burn clit in the toolbar .
When incite , enter a white videodisc ( a single - bed disc should work , although you could habituate a dual - layer disk instead ) , choose your burn options , and flick Burn .
you’re able to now reboot any Lion - compatible Mac from this driveway or videodisc and set up Lion . you’re able to also utilize any of the Lion installer ’s specialrecovery and rejuvenate features — in fact , when you bring up from this crusade or DVD , you ’ll see the same Mac OS X Utilities screen you get when you bring up into Lion Recovery .
( Thanks to reader Jameel Morrison for confirming this procedure and for prodding me to finally write this clause . )
UPDATED 2/13/2012 , 9:29am , to make it even more clear that this article is aimed at owner of Macs that embark after Lion .
UPDATED 2/14/2012 , 9:40an , to correct the size of it of the drive onto which you need to download the Lion installer .
Updated 6/27/2012 , 9 postmortem examination , to add musical note about Disk Utility alert message introduce with the 10.7.4 installer , and 6/29/2012 , 8:20am , to correct instructions when creating a driving force using the 10.7.4 installer .
