Create A Yosemite Installation Drive
Laverne Levenstein
After downloading the full Yosemite installer app from the Mac App Store, run these 14 commands in Terminal to create a Yosemite.iso file and then burn it to a dual layer DVD with Disk Utility. You may then boot up from it by holding the option key down and then install Yosemite.
thank you for sharing this with us. If you're interested in an YOSEMITE install DVD that will also create a recovery HD (will not be created with the method described here) have a look at my post at MacRumors:
Would I be able to use these exact command line instructions to create a bootable USB drive? I have a blank 16GB stick. Do I need to provide the path to the Yosemite installer (currently residing in my Applications folder)?
Excellent work. Thanks for the solution, tywebb13! I took your commands and altered them for a script that one can simply place INSIDE the root folder of the Install OS X Yosemite.app folder and run from that context to generate an ISO on the desktop. I have further confirmed that this DVD ISO will work to install OSX 10.10 on valid VMware ESXi installations with version 5.5 of the hypervisor running. You must configure the guest in EFI boot mode with OSX 10.7 or above in order to successfully load the installer (this is what tells ESX to "prove" to the virtual guest that you are running on Apple hardware; otherwise you will get a "not permitted" symbol during the boot sequence). You must also use the Disk Utility upon launching the installer to format your target disk before the installer will pick it up as a valid resource. No special command-line hacks were needed to make this work. The formatting process with the BaseSystem image makes this all possible. Here's a consolidated script you can use in one go:
For ESXi, simply configure your VM Guest as "OSX 10.7 64-bit" and use EFI boot mode. Upload the ISO to your data store so that you don't belabor the installation process with network-attached access. Attach the ISO image you created to the virtual DVD drive and it should load with the Apple logo and a progress bar. Once you get to the installer, open Disk Utility from the menu system and format your target disk, then proceed as usual with the installation of OS X.
This is the best way i've found, I just copied and pasted the commands into a text file, saved it as a .sh, then ran the .sh script via terminal. All I had to do then was sit back and let it do it's work. It's currently burning to a dual layer dvd
I created the ISO image and was able to boot from it, but when it tries to load the OS, the loading bar stops halfway and gets stuck for hours. Today I'm going to let it go and see if it will finish, but I am doubtful. Has anyone else ran into this problem?
I'm new to the community so I hope this the proper forum for this. We recently received a shipment of late 2015 iMacs (Model: A1418) with El Captian preinstalled. Not a big deal until we tried to install Yosemite from a USB drive and got the do not enter symbol.
Does anybody know definitively if Apple's new hardware is/is not backward compatible and able to run Yosemite? In addition to the USB install we have attempted to install from a TM backup and use Disk Utility to restore the internal drive with a Yosemite image. We got the do not enter symbol after the Disk Utility restore. The attempt to restore from TM yielded this message: 'you can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac' (that's new).
Apple makes changes to the boot files for the new hardware, and so the OS that shipped with it is all that will work. Even build numbers of the same OS can matter if the hardware is newly released. That's while you'll hear people refer to being forked by Apple.
So yes you can though it would be best to update your TM Image, the way i do it is create a Network Image then you can deploy via ethernet with no issue. But everytime their is a newer hardware for Mac it is advisable to deploy the image on the New Mac and then create a new image with the new hardware to insure it works with all internal devices and older mac products.
I just created a new image that i can deploy all the way down from 2015 to 2007 iMac. Since when deploying an image the Mac is not preventing the image to be deployed it will just accept it, but when you try manually as you are doing it those prompts will prevent it.
Are these the new Macs that have the force touchpad integrated and come with Apple's new "Magic" accessories?
If so, the answer is likely, yes, they will only work with El Capitan since these models shipped after El Capitan was released, and Apple can't be bothered to back port any drivers to the previous version of OS X, even if it was "current" a short while ago.
Welcome to the world of Macs, and being forced to move forward (if you want to use current hardware) whether you like it or not.
To clarify what others here have already stated...
Officially, Mac hardware is only supported on the OS it shipped with an newer. Unofficially, you may be able to get hardware that existed when an older OS version was shipped but shipped with a newer OS version installed on it to run that older OS version, but it will not be supported by Apple regardless of the triviality of doing so. In practice, occasionally new hardware may run on an older OS with the new components missing driver support, but usually those components' functionality are so integral to the operation of the hardware that lacking drivers renders the Mac inoperable under the old OS.
@pblume instead of trying to boot and "clean" install from a Yosemite USB drive (assuming this is what you first did), did you try restoring an "already booted" Yosemite image with tools such as Casper Image or Deploy Studio from a Netboot disk (this has to be 11.11 of course to boot the new iMac from) or even restoring that Yosemite image with Disk Utility, if you started with the new iMac connected in target mode to a older one?
As the other guys here clearly stated, Apple always prevented installing previous OSes onto new HW but at times I could successfully restore a full image of an older version
Sometime HW what not THAT different and had no issues until I could move ahead to the "proper" OS
Of course, here it comes the usual dislaimer, "this is not supported, YMMV, test, test, etc etc" :-)
Cheers
Carlo
We've just taken possession of approx 50 new machines and our 'approved' 10.10.5 image for the year will not run on them! We don't generally update to the latest OS as we run EFI Fiery printers and their drivers are not always updated very quickly - as well as some other printer software we use.
Compared to Broadwell chips the new iMacs offer better performance while running cooler. But to get that to happen, Intel had to make some big changes in how the new Skylake chips do power management. As such all new machines shipping later this year (including the refresh to the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro lines) will only work with El Capitan and above.
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Now that OS X Yosemite is available, many users may wish to create a bootable installer drive from something like a USB flash thumb drive or another disk. This allows for several things, the ability to upgrade multiple Macs without having to re-download the installer, the ability to perform a clean install, and also the convenience of having a separate bootable reinstallation drive in the event you need it for serving a Mac.
The next step will actually make the installer drive from the previously formatted USB disk. If you already have the OS X Yosemite installer application in the /Applications/ folder on the Mac, you can skip directly to step 3:
If the drive does not boot, you almost certainly skipped the first step which was to partition the drive as GUID, or perhaps interfered with the syntax in the command. You can go through the process again to be sure.
This allows you to update any version of OS X from Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks, directly to OS X Yosemite, with the installer that was just made. You can also perform a clean install (which we separately address in a thorough walkthrough here), or update multiple Macs without having to download it from the App Store again. Be sure to always back up the target Mac before updating OS X, whether to OS X 10.10 or any other version, you can follow detailed instructions on how to prepare a Mac for OS X Yosemite here. Enjoy OS X Yosemite!
The aforementioned steps have been tested repeatedly and are confirmed to work flawlessly with the OS X Yosemite final release. If you have any issues, run through the steps again, or leave a comment with your specific error. If you know of an easier way, let us know in the comments too!
This is truly the best written, most complete, and best illustrated how-to on making a bootable USB drive. I followed it exactly and it worked perfectly. I now have a rescued-from-the-trash computer to donate to another student in need. Thanks!
Thank you, you saved my life. My USB was stuck in MBR partition scheme.
How come the macOS installer does not format the USB drive by itself with the correct partition scheme? Or at least tell us that something is wrong?
I did everything right (with a 16 GB flashdrive) exited Terminal, but when i was booting it up from the disk select menu it said needs 3.7 GB more of space to install on this disk.
Can anyone please help me? I am trying to boot up my iMac with it. Thanks