Creating an OSX Yosemite USB Install Drive

This post is from my blog.

Unfortunately, creating a bootable OSX USB install drive isn’t as simple as it should be. I think that we should have than easy way to create a USB drive instead of having to resort to guides like this!

1: Download Yosemite (if it opens the installer afterwards, close it with Command+Q)

2: Format a USB drive

• Find a USB drive that is at least 8GB in size
• Open Disk Utility, select the USB drive on the left & choose Partition on the right side of the window.
• Select the dropdown and choose 1 partition, set the format to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and set the Name to anything you want. I’m using “Install”
• Click on the options button below and select the “GUID Partition Table” option & click OK
• Click Apply and confirm to format the drive

3: Open Terminal.app and run this command (changing the drive name, if you changed it). You will be asked for your password. This command will take a few minutes so don’t interrupt it!

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/Install —applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app —nointeraction

4: Eject the drive and you are ready to install Yosemite!

5: When restarting, hold the ALT key as soon as your Mac powers on to show a list of devices to boot from and choose your newly created drive