My MBA 2012 with OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks won't boot anymore - it simply freezes after the initial jingle. I already tried resetting NVRAM and SMC, but to no avail. I don't have any time machine backups.
However, I still have a disc image of Mavericks sitting on an external hard drive, a USB stick and access to a notebook with Windows 7.
Considering that trying to make a Windows bootable USB stick with a Mac requires tools that either don't exist any more or are not being developed any more. This second method will most likely prove more dependable. I used the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to make my usb stick bootable. But now i can`t format it. When I open my computer and connect my usb stick it is shown as a cd. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (Windows)(Virtual Machine) Which one is better for bootable disk with Boot Camp Assistant using EXTERNAL DVD Drive Click to expand.
I haven't yet found any tutorial on how to create a bootable USB drive on Windows in order to reinstall OS X on my beloved Macbook Air.
Windows Dvd Usb Tool
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
8 Answers
According to the first answer here, https://superuser.com/questions/383235/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-from-a-dmg-file-on-windows, there's a tool with a free trial called TransMac that can do it. Just make sure the USB drive is formatted with GPT and not MBR.
What might be easier, however, is that that model has support for Internet Recovery. If you boot holding Command-R and you have a WiFi connection, it can actually boot into recovery mode without a recovery partition on a drive (or even without a working drive).
Having said that, your description of a crash right after the boot chime could signify a more serious hardware problem and you may not be able to boot anything. If you boot holding the option key down, the startup disk selection screen should appear. If it crashes anyways, you may be looking at a hardware problem.
I know this question is old but it is still valid. I was never able to write a Mac installer image to my Flash Drive and have it bootable, unless I did it on a Mac. Using Michael D. M. Dryden's Link, I was able to use the Diskpart command to clean and prep a GPT partition on a flash drive for an OSX Mavericks install image.
I used TransMac on Windows 7 to restore the image file I had to the Flash Drive, it created a bootable Mac image on my flash drive. Someone had reported that the method for using DISKPART did not work, but I have done this twice and it works remarkably well, and it's the only method I could find to create a Mac-Bootable Flash. I've been trying to post this to confirm that it works for some time, I just hope it helps someone else, because it is a very easy solution.
Here are the Diskpart commands used to prep the Flash Drive, just to have them here in case my Link does not work:
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(Find the disk number)
Disk x is now the selected disk.
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format.
Note: I use 'Rufus' for all other USB writing and formatting for Windows systems, it's a great app, but I had previously tried to format the drive as GPT using that, as a Fat32 partition. When I tried to inject the image, Transmac told me that the drive was 'write protected'. So basically, the USB drive cannot have any high level formatting, the Windows system should detect the drive as 'not formatted' for this to work, which it will if prepped right with Diskpart.

I was able to do this with Power ISO on Windows but it cost me $29.99
-- I created an ISO from the original install DVD and then went to tools => Create Bootable USB..Selected the OSX imageSelected the USB drive to create the bootable image onSelected RAW mode
I popped it in my Desklamp iMac (DVD Drive busted from toddlers -- majority of OS was trashed by 5yo) and boom ready to install.
I had this problem with a friend computer, it was an old iMac and I'll tell you it is not going to be easy.
The first thing you have to do is make sure what model you have (the year when your computer has been released) then check on the official apple website to see what is the latest macOS or Mac OS X version available for you computer.
In most of the new mac computer, you can just press cmd+r while booting and the mac will automatically download everything you need to install the system, but the oldest does not have this tool.
In this case, you have to download the dmg file, that can be found on the web, for example, one websites that provides some macOS and Mac OS X is this (for El Capitan, if you need another version, I'm sorry but you have to search for it).
Here things start to get a little tricky.
First of all you have to flash the image on a USB drive, I recommend etcher, that works on everything (Mac, Linux and Windows too) it's extremely easy to use and you just need to select the drive and the image and etcher will do everything by itself, plus it's free here.
When the USB drive is ready you can plug it in you mac and press alt (option) while booting, you have inserted a firmware password, it will ask you to unlock the firmware by inserting that password, else it will take you to all the bootable drives, including your USB device.
If you see the mac logo with a stop icon over it, it means that you downloaded a too new version that is not supported from your mac, else it will start.
When it start, it won't install, saying that the system can't verify the downloaded image, that's why you have to navigate on the 'utilities' menu on the top bar and open the terminal.
Now you have to choices, change the date & time, which can work, but may not.
That's basically because every image of mac has a certificate that can expire, so, if the certificate is expired you won't be able to make it work, unless you change the date (the date is different from mac version to mac version, so based on that you have to change it, usually just search for when was that version released and se the current date to that date or even one or two days later to make it work). Then try to install the system, if this does not work again, you can start the installation without verifying the image, but you should really trust the image you're using from being corrupted or modified (just to make sure the download went right, use the SHA-1 code to make the file has been downloaded right).
So, to proceed without verifying the image, from terminal, type in this command: sudo defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify true
then, start the installation. (Is possible that you won't need the sudo at the begin, in that case just remove it from the command and start from 'defaults')
Now you should be able to install macOS from a USB drive..
Just a little thing, make sure to have formatted the disk before proceeding, I would recommend to make a partition that takes the whole disk in mac Journaled format, then if you want you will be able to encrypt the disk (the installer will ask you to do that later), instead, if the disk was encrypted before, you will have to insert the encryption key of the disk to continue the installation process.
Really hope this help, I spent a lot of hours to do this on a really old iMac from 2008.. and now it works!
Good luck!
In my humble opinion, the easiest and a free solution for creating bootable drives is Rufus.
JawaI've been struggling with the same problem but this works for me:
- convert the .dmg image with power iso to iso
- put the iso on a usb stick (drag it into your mac hard drive and mount it)
- format your usb stick with the disk utility tool. (Make sure the usb is partitioned as mac bootable then use use the image recovery and put your mounted OS X iso into the source and your usb as the location.)
- restart your computer while holding down the option key
You can create bootable USB drive on Windows using POWER ISO. You will be able to download a copy of old one version of powerISO by provided links this tutorial.
You need pen drive of more than 8 GB.
I've tried many tutorials on how to create a mac bootable USB drive from Windows but none of them worked. So, I've come up with my own solution that worked fine with any DMG I've tested. Please find the details on my github page.
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Windows Xp Usb Install Tool
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If you need to install Windows or Linux and you don’t have access to a CD/DVD drive, a bootable USB drive is the solution. You can boot to the USB drive, using it to run the OS setup program, just like a CD or DVD.
Download Windows Dvd Usb Tool
We have collected some links to free programs that allow you to easily setup a USB drive to install Windows or Linux on a computer.
NOTE: If you have problems getting the BIOS on your computer to let you boot from a USB drive, see our article about booting from a USB drive even if your BIOS won’t let you.
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool
Editor’s Note: if you want to create a bootable Windows install USB, this is the tool you should choose.
The Windows USB/DVD Download Tool is an official, freeware tool from Microsoft that allows you to install Windows 7 and Windows 8 and Windows 10 without having to first run an existing operating system on your computer. You can change the boot order of the drives in your computer’s BIOS so the Windows installation on your USB drive runs automatically when you turn on your computer. Please see the documentation for your computer for information about how to access BIOS and change the boot order of drives.
Rufus
RELATED:How to Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive, the Easy Way
Rufus is a small, portable program that allows you to create bootable USB drives for Windows and Linux. It also allows you to check the USB device for bad blocks, using up to four passes. Rufus runs in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. You can create bootable USB drives for the listed versions of Windows, as well as almost all popular Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. It’s our current preferred way to create Linux Live CDs and USB drives.
Rufus is very easy to use and the program looks like the default format window shown in Windows when you format a hard disk partition, USB drive, or other external drive.
In addition to Windows and Linux systems, you can also use Rufus to put utilities on USB drives, such as Parted Magic, Ultimate Boot CD, and BartPE.
UNetbootin
UNetbootin is a free program for both Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X that allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions instead of burning a CD. It runs on both Windows and Linux. Either use UNetbootin to download one of the many Linux distributions it supports or provide the location of your own Linux ISO file.
NOTE: The resulting USB drive is only bootable on PCs, not Macs. In addition, UNetbootin isn’t as reliable as it once was—we now recommend one of the other tools mentioned here, like Rufus.
Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator
The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator allows you to convert a USB flash drive or SD card into a drive from which you can run your Ubuntu system. You don’t have to dedicate the whole drive to the Ubuntu system. You can store other files in the remaining space.
The program also allows you to create a drive for Debian, or any other Debian-based OS for which you have a CD or .iso image.
Universal USB Installer
Windows Usb Dvd Download Tool For Mac
Universal USB Installer is a program that allows you to choose from several Linux distributions to install on a USB flash drive. Select the Linux distribution, provide a location for the appropriate ISO file, select your USB flash drive, and click Create.

NOTE: The USB flash drive must be formatted as a Fat16, Fat32, or NTFS drive.
WiNToBootic
Windows 10 Usb Install Tool
WiNToBootic is another free tool that allows you to create a bootable USB flash drive for installing Windows 7 or Windows 8. It supports an ISO file, a DVD, or a folder as the boot disk source. It’s a standalone tool that doesn’t require installation and it operates very fast.
Note: this tool doesn’t appear to be developed anymore.
Windows Bootable Image (WBI) Creator
Update: this tool doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
WBI Creator is a free program that allows you to create a bootable ISO image from Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 setup files. It’s a portable tool that’s easy to use. Simply tell the tool where the Windows setup files are and select a target folder for the new ISO file that will get created. Then, you can use one of the other tools mentioned in this article to setup a bootable USB flash drive or CD/DVD for use in setting up a Windows system.
Windows Dvd Usb Tool For Mac
WinToFlash
Update: we’ve been told by our readers that this application has a lot of adware so we’re removing the link.
WinToFlash is a free, portable tool that allows you to create a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003, or Server 2008 installation CD or DVD. It will also transfer a Windows pre-install environments (WinPE), which are handy for troubleshooting and repairs, to a USB flash drive. You can even use WinToFlash to create a MSDOS bootable USB drive.
XBoot
Update: this tool hasn’t been updated in a very long time.
XBoot is a free utility for creating multiboot USB flash drives or ISO image files. This allows you to combine multiple ISO files (Linux, utilities, and antivirus rescue CDs) onto one USB drive or ISO file, allowing you to create a handy utility drive. Simply drag and drop the ISO files onto the XBoot window and click Create ISO or Create USB.
NOTE: XBoot requires .NET Framework 4.0 (Standalone installer or Web installer) to be installed on your system to run.
If there are any other free tools you’ve found useful for creating bootable USB flash drives, let us know. Project planning tool for mac.
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