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Published
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August 11, 2012 |
Last Updated |
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August 11, 2012 |
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Introduction |
In a previous article, I have shown you how MAC OS X
Mountain Lion is only available as a download from
Apple’s Mac App Store. In this article, I will be
showing you how to create a bootable USB install
disk, this will be very useful so that you can use it later to format your
machine or to upgrade multiple other MAC machines
without needing to download the 4GB installer
multiple times, or even install OS X Mountain Lion
on a machine that has no internet access.
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When OS X Mountain Lion is
downloaded from the MAC App Store, you can find the
installer inside the /Applications
folder and it is called Install OS X Mountain
Lion, it is 4.37 GB in size. Imagine having
multiple MAC machines and you require to update all of
them, without creating a bootable USB disk, you will
need to download the installer on each single machine.

The USB drive should be minimum of
8 GB in size. and be informed that the below steps will
require to completely format the USB disk. So if you
have anything on the USB disk which you will be using to
make it a bootable USB for Mountain Lion, make sure you
back up whatever data on this USB before proceeding.
As you can see in the below
snapshot, I have an 8 GB USB disk, and I named it OSX
Mountain Lion Bootable USB.

I will be using a tool called
Lion DiskMaker, the real benefit behind
Lion DiskMaker is that it’s free and easy to use.
To download Lion DiskMaker, go to
http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/
, when this article was written, I used Lion DiskMaker
version 2.0.1
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After you download
Lion DiskMaker, unzip it and run the
application. When the application run,
it will welcome you to Lion DiskMaker
and ask you to choose which OS X version
you wish to make a boot disk of.
Currently it can be used for the latest
two operating systems from Apple, MAC OS
X Lion and MAC OS X Mountain Lion. In
this article, we will be creating a
Bootable disk for Mountain Lion, so
click on Mountain Lion (10.8)

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As you have already
downloaded Mountain Lion, Lion
DiskMaker will automatically
detect that you have the Mountain Lion
installer available inside the
/Applications folder. Click Use
this copy , if you have other
copy for the installer on an external
drive or on the desktop for example,
then click on Use another
copy... and browse to select
it.

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Now Lion DiskMaker
needs to know what do you want to build,
a bootable DVD or a bootable disk. As we
are going to use a USB disk, then click
on Create a boot disk

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Now Lion DiskMaker
needs to know which kind of disk you
will use, a minimum 8 GB USB disk is
required. If you have a larger disk size
or for example an external hard disk,
then click on the Another kind
of disk button and select the
appropriate disk you want to use. As I
am using an 8 GB usb disk, then I will
click on An 8 GB USB thumb drive

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The 8 GB usb disk
will be detected and displayed, click on
its name and then click on
Choose this disk to continue

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You will be warned
that the whole content of the disk will
be deleted. So please backup any vital
data you have on the usb disk before
proceeding. Once ready, click on
Erase then create the disk

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Erasing the disk
will start, and after that copying the
installer and creating a bootable usb
disk will follow.
The process will take approximately 20
to 30 minutes or so using USB 2.0


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When the operation
is completed successfully, the USB disk
will open and you can see the content of
it.

Also a confirmation page will launch
informing you that your OS X boot disk
is ready. If you want to test it, then
you can click on Open Startup
Disk Preference, and set the
USB disk as the startup disk. Reboot
your machine, and the system will boot
from the USB disk.


That's it.
Last note : this how the USB disk
drive icon will look like after doing it an OS X
Mountain Lion bootable disk

Summary
Creating a bootable USB install disk for OS X
Mountain Lion is very easy using a free application
called Lion DiskMaker. Having a bootable USB will be
very helpful when you want to format your machine, or
install Mountain Lion on multiple MAC machines without
the need to download the installer each time of every
single machine.
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