Home / Apple Mac / How to Create a Bootable Mavericks USB – The Easy Way. There are many ways that you can create a bootable Mavericks USB Drive but this seems to me the far easiest way to do so. In this article I will assume that you already have a reasonable grasp of the OSX system and cut out the lengthy text. How to Create a.
If you’re a Mac OS X user then I’m sure you already know that the newest version, OS X Mavericks, was just released on Tuesday, October 22. To the surprise of many, it is available as a free upgrade via the Mac App Store. This new major OS X release adds over and will give your computer a boost in performance as well as increased battery efficiency. In most cases, you can simply upgrade through the Mac App Store, but if you prefer to do a clean install (format your hard disk and install the OS again so there is no unnecessary junk files in the system), you will need to create a Mavericks bootable USB drive (or CD if your machine still comes with a DVD-ROM). Creating a Bootable USB 1.
Download OS X Mavericks. The size of the installer is about 5GB, so it can take a long time, depending on your Internet connection speed. Once complete, the installation process will begin automatically, just close this out since you’ll be doing a clean install. Now, you will need a USB drive that is 8GB or larger; insert it and open Disk Utility on your Mac. Follow the steps in the image above to erase your USB drive: select the drive, click the “Erase” tab, select the “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format, name it “Mavericks” and click on Erase.
Close Disk Utility and open Terminal. Now you’ll need to copy and paste the below command into Terminal and press Enter.
Sudo /Applications /Install OS X Mavericks.app /Contents /Resources /createinstallmedia -volume /Volumes /Mavericks -applicationpath /Applications /Install OS X Mavericks.app -nointeraction Warning: If you already have a drive or partition named “Mavericks” connected to your computer, you must rename your USB drive to something else and then change the corresponding variable (/Volumes/Mavericks) in the above terminal command – or you could overwrite the wrong drive. Your drive will again be erased and then Mavericks will be added. This process can take anywhere from 10 – 20 minutes to complete, so be patient. You will see “Done” and a new terminal command prompt once this step is finished. Clean Install OS X Mavericks Now all that’s left to do is restart your Mac (leaving the USB drive inserted).
Hold down the Option key as soon as you hear the start up chime and select your USB drive from the boot menu (it should be named something like “Install OS X Mavericks”). Follow the on screen directions to install Mavericks. If you have more than one partition, don’t worry, you’ll be able to choose the partition where you want Mavericks installed.