There are plenty of reasons why you might need to make an OS X bootable drive. Maybe you’re updating numerous Macs in your house and don’t want to download the installer every time. Perhaps you’ve replaced the hard drive in your iMac and need to install a fresh copy of OS X.
In the video below, I’ll show you how easy it is to create a bootable OS X Yosemite drive using software you can download for free.
You’ll need a few thing to do this right. First, you’ll need a USB stick or hard drive with at least 8GB of free storage space. (The awesome VisionTek USB Pocket SSD we recently reviewed would be great.)
Second, you’ll need that free software. Grab the OS X Yosemite installer from the Mac App Store. Then download DiskMaker X. There are other ways you can mount the installer, but this is the easiest option we’ve found.
Then watch the video below for complete instructions.
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Ste Smith is Cult of Mac’s video guy based in the UK. Ste has been working in the media industry for over 8 years and is a keen Apple fan. Follow Ste on Twitter @stesmith10 and Facebook.
6 responses to “Easy way to make a bootable OS X Yosemite drive”
Can you use this to make a hackintosh?
No.
Hi there Ste . I enjoy your videos very well done and I save the all . I am curious where I can purchase the external bootable drive you show with the logo .. pretty cool
Can’t buy it anymore. Cease-and-desist order made them stop really quickly.
wishI hadnt upgraded to Yosemite. Lost my After Effects. No longer have the installer so that was not a good move. Damn Yosemite
Is it possible to do this using Windows 7 OS for an install on a secondary SSD drive in a mac (having removed the optical drive and replaced with a SSD) so ill have 2 SSD drives one with mac, the other windows, a sort of partition if this makes any seance?