If you use the proper software, this disk will also be bootable.

If you have a USB drive large enough to accommodate the data on your boot drive, you can create a direct clone of your boot drive. How to Clone Your Hard Drive to a USB Drive # In our example, it’s “Install macOS Big Sur.”Īt this point, you can quit Terminal and eject the USB drive. It will also rename the USB to whatever is set for the installer you downloaded. You should confirm that it can.įrom there, the install process will copy files to your USB. It could take a while to erase the USB, but at some point, you will be asked whether Terminal can access files on your USB drive. Note that you’ll need to input your administrator password and confirm that you want to erase the current drive. Once you press the Return key, the installation process will begin. For other Operating Systems, Apple provides the necessary snippets you need. Of course, you’ll need to change the file paths if neither of these are true. You’re installing macOS Big Sur onto your USB drive.The downloaded installer will get stored in your Applications folder. Note that you’ll want to change the placeholder for whatever your USB drive is called: Open Terminal (found in the Utilities folder) and copy the snippet below. Follow the instructions below for another way to create a bootable installer. It may open and begin to take you through the installation process when it finishes downloading, but you don’t want to do this. Given the size of macOS Big Sur (around 13GB), it may take a while. Unless you have a specific reason to install an older version of macOS, download the most recent installer from the App Store. When the process is complete, download macOS. Right-click on the USB drive, click Erase, and select the partition table.

If you can’t find the option to set the partition table, make sure you’re selecting the “View -> Show All Devices” option. First, right-click the USB drive in Disk Utility and click “Erase.”įormat your USB drive as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and choose the GUID Partition Map scheme. You’ll want to use the Disk Utility app for this method.

Mac not detecting usb hard drive