[GUIDE] Creating a **good** Mountain Lion USB

[Screwball]

May i thank you ScottishDuck for the guide!
The sequence of the Mac OS install procedure has always bugged me...It was nice doing it in one step this time!

Thanks Scrouge

 

[torana355]

OP. You should also copy the mach_kernel to the root of the usb at the end.

 

[benguild]

That is correct this process does not create that useless recovery partition. You don't need it with your new 10.8 usb bootdisk

OK, but what if you want to use Find My Mac .........
This totally prevents us from using this feature.

 

[benguild]

Guys, to confirm:
The time savings with this is negligible unless you install constantly. In exchange for this time savings, you lose these features: Recovery disk, Find My Mac, FileVault... anything else that requires the Recovery partition.

This is a great way to install on Macs that don't support the Recovery partition (ie. a software RAID) ... but otherwise it's a waste of time versus a time savings.

I ended up just restoring InstallESD.dmg to a different USB drive and reinstalling from there... which created the Recovery HD and restored the system. I didn't notice any other changes except that I could use those features now.

 

[C.G.B. Spender]

I simply restored the dmg and it installed just fine and fast. Stop overthinking.

 

[NeoMayhem]

[GUIDE] Creating a **bad** Mountain Lion USB

While this may work, it is a bad idea on many levels. I would encourage everybody to just restore the full InstallESD.dmg to a flash drive or do an upgrade instead. Both will leave your system setup closer to the way apple intended.

Save this type of thing for your hackintosh, not your primary system.

 

[PVisitors]

So to confirm (and sorry to hijack OPs thread), the simple mounting the .dmg like we did for Lion last year is still available and works for Mountain Lion right? And the said created boot drive isn't system unique, I can use one thumb drive for all my Macs to do a fresh install of ML?

 

[NeoMayhem]

So to confirm (and sorry to hijack OPs thread), the simple mounting the .dmg like we did for Lion last year is still available and works for Mountain Lion right? And the said created boot drive isn't system unique, I can use one thumb drive for all my Macs to do a fresh install of ML?

Yes, but after the next round of new Macs are released, you will need to update your flash drive with 10.8.1, or whatever the latest version is from the app store. The GM copy will only work on systems that were released prior to July 2012.

 

[PVisitors]

Yes, but after the next round of new Macs are released, you will need to update your flash drive with 10.8.1, or whatever the latest version is from the app store. The GM copy will only work on systems that were released prior to July 2012.

Shouldn't be a problem, I have no intention of getting the GM as I'm not a developer and not a fan of pirating operating systems. Was asking in advance for when it is on general sale/can use my MBPR upgrade program so I don't have the hassle of trying to work it out as soon as I get it. I don't intend to be buying any new Macs for at least 3 years from this point onwards (hopefully!).

Thanks for your help

 

[NeoMayhem]

Shouldn't be a problem, I have no intention of getting the GM as I'm not a developer and not a fan of pirating operating systems. Was asking in advance for when it is on general sale/can use my MBPR upgrade program so I don't have the hassle of trying to work it out as soon as I get it. I don't intend to be buying any new Macs for at least 3 years from this point onwards (hopefully!).

Thanks for your help

You wont have any issues with your current rMBP, but if you decide to get a 13'' rMBP in October, you will need to download 10.8.2 onto your flash drive for it to work on the new model.

 

[ianwuk]

Can we have a guide for making a DVD also please?

Thanks.

Ian

 

[NeoMayhem]

Can we have a guide for making a DVD also please?

Thanks.

Ian

Sam as Lion: http://lifehacker.com/5823096/how-to-burn-your-own-lion-install-dvd-or-flash-drive

 

[PurrBall]

So since this method removes your Recovery HD, I thought I'd point out that there's a way to get it back (like I just did) using this guide: http://derflounder.wordpress.com/20...ilding-a-malfunctioning-recover-hd-partition/

Simply run the dmtest script in Terminal, but instead of passing the Lion Recovery Update BaseSystem parameters to it, point to the BaseSystem on your Mountain Lion Install ESD. Worked flawlessly and now I have Find My Mac.

 

[definitive]

Thanks for the guide. Might try it out when ML is released in the app store.

 

[Simplicated]

So since this method removes your Recovery HD, I thought I'd point out that there's a way to get it back (like I just did) using this guide: http://derflounder.wordpress.com/20...ilding-a-malfunctioning-recover-hd-partition/

Simply run the dmtest script in Terminal, but instead of passing the Lion Recovery Update BaseSystem parameters to it, point to the BaseSystem on your Mountain Lion Install ESD. Worked flawlessly and now I have Find My Mac.

Thank you so much for the info! I was scrambling to find a way to restore the Recovery Partition. This worked perfectly.

 

[RMXO]

Can we have a guide for making a DVD also please?

Thanks.

Ian

With a bootable USB key installs ML way faster than using a DVD.

 

[baryon]

That is correct this process does not create that useless recovery partition. You don't need it with your new 10.8 usb bootdisk

What about Safari Mode? What about Find my Mac? Those won't work without the recovery partition, will they?

 

[SizzlinMo]

Choice of partition to install to?

Since this method wipes the recovery partition does it also wipe additional partitions (wipe the primary drive completely)? I would like to reinstall OS X but keep the additional partitions I use for data.
Does this method allow you to select the partition you are installing to?

 

[tfitch]

I'm trying to perform a clean install of Mountain Lion on a MBP. I originally tried the "InstallESD.dmg" USB method. (I know the flash drive was good as I used it to install 10.8 on another laptop.) It gave me the "Can't download the additional components needed to install Mac OS X" error. I followed this tutorial and it retuned this error message and suggested I examine the log file. Since I'm not learned enough to understand any of this I'm hoping one of you are.

 

[TheCybologist]

Fan-Frick'n-Tastic

This is a great tutorial...It works great and cuts the installation time in half...This works for Lion also.

 

[ethicalid]

Awesomeness!!

This method saved my A**

My sincere thanks to the founder and thanks again for sharing it!!!
I was stuck from so past few days and was struggling with the "Cant download Additional components error", I tried lots of different things including using Original SL DVD shipped with my 15" MBP 2011 but was not able to complete the installation due to random errors.

Can someone tell me what all features I'll be missing without recovery partition and if anyone can tell if they have already resolved the issue?

 

[yinz]

Great tutorial! I have a question though. How will I know this works? When I plug in the USB, the Mountain Lion installer doesn't pop up automatically. It just seems like I haves files on a USB stick. Did I screw something up?

 

[kha0s]

ScottishDuck, you saved my neck bro!

While trying to leapfrog from Leopard to Mountain Lion (long story, don't ask) on my late 2007 MPB with a WinXP Boot Camp setup, I found myself between rock and a hard place due to the infamous recovery system can't be created error. Whenever I tried to restart the installation using the run-of-the-mill "InstallESD.dmg" USB boot disk, the Mountain Lion installer got stuck at the "Installing OS X on the disk..." stage, making it impossible to access Disk Utility (or any other recovery tool for that matter).

I was on the brink of digging up my Leopard Install DVD when I stumbled upon your "BaseSystem.dmg" workaround. It worked like a charm! The installer no longer stalled at the "Installing OS X on the disk..." stage and I was thus finally able to fire up Disk Utility. Following these instructions, after verifying and repairing disk permissions, I used Disk Utility to resize the system partition, freeing up 1 GB of space at the end. The rest of the Mountain Lion installation was as smooth and uneventful as they get.

I'm pretty sure the "InstallESD.dmg" installer wasn't able to create the recovery partition because of my atypical WinXP Boot Camp partition scheme. Looking back at the whole thing, in light of the fact that the "BaseSystem.dmg" installer doesn't create a recovery partition at all, the partition resize was probably unnecessary.

Since I never did manage to see the Mountain Lion installation through using the "InstallESD.dmg" USB disk, I'm not able to compare both methods in terms of installation time. That said, seeing that the "BaseSystem.dmg" USB disk was more than 4 times faster to boot than the "InstallESD.dmg" one (56 secs vs 4 min 47 secs), assuming that the installation would also be faster with the former doesn't seem like a big stretch.

Cheers mates!

 

[island219]

Saved My Life

This tutorial literally just saved my life! I even added more pieces of software to the USB to allow me to use it as a fully portable recovery system! Thanks!

 

[SR45]

Here is a simpler USB method...

Lion DiskMaker ( US Or French )

http://liondiskmaker.com

http://liondiskmaker.com/?page_id=27

http://www.macworld.com/article/116...sier_to_create_a_bootable_lion_installer.html