Make a Monterey Bootable USB installer!

[tywebb13]

You can make a Monterey bootable USB installer by first formatting a 16GB or 32GB usb as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and naming it Untitled.

After downloading the Monterey Beta 1 installer (which so far is nameless, even though we now know it has the name Monterey) you can run this in Terminal to make the bootable USB:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ 12\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

The command for Betas 2 and 3 is

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey\ beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

Notice the unusual lower case b in "beta" for beta 2. It is lower case in beta 3 too, so it probably isn't a mistake. It used to always be upper case.

and then with public release (or even release candidates) to

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

 

[tywebb13]

There is something rather subtle here (which says more about Big Sur than about Monterey).

Notice that the first Monterey beta installer, although nameless, nevertheless has a number: Install macOS 12 Beta.app.

This was common for previous first betas before Big Sur - to have a number but no name till the second beta.

Well the first Big Sur beta didn't even have a number! It was just Install macOS Beta. Not "Install macOS 11 Beta".

It was because before last year's keynote we did not even know about "11" so they kept that hidden too.

Hope apple don't make a habit of it though. "Install macOS Beta" is way too vague to know exactly what it is. With many more such nondescript betas you wouldn't know what's what if you store them on an external drive.

So I'm glad they brought back "the number" concept for the first beta with Monterey.

I guess it is understandable that going from 10 to 11 was a big deal. 11 to 12 maybe not so much 🥴

 

[petekjohnson]

I used MDS (https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/mac-deploy-stick/) to actually create my bootable USB install drive, but it went flawlessly. I did not attempt it using creatinstallmedia

Note that MDS runs fine on Big Sur but won't run on Monterey, so if you find that you need it again, you will have to boot back into Big Sur first in order to do so.

-Pete

 

[tywebb13]

mds betas are better for macos betas rather than the release versions of mds.

You can get mds betas (usually newer builds than on the twocanoes website) at bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/twocanoes/macdeploystick/downloads/

Having said that though I think mds is more useful for downloading older full installers as apple make it easy to download new ones and not so easy for older ones.

MDS is also useful for identifying Product IDs before downloading too.

I just tried the latest mds beta build 41118 version 4.1 and it works in monterey.

You might want to wait a bit though for an even newer mds beta since so far all of them are older than monterey.

 

[Leon1das]

My experience with bootable USB installer (standalone USB or bootable partition on external drive) is that once you create them you dont need to recreate them from scratch.

Example: I had bootable USB installer with Big Sur 11.2.2. Inside of that partition is just "Install Mac OS Big Sur" app.

I downloaded 11.4 pkg from Apple Servers, installed it in Applications folder and simply moved the app to the same external USB (after deleting 11.2.2 first from there)

It booted from Recovery and installed 11.4 from scratch.

Worked for Monterey too..

 

[Leon1das]

BTW its nice to see that Monterey installation package is almost 800Mb less in size vs BigSur

My read is that large chunk of this reduction came from removing extra wallpapers - which are now downloadable on Monterey (have the small cloud symbol in preferences), whereas they came all preinstalled on BigSur and ocupied ~900Mb space on locked system partition

 

[lupinglade]

Does anyone know how to get a restore IPSW of Monterey beta?

 

[gilby101]

Does anyone know how to get a restore IPSW of Monterey beta?

I suspect you can't (yet). Mr. Macintosh does not list one https://mrmacintosh.com/apple-silicon-m1-full-macos-restore-ipsw-firmware-files-database/. So the method would be to use the 11.4 IPSW and then upgrade to 11.5 beta.

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

I suspect you can't (yet). Mr. Macintosh does not list one https://mrmacintosh.com/apple-silicon-m1-full-macos-restore-ipsw-firmware-files-database/. So the method would be to use the 11.4 IPSW and then upgrade to 11.5 beta.

Correct. I'm after Apple to release Beta IPSW files, but so far I've not had any luck. Hopefully Apple will release them soon, just like they do for iOS and iPadOS.

 

[gilby101]

I'm after Apple to release Beta IPSW files, but so far I've not had any luck

There has been a change. Have a look here: https://mrmacintosh.com/apple-silicon-m1-full-macos-restore-ipsw-firmware-files-database/

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

There has been a change. Have a look here: https://mrmacintosh.com/apple-silicon-m1-full-macos-restore-ipsw-firmware-files-database/

ya buddy!

 

[ivanpasic]

is there a beta 2 full installer available?

 

[nekton1]

Not that I have found.

 

[tywebb13]

The full installer for beta 2 is available now. It wasn't yesterday - only OTA back then. But now we can make a bootable usb with this. Note that the command to do it is different to beta 1 (which didn't have the Monterey name in it). The new command is

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey\ beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

Wasn't expecting lower case b in "beta". Usually it is upper case B. Not sure if it is a mistake. If so the third beta might change the command again to upper case B.

 

[ivanpasic]

The full installer is available now. It wasn't yesterday - only OTA back then. But now we can make a bootable usb with this. Note that the command to do it is different to beta 1 (which didn't have the Monterey name in it). The new command is

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey\ beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

Wasn't expecting lower case b in "beta". Usually it is upper case B. Not sure if it is a mistake. If so the third beta might change the command again to upper case B.

where do you download it?

if I use this command

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 12.0

will it download the latest full installer?

 

[tywebb13]

where do you download it?

if I use this command

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 12.0

will it download the latest full installer?

It would probably only work if you are already enrolled in the developer or appleseed programs. It is not available to the public beta program yet.

I didn’t use this method so I don’t know if it will work.

If you are enrolled in the developer or appleseed programs then you should already know how to get it.

It involves downloading and installing the beta access utility.

 

[ivanpasic]

It would probably only work if you are already enrolled in the developer or appleseed programs. It is not available to the public beta program yet.

I didn’t use this method so I don’t know if it will work.

If you are enrolled in the developer or appleseed programs then you should already know how to get it.

It involves downloading and installing the beta access utility.

Thanks. Im familiar with the beta access utility but once you are already on beta 1, beta access facility does not offer you the beta 2 full installer but rather an incremental installer. However, have tried the method above and it does work.

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

where do you download it?

if I use this command

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 12.0

will it download the latest full installer?

Super simple, I have a link directly to Apple's server.

macOS 12 Monterey Full Installer Database. Download Directly from Apple!

Download macOS Monterey full installer with one click straight from Apple! Every version of Monterey Beta & Final available all in one place!!

mrmacintosh.com

But like @ivanpasic said, software update should make it available in software update for download.

 

[tywebb13]

The full installer for beta 2 is available now. It wasn't yesterday - only OTA back then. But now we can make a bootable usb with this. Note that the command to do it is different to beta 1 (which didn't have the Monterey name in it). The new command is

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey\ beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

Wasn't expecting lower case b in "beta". Usually it is upper case B. Not sure if it is a mistake. If so the third beta might change the command again to upper case B.

Third beta still has lower case b, so it probably isn't a mistake.

Hence the command for beta 3 is the same as for beta 2.

 

[tywebb13]

Command is the same for betas 3 to 7 as for beta 2.

However you have to "fix" the full installer for beta 7 before you can make a bootable usb of beta 7. If you download the full installer it installs a small Install macOS Monterey beta installer (34.8MB) in your Applications folder:

You would expect it to be more like 11.7 GB based on previous betas.

The reason is that the install package lacks the SharedSupport folder which contains the SharedSupport.dmg and it is this dmg which contains the bulk of the normal 11.7 GB installer.

How To Fix The Monterey Beta 7 Full Installer

Right click the small installer and click on Show Package Contents.

Open the Contents folder.

You will see that the SharedSupport folder is missing. Everything else that is supposed to be there is already there, so no need to tinker with any of these.

Now you need to get the SharedSupport folder. So download it again with MDS and move the SharedSupport folder into the Contents folder so that it now looks like this:

There are other ways to get SharedSupport such as extracting from InstallAssistant.pkg using Pacifist or The Unarchiver, however some people who have done it that way have reported errors. So for now I think the MDS method is likely to be more successful.

After this the fixed version looks much bigger:

Now you can run

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey\ beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

and it will work as normal.

They may re-release the full installer with the fix. It currently has Product ID 002-02555 and postdate 2021-09-22T17:03:23Z

If the postdate changes this would indicate a re-release.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Thanks @tywebb13 as always.

Two problems with my attempt at doing your solution:

1. I didn't have permissions to move the shared support folder to the stub Install Assistant app with everything still on the diskimage. After moving everything to the desktop, I was able to move the shared support folder and create the situation in your second screenshot.

2. Using MDS to create the bootable drive from the full size IA, now on the desktop, I got the "successfully completed" message at the end, but the log shows:

Erasing disk: 0%...
10%...
20%...
30%...
100%

2021-09-23 09:05:39.555 bless[44812:989918] XType: com.apple.fonts is not accessible.

2021-09-23 09:05:39.555 bless[44812:989918] XType: XTFontStaticRegistry is enabled.

Making disk bootable...
Copying to disk: 0%...
10%...

100%

Install media now available at "/Volumes/Install macOS Monterey beta"

The bootable installer boots OK and all appears normal though I haven't actually done an install with it.

Any comment?

Thanks

 

[tywebb13]

I only used MDS to get the SharedSupport folder again. MDS can also be used to make a bootable usb and many other things too, but I didn't bother and so don't know about the errors you got. My focus today was just to fix the installer.

Anyway I know this fix is a bit unusual and some may wonder if it even works. So after I made my bootable usb, the ultimate test is to actually boot up with it AND actually use it to install it onto a computer. I have now tested it and it works 100%.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Anyway I know this fix is a bit unusual and some may wonder if it even works. So after I made my bootable usb, the ultimate test is to actually boot up with it AND actually use it to install it onto a computer. I have now tested it and it works 100%.

The bootable installer I made also works (apparently) in spite of the MDS log messages about fonts.

I don't understand why you downloaded twice. My one and only download was 11.7 GB.

The "SharedSupport" Folder" was in the "Install Applications" folder. Didn't need to download again.

 

[tywebb13]

I had to download again because the InstallAssistant.pkg deletes itself after it puts the installer into the Applications folder.

That's normal and had I suspected problems I would have copied InstallAssistant.pkg before it went into the Applications folder.

And you are right. If you used MDS to download to begin with, you wouldn't need to download again.

But I used the Software Updates preference pane to download, as per apple's instructions - leaving me only with the 34.8 MB installer and nothing else. Hence my need to download at least the SharedSupport again.

As I said in an earlier post I don't usually use MDS to download betas because apple usually makes it easy to download current betas. I find it to be more useful for older full installers because apple don't make it easy for them.

Obviously this was an exception, so happy to use MDS to download this beta.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I had to download again because the InstallAssistant.pkg deletes itself after it puts the installer into the Applications folder.

That's normal and had I suspected problems I would have copied InstallAssistant.pkg before it went into the Applications folder.

And you are right. If you used MDS to download to begin with, you wouldn't need to download again.

But I used the Software Updates preference pane to download, as per apple's instructions - leaving me only with the 34.8 MB installer and nothing else. Hence my need to download at least the SharedSupport again.

As I said in an earlier post I don't usually use MDS to download betas because apple usually makes it easy to download current betas. I find it to be more useful for older full installers because apple don't make it easy for them.

Obviously this was an exception, so happy to use MDS to download this beta.

Thanks, understand.

Since it seems likely that Apple will rectify this I will wait for now, though I appear to have a working bootable installer if needed. The font messages make me uneasy.