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Tutorial How to create a bootable OS X disk

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Having a bootable OS X disk lying around is incredibly useful. You can use it to access startup repair, enter recovery mode, and even completely reinstall OS X. The only method I'm going to cover in this post is using Terminal.

Terminal
This is arguably the harder of the two, but it doesn't require you to download another program. That said, it's still pretty easy to set up for yourself. The first thing you're going to want to do is download the copy of OS X you want to use from the Mac App Store. That way we have a recovery image to work with. For the sake of the thread, we are going to use OS X El Capitan.

1. Go to the Mac App Store, select, and download
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After that is downloaded, you should see an icon in your applications folder like this one:
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2. Plug your USB in and open Disk Utility. Click "Erase" and fill in the info exactly like this (the boxes and layout might be different, but the information should still be the same):
hAGLyon.png
3. Open Terminal and paste this command in:
Code:
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/OSXElCapitan --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app --nointeraction.

It will ask you to put in your password since you are using the sudo command. Your password will not show up so make sure you type it in carefully. After you type it in you'll be presented with a small progress screen screen saying something along the lines of "Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%..."
The tool is very barebones so that's really all the info you'll get until it's done.
Setting up your bootable disk using this method has the highest success rate and has been shown to be the most reliable method.

To boot to this bootable drive, restart your macbook and hold option while it's booting. A screen will show up that usually contains your normal hard drive, your recovery disk, and the bootable disk you just finished creating. Click the little arrow under the bootable disk to boot to and access the tools and image on the disk.
 
Operating System
  1. Mac OS
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