How to make a USB boot disk for 5K iMac??

[roadkill401]

My 5K iMac came standard with Yosemite, but I do own a 2012 mac mini that has Mavericks on it.

I am wondering if I can make a bootable USB with Mavericks on it to run on my 5K iMac. I think it should work as my local Apple Store had what was listed as a 5K iMac but clearly had the tell tail Maverick dock at the bottom of the screen.

I am more just curious on how to do it and if it would work.

 

[Taz Mangus]

My 5K iMac came standard with Yosemite, but I do own a 2012 mac mini that has Mavericks on it.

I am wondering if I can make a bootable USB with Mavericks on it to run on my 5K iMac. I think it should work as my local Apple Store had what was listed as a 5K iMac but clearly had the tell tail Maverick dock at the bottom of the screen.

I am more just curious on how to do it and if it would work.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your Mavericks hard drive to an external USB hard drive. Then you should be able to boot to the clone using the OPTION key while booting the 5K iMac.

 

[MisterMe]

No. You cannot boot a Mac into a version of OS X that is older than the version of OS X that shipped with it.

A Mac that shipped with Yosemite cannot boot Mavericks.

 

[redheeler]

My 5K iMac came standard with Yosemite, but I do own a 2012 mac mini that has Mavericks on it.

I am wondering if I can make a bootable USB with Mavericks on it to run on my 5K iMac. I think it should work as my local Apple Store had what was listed as a 5K iMac but clearly had the tell tail Maverick dock at the bottom of the screen.

I am more just curious on how to do it and if it would work.

The 5K can't natively boot Mavericks.