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How to make an Uber macOS multi-boot drive

ZombiePhysicist

ZombiePhysicist

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May 22, 2014
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So as of a while ago, I think Big Sur, you can no longer make bootable full macOS boot drives on a USB thumbstick:
forums.macrumors.com

USB Thumb Drives and SD Cards Not Bootable as of macOS Big Sur or Later (was: M1 Macs, boot system from USB Thumb Drives/SD cards possible?)

UPDATE Nov 16 2021: Apple removed the ability to have a bootable desktop system on a USB Thumb Drive or SD card as of Big Sur, you can no longer do so. You can with earlier versions of the OS (which may be related to APFS vs HFS+ formatting). You still can make a USB Installer USB thumb drive (I...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

I used to have a bootable USB thumb drive per OS to make it easy to boot in each in a nice folder, but that's no longer possible (see above thread).

However, apparently, it might be possible to make an UBER SSD with multiple partitions, each having it's own OS that you can select to boot (via command option at boot/chime time).

Has anyone made such an SSD must-boot drive? I was hoping to make one with as many macOSs going back as far as possible and hoping someone may have done this already. Yes, ideally it would go back all the way to macOS1, but at this point I'll take what I can get and go back through the intel days (if I can go back to PPC days, bonus, further back, bonus still).

My worry is how to correctly format different portions and if there are any conflicts with regard to HFS+/APFS, and all the recovery partitions etc. that modern macOSs make. It seems like each install could clobber other installs. Some IT/OS milestones to keep in mind if youre trying to make your own UBER macOS Boot Drive.

But I'd basically like a Swiss army knife of macOS so no matter what machine I have, I can boot into the right OS and recover files etc.

Apple, being total bastards, has made all this unnecessarily difficult, and you cant even save your old macOS installers anymore for more current OSs, you have to download from apple just to install. Annoying.

Thanks for any pointers/advice/help!
 
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theMarble said:
Are you meaning a full install that goes to the desktop or the installer disc?
Click to expand...

Yes, to the desktop. I used to boot to the desktop and have an installer app there, so I could install from that desktop. Also, I could do emergency/recovery work from that desktop.
 
Well then what you do depends on what you are wanting. I highly doubt it would be possible to have both APM and GPT maps on a single drive, meaning that you will have to have one drive for PPC machines and another for Intel and ASi.

Within a GPT drive, first partition the drive to be HFS+ and then partition again into however many OS installs you want. Format Tiger-Sierra installs again as HFS+ and then lastly format the HS-Ventura partition as APFS.

With an APM drive, you can partition it into whatever you want without any hiccups. Just make sure to use HFS+. I'd stick with OS X as systems that run OS 8-9 can sometimes be buggy with booting USB's and some not at all. (mainly MPC106 systems like the B/W)
 
ZombiePhysicist said:
how do you install an older OS from a newer OS?
Click to expand...
You will need to have a period-accurate machine that can boot from a USB installer. An older OS, let's say Mojave won't install directly from Monterey.

I originally used my 17" MacBook Pro to make my Snow Leopard bootable disc and my iMac G4 to make a Leopard disc. For me, my 2011 MacBook Pro would be a great system to make a big Intel disc as it natively supports Snow Leopard through to High Sierra, so would my TiBook for PPC since it supports Jaguar through to Leopard.
 
theMarble said:
You will need to have a period-accurate machine that can boot from a USB installer. An older OS, let's say Mojave won't install directly from Monterey.

I originally used my 17" MacBook Pro to make my Snow Leopard bootable disc and my iMac G4 to make a Leopard disc.
Click to expand...

Ug. So you have to make a USB installer to launch from that machine to install, and only then can you make a desktop. The absolute idiot tedium this forces on people. Bleh. What a nightmare. Just F' apple. this is just useless tedium for no good reason.
 
ZombiePhysicist said:
The absolute idiot tedium this forces on people. Bleh. What a nightmare. Just F' apple. this is just useless tedium for no good reason.
Click to expand...
It makes total sense to me. How are you meant to make a fully bootable install for an older OS that a newer system never supported, let alone while booted into a new macOS version. Also, how you are you meant to install a PowerPC OS onto an ASi or Intel machine, directly on hardware, not in a VM. The CPU architecture is completely different.
 
So basically, you need to make a USB installer of the absolute oldest OS to install on a machine capable of running that old of an OS. From there you could put a bunch of newer installers to maybe make newer partitions?
 
theMarble said:
It makes total sense to me. How are you meant to make a fully bootable install for an older OS that a newer system never supported, let alone while booted into a new macOS version. Also, how you are you meant to install a PowerPC OS onto an ASi or Intel machine, directly on hardware, not in a VM. The CPU architecture is completely different.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure old installers could downward install. It just Builds a kick disk and could install off that. No different than forcing you through the tedium of building a USB installer. The DMG you need for the USB installer literally comes out of the install app.
 
ZombiePhysicist said:
So basically, you need to make a USB installer of the absolute oldest OS to install on a machine capable of running that old of an OS. From there you could put a bunch of newer installers to maybe make newer partitions?
Click to expand...
Yes.

This is how I could make an Intel wide installer (Tiger to Monterey), this is excluding OCLP since that won't work on other systems apart from what was originally configured when making the USB.

3 machines of mine that I will need: 2006 MacBook Pro, 2011 MacBook Pro, 2015 MacBook Pro.

1. Use the 2006 Pro to install Tiger and Leopard.
2. Use the 2011 Pro to install Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra
3. Erase the HS-Monterey partitions as APFS from the 2015 Pro.
4. Use the 2015 Pro to install High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey.

If I had any leftover space, I could make installer/recovery discs for the dosdude1 patcher, eg: to get Mojave and Catalina onto the 2011 Pro.

I would do my PPC disc using my TiBook since it support Jaguar to Leopard + OS 9. Make all installers in HFS+ with APM and install from disc or USB (you could use USB but I have discs for all releases). I would make Cheetah and Puma partitions but I don't think that my TiBook supports those, and the only older systems I have is my G3 Blue and White, which doesn't support USB booting.
 
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theMarble said:
Yes.

This is how I could make an Intel wide installer (Tiger to Monterey), this is excluding OCLP since that won't work on other systems apart from what was originally configured when making the USB.

3 machines of mine that I will need: 2006 MacBook Pro, 2011 MacBook Pro, 2015 MacBook Pro.

1. Use the 2006 Pro to install Tiger and Leopard.
2. Use the 2011 Pro to install Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra
3. Erase the HS-Monterey partitions as APFS from the 2015 Pro.
4. Use the 2015 Pro to install High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey.

If I had any leftover space, I could make installer/recovery discs for the dosdude1 patcher, eg: to get Mojave and Catalina onto the 2011 Pro.

I would do my PPC disc using my TiBook since it support Jaguar to Leopard + OS 9. Make all installers in HFS+ with APM and install from disc or USB (you could use USB but I have discs for all releases). I would make Cheetah and Puma partitions but I don't think that my TiBook supports those, and the only older systems I have is my G3 Blue and White, which doesn't support USB booting.
Click to expand...

Someone needs to do all this tedium and make one mega disk image for everyone! :D

You would think they'd want something liek this internal at apple.
 
ZombiePhysicist said:
Someone needs to do all this tedium and make one mega disk image for everyone!
Click to expand...
It wouldn't be able to directly restore on to a USB drive, since the OS installers use different partition schemes (eg: Big Sur won't install on HFS+, Tiger won't install on APFS).

In theory, a rip of all installers is available. You can get Lion to Ventura (excluding Mavericks) from Apple Support, Snow Leopard (10.6.7 for Sandy Bridge Macs) and Mavericks from Internet Archive and older versions from Macintosh Garden.
 
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So here is a basic problem. I use guides like this:

osxdaily.com

How to Make a Bootable MacOS Mojave Installer Drive

Want to make a MacOS Mojave bootable USB installer drive? It’s pretty easy to do, as long as you have the MacOS Mojave installer app and a USB flash drive. Much like prior versions of Mac OS,…
osxdaily.com osxdaily.com

They have direct links, but those links take me to the App Store and the App Store does not want to download the older version. How do you even download these to make a USB?
 
ZombiePhysicist said:
How do you even download these to make a USB?
Click to expand...
Don't bother with other websites:

How to download macOS - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Create a bootable installer for macOS - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

For versions pre-Mavericks (which don't use createinstallmedia), use ASR in Terminal:

sudo asr restore --source drag_your_OSX_installer_volume_here --target drag_your_USB_stick_here -erase -noverify

Make sure to mount the DMG and drag in the volume from the Computer folder in Finder.
 
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theMarble said:
Don't bother with other websites:

How to download macOS - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Create a bootable installer for macOS - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

For versions pre-Mavericks (which don't use createinstallmedia), use ASR in Terminal:

sudo asr restore --source drag_your_OSX_installer_volume_here --target drag_your_USB_stick_here -erase -noverify

Make sure to mount the DMG and drag in the volume from the Computer folder in Finder.
Click to expand...

Doesnt work in Ventura. When I click on the direct links, it goes to the App Store, where you click the 'get' button and it brings up software update in sysSettings and then you get this error:

1674012995603.png
 
It's weird, I tried it for catinalina and newer, and it seems to work, but seems to break on Mojave and high Sierra.
 
going back to your OP... I have what I have dubbed "Mac Bootmaster"
512GB SSD, with Leopard to Sierra full installs, each on separate 32GB HFS+ partitions, then an APFS container, with (currently) 6 systems installed (High Sierra to Ventura), each on APFS volumes that share 256GB.
This is a project that I have been experimenting with for the last couple of years, and I use the drive for a lot of testing on various Macs. Took awhile to put together, as - yes - I needed to move the drive from one Mac to another to finish installs and updates on all the various systems.
BUT, now I have that beast that can boot most any Mac that I can connect to. I don't currently have any AS Mac in my "lab", so I only get to test the installs occasionally for booting on Big Sur to Ventura on those, when I get them in for software work, but I know that the boot systems will work on everything older that I have tried. It's quite useful for service work.
I don't go back into the old Mac days, but I have booted a few PPC Macs that will boot from Leopard. I move the SSD to a Firewire enclosure when I boot to those older Macs. Much simpler than doing the open firmware "voodoo" to boot from USB on some PPC Macs.
 
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DeltaMac said:
512GB SSD, with Leopard to Sierra full installs, each on separate 32GB HFS+ partitions, then an APFS container, with (currently) 6 systems installed (High Sierra to Ventura), each on APFS volumes that share 256GB.
Click to expand...
Living dangerously with a shared APFS container for all HS to Ventura - each has a different APFS software version. Does HS APFS software support all the features of Ventura APFS - I am thinking about the details of clones and sparse files. I would not be confident that there would be no corruption. I would use a separate container for each macOS.
 
Making bootable installers / recovery OS should be pretty easy to do for all macOS versions - the install disks are either .DMG files (cloneable) or .apps, which include a tool to create a bootable partition. If you're a paid Apple Developer (or are willing to pay to become one), the installers are available all the way back to at least Tiger, maybe further. If you're looking to have bootable installed OSes, then it becomes much more complicated, if it's possible at all.

All versions of macOS from 8.5 onward can and should use HFS+ for the filesystem. Where you're going to run into trouble is the partition map - Intel Macs will need to use GUID and PowerPC Macs will need to use APM - the two cannot coexist on the same physical drive, so you'll need 2 drives - 1 for PPC and 1 for Intel. As for Apple Silicon, I wouldn't even bother. ALL Apple Silicon Macs will simply and happily boot to internet recover in the event of failure - the same is true for Intel Macs with T2 chip. It's simply a headache to boot these machines to anything other than internet recovery or internal drive. I assume that in the far distant future when these machines are decades old relics and Apple has shut down the internet recovery servers or ceases to exist entirely, that there will be a need for hardware mods to allow booting for sake of nostalgia. By that point in time, the necessary mods will likely be trivial.
 
DeltaMac said:
going back to your OP... I have what I have dubbed "Mac Bootmaster"
512GB SSD, with Leopard to Sierra full installs, each on separate 32GB HFS+ partitions, then an APFS container, with (currently) 6 systems installed (High Sierra to Ventura), each on APFS volumes that share 256GB.
This is a project that I have been experimenting with for the last couple of years, and I use the drive for a lot of testing on various Macs. Took awhile to put together, as - yes - I needed to move the drive from one Mac to another to finish installs and updates on all the various systems.
BUT, now I have that beast that can boot most any Mac that I can connect to. I don't currently have any AS Mac in my "lab", so I only get to test the installs occasionally for booting on Big Sur to Ventura on those, when I get them in for software work, but I know that the boot systems will work on everything older that I have tried. It's quite useful for service work.
I don't go back into the old Mac days, but I have booted a few PPC Macs that will boot from Leopard. I move the SSD to a Firewire enclosure when I boot to those older Macs. Much simpler than doing the open firmware "voodoo" to boot from USB on some PPC Macs.
Click to expand...

Yea, I'm super envious. I have a nightmare now. So I couldn't download some versions because machines were too new. However, a download got stuck and now it has an undetectable installer on my machine. And there is no SIP on this machine to disable, so that installer DMG is just stuck. I cant even wipe the drive from another machine. UG. This is way too big a pain in the *SS. It's going to take days, if not weeks to do this. :/
 
gilby101 said:
Living dangerously with a shared APFS container for all HS to Ventura - each has a different APFS software version. Does HS APFS software support all the features of Ventura APFS - I am thinking about the details of clones and sparse files. I would not be confident that there would be no corruption. I would use a separate container for each macOS.
Click to expand...
I understand your concern about multiple systems in one container, but I don't use the multi-booter for real-world bootup (and leave it as the default system) and don't have a realistic expectation that ALL my software to run correctly
And, I use the multi-booter for both experimenting, and for service work. I care little about corruption between the installed macOS versions - it's just a tool that I use. I have experimented with both, and the separate containers quickly run out of space, if I want to continue with having all the systems that I have built on a single SSD, then I expect that there will be compromises.
But then, in a couple of years using my multi-boot drive, I have not noticed anything major. I do keep in mind that if I boot to Snow Leopard, I won't be able to access anything on an APFS container. No Mac system "knows" what an APFS container is, until Sierra, so I choose to use the shared container, which, from an old OS X system, simply show that one container as an unknown drive (and not a whole list of unknowns). It's just a choice that I have made, and generally works well for me.
If I only needed 2 or 3 different boot systems, then, yes, I would use separate volumes or containers for each.
 
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