HOW TO: Make bootable lion install USB

[1337smiley]

From what I've seen with my macbook air, you can't boot an USB that just had installESD.dmg restored to it. You need some files from BaseSystem.dmg.

The solution:

This terminal app, it will make a bootable USB from the install mac os x lion.app.

Usage:
1. In Disk Utility, format the USB as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and give it some name: We'll use USB Boot here but it can be anything. Make sure that "GUID Partition Table" is selected under "Options..."

2.

sudo install/mkboot Install\ Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion.app /Volumes/USB\ Boot/

Credits go to tseug from insanelymac, i just edited it to remove the hackintosh parts.

 

[andsens]

Here's hoping your script works. I tried it the simple way by restoring the dmg to my USB key on a MacPro (the one before early 2008, dunno what it's called).
After selecting the usb key to boot from, it simply kept on loading for 20 minutes while displaying a question mark where the Apple logo should be.
I did mess around with refit a year ago, but have since removed it again, pretty sure that that is not the problem.
I will post here, if it succeeds.

 

[dijonemon]

Registered just to tell you that this absolutely works. Had gone through the process of Restoring the .dmg file onto my USB several times, re-downloaded the Lion Install App twice, and had nearly given up. On each occasion, my MacBook (Mid 2007) would not boot and gave me the error icon.

Having run this tool, I now have a working OSX Lion install USB, which doesn't need Internet access to complete, and have been able to swap out my HDD and do a completely clean install on a larger (formerly) PC hard disk.

 

[Nuckinfuts]

InstallESD.dmg is a bootable dmg and has worked on every computer I've tried, I don't know why your Air would be an exception

 

[dijonemon]

I wasn't expecting it to be a problem on mine either, all the tutorials etc.. said it should work. However it was consistently failing.

Incidentally, a clean install from Recovery partition (which downloads off the internet) worked fine.

 

[andsens]

I wasn't expecting it to be a problem on mine either, all the tutorials etc.. said it should work. However it was consistently failing.

Incidentally, a clean install from Recovery partition (which downloads off the internet) worked fine.

Yep, except you can't do that if you're using RAID. Kind of sucks, you can't use FileVault either when using RAID.

And your solution did not work for me by the way 1337smiley. I did get to the installation screen and it worked way better than the other tutorials, BUT: When Lion was being installed it constantly failed, because it couldn't find a pkg on my usb stick, I don't know how it can work for the other guys. I don't remember what the specific error was, but I'm just gonna do an upgrade instead.