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Install 10.6 from USB Drive? Yes, you can. In 10 minutes.

JPamplin

JPamplin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 12, 2009
321
64
Nashville, TN
Folks,

Just did a little experiment:

  • Buy 10.6 DVD at MicroCenter - $25
  • Buy 8GB USB Thumb Drive at MicroCenter - $16
  • Create .DMG of 10.6 DVD and restore onto thumb drive - 1 hour
  • Boot from USB thumb drive and install 10.6 onto clean 3-drive RAID0

9 minutes, 57 seconds. Boom!

Very nice to have around, especially if your Mac doesn't have a DVD drive like the Airs. But I thought I'd relay this to you - works like a dream.

JP
 
Lol, I was wondering the same thing. OP, can you clarify how you can restore a .dmg file on to a USB drive?

mokeiko
 
wouldn't it be faster to just install via superdrive, because it takes an hour to Create .DMG of 10.6 DVD and restore onto thumb drive
 
AppleTecFan said:
wouldn't it be faster to just install via superdrive, because it takes an hour to Create .DMG of 10.6 DVD and restore onto thumb drive
Click to expand...

Yes, but if you read the first post:

"Just an experiment"
"Very nice to have around, especially if your Mac doesn't have a DVD drive like the Airs."
 
JPamplin said:
Folks,

Just did a little experiment:

  • Buy 10.6 DVD at MicroCenter - $25
  • Buy 8GB USB Thumb Drive at MicroCenter - $16
  • Create .DMG of 10.6 DVD and restore onto thumb drive - 1 hour
  • Boot from USB thumb drive and install 10.6 onto clean 3-drive RAID0

9 minutes, 57 seconds. Boom!

Very nice to have around, especially if your Mac doesn't have a DVD drive like the Airs. But I thought I'd relay this to you - works like a dream.

JP
Click to expand...

Of course if one only has an Air without a SuperDrive this doesn't work.
 
I finally worked out how to do it. You have to also do images>scan images for restore.

Once I did that it allowed me to restore the .dmg to the USB drive.

I've personally done it this way because the dvd drive in my macbook is playing up and really did not like the SL dvd.

Also after I've tested a few programs and features on the macbook to makes sure important things work I've got 4 other machines to install it on so it'll be nice for those installs to be faster.
 
AppleTecFan said:
wouldn't it be faster to just install via superdrive, because it takes an hour to Create .DMG of 10.6 DVD and restore onto thumb drive
Click to expand...

Well, if you think about it, this kind of thing is best suited to a few different situations:

  1. You don't have a DVD drive that will read the original DVD
  2. You have LOTS of Macs to upgrade and want to save time
  3. You want to keep your original DVD pristine (and not lost)
  4. You want to enjoy the near silence during install (not a noisy DVD)
  5. You want to throw it in your bag just in case, and not worry about breakage

All of these situations are worth an hour to set it up - I'm not really referring to a single install. Just a handy idea, really.

JP
 
JPamplin said:
Well, if you think about it, this kind of thing is best suited to a few different situations:

  1. You don't have a DVD drive that will read the original DVD
  2. You have LOTS of Macs to upgrade and want to save time
  3. You want to keep your original DVD pristine (and not lost)
  4. You want to enjoy the near silence during install (not a noisy DVD)
  5. You want to throw it in your bag just in case, and not worry about breakage

All of these situations are worth an hour to set it up - I'm not really referring to a single install. Just a handy idea, really.

JP
Click to expand...

I think it's a way handy idea... why don't they just ship them with flash drives that are read only? I've often wondered that, have Adobe send out suites on 8GB/16GB thumb drives, you could probably do some better anti-piracy protection on them that way. ... So they should continue to put them on DVD's. :D

(Also, I know Flash v Disc cost is totally different which is the main obvious case, but when you're buying premium software, you should get a premium experience. Having Adobe fork out an extra $3 to offer a Flash based install of 15 minutes vs swapping discs and 45+ minutes would be a very nice move)

PSS I know we're talking about Apple too, not Adobe. OS can come on a disc, but maybe an option of flash based install or DVD based install.
 
Or, for even faster speeds, a Netinstall server over a gigabit network. :p
 
You can also restore to an external Hard Drive - should be faster than the USB transfer rates.
I have already done this - it works.
 
One thing I have discovered that doesn't seem to work is using the USB to update rather than fresh install.

Personally I'm not in the mood for doing a fresh install on some of my machines, but it won't let me do it from the USB stick.
 
I cannot run the installer from the USB drive. It says: The application "Install Mac OS X" cannot be used from this volume.

Any ideas why?
 
benborman said:
I cannot run the installer from the USB drive. It says: The application "Install Mac OS X" cannot be used from this volume.

Any ideas why?
Click to expand...

Does the same thing to me. Just reboot and hold down the option key, then select the USB drive.
 
maghemi said:
Yep, thats the error I get.

But as i say it works no problems doing a fresh install.
Click to expand...

Not sure how relevant this is, but in another thread a guy was having trouble and I think the solution was ensuring the Flash drive reformatting had a 'GUID partition table' or something (from advanced options, I think) and that's what enabled the flash drive to be bootable.

Hope that helps someone :)
 
Yes, make sure you partition / reformat your USB thumb drive as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume with GUID Partition - otherwise it will NOT boot on Intels.

After that, create a DMG of your DVD and save that image, then scan it for restore. Restore onto the USB stick, and reboot from it - works for me.

BTW, I just upgraded an Imac from this USB - upgrade or clean install works perfectly.

JP
 
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