#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR HOW TO#
#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR MAC OS X#
#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR INSTALL#
#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR MAC#

This is mainly for diagnosing issues and trying potentially risky things in a virtual sandbox that wonвЂ™t ruin any of your data. This way both tools are available in one convenient place whenever you need them.ДЄll done! That wasnвЂ™t too painful, was it? Yes, booting to the flash drive will be a tad sluggish, but itвЂ™s not meant to be used on a regular basis. For example, AlsoftвЂ™s DiskWarrior is an invaluable tool that goes above and beyond what OS XвЂ™s own Disk Utility has to offer.

#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR INSTALL#

Once youвЂ™re in, run Software Update a few times to get the latest patches and install any third party diagnostic utilities you may have. Set up the fresh installation just like you would a new computer.This is how you will access it in the future, too.

#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR MAC#

If it doesnвЂ™t, restart the Mac manually and hold down the Option key to choose the drive yourself.

Eventually, the installation will finish and it should reboot directly to the USB drive.

When all is said and done, you should find about 9GB of your 16GB drive has been filled. The rest of the process should be automated and might take between 30-60 minutes since USB flash drives are slower than internal hard drives. Un-check all of the items except вЂњEssential System Software.вЂќ You may choose to check вЂњRosettaвЂќ and вЂњQuickTime 7вЂќ since they are so small and might come in handy.

Click on the Customize button and a new window will appear.

Click the Show All Disks button and select your USB flash drive.

Enter a name for the volume (I called mine вЂњOS X USBвЂќ), select вЂњMac OS Extended (Journaled)вЂќ as the Format, and make sure the size is somewhere around 15-16GB.

Go to the Partition tab and select вЂњ1 PartitionвЂќ from the Volume Scheme menu.

Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and click on your flash drive in the list on the left.

Make sure thereвЂ™s no valuable data on there because it will be permanently wiped out in a couple minutes.

To start things off, connect the USB flash drive to your Mac.

And the third thing youвЂ™ll need to get the job done is your OS X installation DVD.

#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR MAC OS X#

While they should be fine, squeeze those versions of Mac OS X on a 16GB drive at your own risk. Keep in mind 10.6 Snow Leopard was used to demonstrate this tutorial, so IвЂ™m not sure how much space 10.5, 10.4, and earlier require. Second, at least a 16GB USB flash drive, such as this SanDisk Cruzer Micro for about $30 at Amazon. First youвЂ™ll need an Intel-based Mac from the past few years.

#MAC UTILITY DISK REPAIR HOW TO#

Now that youвЂ™re convinced, letвЂ™s figure out how to do this.

Your MacвЂ™s hard drive is completely dead and youвЂ™d like to use your computer for basic tasks like email and web browsing while you wait for your new drive to arrive.

A software problem is plaguing your Mac and youвЂ™d like to see if you can replicate it in an isolated environment.

The file system on your startup disk has become corrupt and needs to be repaired.

Your Mac isnвЂ™t starting correctly and youвЂ™re not sure if the internal hard drive is failing or if another piece of hardware is to blame.

Not sure when having OS X loaded on a flash drive would come in handy? Here are just a few examples: It turns out a tiny USB flash drive serves as a great alternative. That means carrying around a bulky external hard drive with cables is not always ideal. And since most Mac owners use a MacBook of some kind nowadays, portability is a valuable thing. A clean installation of the operating system can help pinpoint problems and will come to the rescue in a bind. One of the maintenance tools every Mac user should have available in case of emergency is a bootable copy of Mac OS X on a removable device. All you need to do is carry around a single USB flash drive to be ready for situations the require you to diagnose, repair, or experiment with Mac OS X. Although Macs are reliable machines, they are not exempt from hiccups.

Mac utility disk repair