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How to create a bootable macOS Sierra USB installer

How to create a bootable macOS Sierra USB installer


*** As with all Betas only install on a non production device and computer that you’re not concerned about & make backups! ***

These advanced steps are intended primarly for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line.

You can download the latest macOS Sierra 10.12 Developer Preview here https://developer.apple.com/download
You will need an Apple Developer Account to sign in and download macOS Sierra 10.12 Developer Preview. Public Beta will be out later in July 2016

Use the ‘createinstallmedia’ command in Terminal to create your bootable usb installer:

  1. Download macOS Sierra 10.12 Developer Preview from the Mac App Store after redeeming the code from the Apple Developer Download site. Quit the installer if it opens automatically after downloading. The installer will be in your Applications folder.
  2. Mount your USB flash drive or other volume. You could also use a secondary internal partition.
  3. Format/Erase your drive and name it “macOSSierra” if you intend on copying and pasting the below command.
  4. Open Terminal (it is found in the Utilities folder)
  5. In terminal paste the following command:
sudo /Applications/Install\ 10.12\ Developer\ Preview.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia  --volume /Volumes/macOSSierra --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ 10.12\ Developer\ Preview.app --nointeraction

You’ve now created a bootable macOS Sierra 10.12 Developer Preview USB installer


Down the road when macOS Sierra 10.12 is at full version I would highly suggest using “DiskMaker X“. It’s simple and easy to use 

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OS X Finder Sidebar Favourites Missing or Permission Issue

OS X Finder Sidebar Favourites Missing or Permission Issue

I’ve been dealing with this issue for a good while now and there are countless articles online that talk about this but there hasn’t been a solid fix yet. In most cases users are playing with the Finder and Sidebar preferences but without luck. This is one of the only steps that seems to gets messed up with permissions errors or bad links when you use a default profile script. Everything else seems to work but starting with OS X 10.10 this has been broken.

Broken Finder Sidebar

Permissions Error Message

Working Finder Sidebar

Today with a suggestion from @harryn over at EduGeet.net http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/72443-how-create-os-x-default-profile-template-bind-ad-10-5-10-8-a-3.html#post1432366 I simply removed/deleted the user I use to build the profile then had a new user log into the computer and there it was, all the Sidebar Shortcuts with proper links and permissions. This now means I can customize the sidebar with the users Desktop, Download, Documents folders etc. and they will properly work when a user selects a location.

The cons to this route is that fact that you need to remove/delete the user you build your default profile from but if you are really only building your image to deploy this really isn’t a big deal. If you need to go back and make adjustments to the profile just create that same user again, make your needed adjustments run the default user profile script then remove the user again. 

It is an extra step but it’s a step that makes a lot of people happy. We have tons of students and faculty that will love to have these links back in the finder again.

For future “Default User Profile” scripts I think I’ll go back to creating an alternate user from “Administrator” and start using a user called “default”. This way I can keep the local “Administrator” in place and just use the “Default” user for creating a custom user. 

Hope this helps!

 

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Apple Windows Bootcamp Won’t Bless

Apple Windows Bootcamp Won’t Bless

If you’ve run into the issue of imaging a BootCamp partition and it won’t boot into Windows or you see the message that the Windows Bootcamp partition cannot be blessed then you may get the run around trying to find a quick simple solution as I had. 

Luckily WinClone has a quick built in option/utility that will make your Windows BootCamp partition properly boot. 

If you are running on a new model Mac you could have an issue where the Mac does not allow you to boot into the newly created Bootcamp image. To get around this we need to make the Bootcamp partition EFI bootable by using Winclone. You should see your Bootcamp partition on the left side of the program and you will need to right click on the Windows BootCamp partition and select “Make EFI Bootable”. You do not need to do this for older hardware which should be 2014 and older Macs.

Right now there maybe scripts or other work arounds to do this but since we already own a copy of WinClone this makes quick work of this issue.

Have a look at my related article “Create a Bootcamp Image From a Pre Built Windows Image“.

 

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Create a Bootcamp Image From a Pre Built Windows Image

Create a Bootcamp Image From a Pre Built Windows Image


What you need

  • Winclone

  • Hard drive with a Windows Image that has been Sysprepped and pulled from a computer

  • External Hard Drive reader

  • Mac with OS X Installed

  • DeployStudio

 

How to clone

STEP 1.
If you are running OS X 10.10 or lower skip to Step 2. If you are running the latest version of OS X 10.11 or higher you need to disable OS X’s “System Integrity Protection” which will allow us to image a BootCamp Partition. To do this you need to restart the computer into “Restore Mode” or boot from a DeployStudio server. You then need to open “Terminal” and type

csrutil disable

then press enter. With this complete restart your computer.

STEP 2.
The next step is to create a BootCamp partition by opening up “Disk Utility” then add/create a new partition. Here you need to enter in the size you want your partition to be and then change the format to FAT. Now go ahead and partition your drive.

STEP 3.
From here go ahead and plug in your external hard drive reader with the hard drive you pull from your computer. We should now see the BootCamp partition you created and the external hard drive that has your windows image installed on.

STEP 4.
Now install WinClone onto your mac and launch the program. Here we should see your windows hard drive and your Bootcamp partition.

STEP 5.
If your source windows hard drive is smaller than your Bootcamp partition you can skip to STEP 6. If your Bootcamp partition is smaller than the hard drive but still bigger than the image itself then you need to shrink the image. To do so right click on the windows hard drive and chose “Shrink Windows (NTFS) Filesystem”. This will resize the image on the hard drive to the size of the actual fully used space of the image.

STEP 6.
Now we can go ahead and copy your windows image to your Bootcamp partition. Select the Windows drive on the left side of the window and then select the Bootcamp partition to the right and select “Restore”.  This process will take a while depending how on big your Windows image is.

STEP 7.
Now that the restore has completed you have now successfully created a Windows Bootcamp image/partition. Now simply reboot your Mac and select the Windows BootCamp Partition from the Boot Manager (Hold down the “Option” key on startup). Once Bootcamp has booted you can now go ahead and install the Apple BootCamp drivers. (Use the BootCamp Assistant in OS X to create the driver install).

** If you are running on a new model Mac you could have an issue where the Mac does not allow you to boot into the newly created Bootcamp image. To get around this we need to make the Bootcamp partition EFI bootable by using Winclone. You should see your Bootcamp partition now on the left side of the program and you will need to right click and select “Make EFI Bootable”. You do not need to do this for older hardware which should be 2014 and older Macs.

 

Happy Imaging!