How to Make Mac OS Sierra Bootable Usb Drive With Disk Utility

In this post, I will try the best I can to guide you! how to create macOS Sierra bootable USB drive from your Mac or from any working Hackintosh-PC using Disk Utilities.

Because since El Capitan the disk utility of macOS was different, if you running El Capitan and want to create bootable USB for macOS Sierra you can use Yosemite Disk utility for El Capitan just google it!

This method also works to creating USB installer for El Capitan, Yosemite and Maverick, and the other previous version of Mac OS X as well.

First, you need to download macOS Installer apps from App Store or through torrent. If you already have it, then good so you can just start to experiment with it.

Or, if you want to make things simple, you can use a terminal command to restore the installer app to a USB drive, you can find post about how to make macOS bootable USB using the terminal ‘sudo’ command here How to Create macOS Bootable USB Drive Using Terminal

When you are done create a USB installer with terminal, for the final trick and to make it works go back here and skip this tutorial into Installing Clover boot loader (for Hackintosh) section.

Skip to the Clover section here

And for you guys who want to create USB installer with Disk Utility you can follow the tutorials starting from here;

Prepare a usb drive

You can use the 8GB USB stick. Except for El Capitan, you will need a 16GB USB flash drive.

Important! Make sure you have no important data there because we gonna format it and will delete all your data and it will be impossible to restore it back.

So back up your data and put it in a safe place before you do this!

Formating USB Drive

Plug USB drive and go to Application > Utilities > and open the Disk Utility and format your USB drive as GUID Partition Table. see pic below??

Show hidden file using terminal

Now we have to make hidden files show up using terminal command. You will understand what‘s the purpose of doing it later.

Open terminal type or copy the command below, this command will show you the hidden files.

Later, you will need to make it back to normal ..so you can use the command below to make all hidden files vanish again.

Find BaseSystem.dmg

Go to Mac OS Sierra apps > right click > show package contents.

Click Content > Shared Support and mount InstallESD.dmg with Disk Utility.

Open InstallESD archive in finder and mount BaseSystem.dmg.

Now you know why we have to show the hidden files ?

Restore BaseSystem to USB Drive

Select the USB drive from the list of disks, select Restore tab and pick select BaseSystem.dmg as a source and USB flash drive as the destination. When ready click on the Restore button.

After the Restore process is finished, open Finder > open USB drive (OS X Base System) ► go to the System/Installation folder and select Packages file and delete it.

Moving Packages folder to USB drive

Open OS X Install ESD volume in Finder, select Packages folder and copy them to System/Installation folder on the USB drive.

Also, copy BaseSystem.chunklist and BaseSystem.dmg files from InstallESD.dmg volume to root of USB flash drive (OS X Base System).

NOTE: For using it in real Mac computer your USB drive is ready to use.

But! for using it to install Mac OS-X in Hackintosh PC you need to install Clover boot loader on it!

Installing Clover boot loader (for Hackintosh)

Download the latest version of Clover boot loader  HERE

Install Clover and choose your USB drive for the install destination. See the picture below!

After install Clover finish, there will automatically EFI Partition mounted on your Finder-sidebar/Desktop.

Copy kext and config.plist to EFI

So! its time for The Tricks! Putting some essential kext like fakeSMC.kext etc.

For config.plist you can use pre–edited one, along with additional kext I have uploaded.

To download kext & driver here ?? DOWNLOAD

To download config.plist here ?? DOWNLOAD

After you download the archive extract it. Then find and choose one of config.plist you desire inside the config.plist folder. Copy config,plist to mounted EFI partition in desktop/finder-sidebar click on EFI > Clover > EFI > CLOVER and replace existing config.plist there.

Then copy all kext from kext folder to  Clover > EFI > CLOVER > Kext > Other(for OS Sierra) 10.11(for El Capitan) and so on, to EFI partition.

And Done!

Now your US Drive is ready to install Mac OS (X) on your Hackintosh-PC.

Important! Before installing Mac OS X on PC please backup all important data especially in the drive you decide to dedicate for installing Mac.

Closing words

For the conclusion and you to taking note that every Hackintosh thing is only for educational purposes only.

I am not responsible for any damage caused by following this tutorial. Make sure you know exactly what you’re doing and understand for the risk as well.

If you really love macOS (X) system you should buy a Real Mac by Apple.

I hope this post could help you to make a bootable USB drive for Hackintosh and “Real Mac” as well. If you want to discuss something please feel free to leave your comment below!

Good luck and  take care!