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Enzozo's avatar
Enzozo
Iron Contributor
Jul 30, 2024
Solved

Need help to burn dmg to usb for making Mac bootable USB drive

My wife's MacBook Air was stuck on system update after reboot and can't get into the desktop. Unfortunately, this is the only Apple device at our home. I need to make a bootable USB on my Windows 11 PC for reinstalling macOS on this Mac.

 

I heard it is possible to create a Mac bootable USB by burning dmg to USB in Windows PC. Can anyone confirm and how to do this on a Windows 11 or Windows 10 PC?

 

[Update]: It is really hard to find a working solution in 2024. After hours of researching, I finally made a bootable macOS UBS by following this step-by-step guide. Don't send me any private message anymore!

  • Apple no longer provide dmg disk for its modern macOS versions. This is why it is so hard to create macOS bootable USB any Windows PC and Mac now! One popular way is to find a macOS dmg file and burn dmg file to USB. This works on all Windows OS and macOS. 

    For doing this, I highly recommend using the UltraDMG app as I made a couple of macOS bootable USB on my Windows 10 PC. Here is the tutorial: https://www.sandeski.com/make-macos-bootable-usb-on-any-computer

    You can also ask the team to share you the macOS DMG file.

  • Amiriam's avatar
    Amiriam
    Iron Contributor
    7-Zip can extract DMG files, but it doesn’t handle creating a bootable USB drive from them. This means you can get the contents out of the DMG, but making that USB drive bootable requires more steps and may not work seamlessly. So, you might end up with a USB that has files but isn’t actually bootable on a Mac.
    • piratewolfie04's avatar
      piratewolfie04
      Copper Contributor
      Is there a way to create a bootable USB drive using something other than tran/smac? I don't want to spend the $60 for this as I'm only going to use it once (and I waited too long, so the 15-day free trial ended....oops). I know Rufus doesn't work for this.<br><br>The Mac I'm trying to fix won't recognize the disk, so therefore I cannot reinstall the OS from the Mac itself. Any ideas?
  • Joshuausom's avatar
    Joshuausom
    Copper Contributor
    Once you get the Mac to burn dmg to usb, you might find yourself racing against the clock. You've got to download the macOS installer, which can take a while, especially if your internet connection is slow or if the App Store is busy. I've had situations where I had only a few hours and spent way too much of that time just waiting for downloads. Whenever you're using Terminal and dealing with commands like createinstallmedia, there's always a risk of screwing something up, especially if you accidentally select the wrong drive.
  • Enriqueen's avatar
    Enriqueen
    Iron Contributor

    Apple no longer provide dmg disk for its modern macOS versions. This is why it is so hard to create macOS bootable USB any Windows PC and Mac now! One popular way is to find a macOS dmg file and burn dmg file to USB. This works on all Windows OS and macOS. 

    For doing this, I highly recommend using the UltraDMG app as I made a couple of macOS bootable USB on my Windows 10 PC. Here is the tutorial: https://www.sandeski.com/make-macos-bootable-usb-on-any-computer

    You can also ask the team to share you the macOS DMG file.

  • Atlasec's avatar
    Atlasec
    Copper Contributor

    Enzozo  You can use the built-in Command Prompt or Powershell utility to burn dmg to USB on Windows 10/11 along with the free 7-Zip app.

     

    First, extract the content from macOS DMG file with the 7-Zip app. After that, insert your USB drive into the PC and format the drive with diskpart command:

     

    select disk 1
    clean
    create partition primary
    select partition 1
    format fs=fat32 quick
    active
    assign letter=U
    exit

     

    Now, copy the extracted files to the USB drive:

     

    xcopy C:\path\to\extracted\files\* U:\ /E /H /F

     

    This process will burn the contents of the DMG file to the USB drive. Make sure to replace the placeholder paths and file names with the actual ones you are using.

    • TykeGuy's avatar
      TykeGuy
      Copper Contributor

      Did all the diskpart commands up to Step 6 which fails - "The selected disk is not a fixed MBR disk.
      The ACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disks."

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