Create External Monterey Bootable Installer using Tahoe

What a patient detailed response! I know that I've had problems with the Internet Recovery in the past. I think that it's best to run it over a wired ethernet connection.

Another alternative is to find a friend or neighbour to create the bootable installer. For example, I have an Intel (i5) Mac mini (2018) currently running Monterey 12.7.4 which would do the job. I was wondering if it is possible to create a disk image of the Monterey installer (on a compatible machine) which could then be used to create a USB installer on a newer Mac/macOS. I realize that this might not be possible because of checks at boot time.

Just a though ...

- Pie Lover

Thanks. I did try the option key method first but USB key bootable installer wasn't listed. I was hoping that Startup in Recover could be an alternative but clearly that didn't work either.

I am still perplexed as to why there would be any restriction on creating a bootable installer for a different macOS/hardware configuration. This seems unnecessary unless it's for some unexplained security issue.

- Pie Lover

I haven't tested this myself, but I read an article that suggests that a command is needed for M-series Macs before running the createinstallmedia step for the bootable installer. Themissing step might be the reason that my earlier attempt was unsuccessful.

Thanks for this. It's food for thought. I initially thought, as you state, that the underlying hardware/OS shouldn't matter given that the same createinstallmedia tool is used in both cases. However, this wasn't my experience. As far as I can tell, the only difference between success and failure was the use of the code signing command when creating the installer on my M2 Mac. I am guessing that the need for this step has evolved over time with OS and hardware changes.

I look forward to learning about your archival method. In the past, I used optical disks (M-disc) to archive installers for different versions of macOS. As mentioned, I have an older Intel machine that I use for Boot Camp and to run some legacy software. Going forward, I plan to use your archival method for a few critical installers (e.g. Monterey 12.7.4).

As an aside, Apple does a good job of maintaining compatibility of networking software across different versions of macOS. I recently tested Tahoe on one machine with Monterey on another without problems.

A guide for maintaining older machines/operating systems that Apple no longer actively supports would, I believe, be helpful for many folks.

- Pie Lover

BlueberryLover wrote:

With a bit of persistence, I was able to use a DMG disk image of a USB bootable installer on a system on an Intel Mac (running Monterey) and restore the disk image on a M2 Mac (running Sequoia). The Disk Utility restore function didn't work as expected but I was able to find an alternative – the Terminal ASR command successfully restored the disk image but took a somewhat surprisingly long time to complete.

This process allows bootable installers to be archived for future use rather than rely on multiple USB keys which, in my case, tend to get lost or overwritten.

- Pie Lover

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/5efe33d5-f719-4049-87d2-5fd90b62f880

I posted too quickly. When I booted what I thought was an exact duplicate of a functioning bootable installer, the boot failed near the very end with the following error screen:

Clearly, the process of archiving bootable installers is more complicated than I first imagined. Until I can find a workaround, don't use the above method for "cloning" a bootable installer.

Apologies for the confusion,

- Pie Lover

At one time I partitioned a spare SSD into 16GB chunks and created individual bootable installers on each partition.

It worked, but this was prior to Apple Silicon.

You can buy a 10-pack of 16GB USB drives on Amazon for $28. All different colors so you can match them to the OS version. Seems that would be easier.

Thanks for the advice. I think that I've come up with a strategy that works at least in my environment. Also, I now have a much better understanding the issues that I was experiencing and the various workarounds.

Option 1: Use leftover low capacity SD cards (I have many) with a USB reader/writer (this is essentially the same as your suggestion)

Option 2: Capture desired installer image(s) on its intended target (e.g. Monterey 12.7.4 on a Mac mini (2018)). Move that image to a machine with a large capacity disk. Use Apple's standard procedure for creating a bootable installer based on that image. This works even on an M-series Mac (M2 Mac mini (2023) running Sequoia in my case).

Sometimes you have to learn things "the hard way" :-)

- Pie Lover

Personally, I always name the USB stick something very simple, like a .

I just name it, MyVolume, then the command is just copy, paste.

Heh! Don't know why that never occurred to me. Even simpler.

I'm glad you resolved your issue. For my part, I learned something about using an environment with both Intel and M-series Macs.

... back to testing Tahoe :-)

- Pie Lover