Well after re-formating the USB disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) I had another go but it didn’t work.
Once again after several minutes downloading etc it reckoned it had hundreds of years remaining but after a couple of minutes went to 0 seconds and eventually rebooted and then said the target disk (4 TB) is too small. It left a folder on the USB drive called OS X install Data within which is file called installESD.dmg double clicking that brought up a window with another folder called Packages within which were these files.. BaseSystemResources.pkg EFIPayloads Essentials.pkg (5.6 GB) InstallableMachines.plist OSInstall.mpkg OSInstall.pkg OSUpgrade.pkg SMCPayloads X11redirect.pkg all quite small except for Essentials.pkg which I double clicked and was presented with the option of installing so I went ahead with installing to the USB drive. After a couple of hours or so the USB disk ended up with 23.2 BG used and with these directories on it ... Applications bin cores dev etc Library Network OS X Install Data OS X Install Data copy private sbin System tmp Users usr var Volumes But still not a bootable drive. I thought it prudent to make copy of OS X install Data incase it got removed by the installation process and because I was warned at the start I would not have the Recovery option when installing to the USB disk. So do I go for broke and try to re-install the OS on the MacBook Air? I’ll have a think about it but after how that went I’m not too keen. I still want to make the external USB drive bootable. Perhaps if I use it to make a clone of my Macmini which has El Capitan on it. Regards Brian > On 30 Jun 2019, at 11:34 am, Brian W Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Neil, > > Thank you for your reply. > > The short WHY is I have a Huawei USB stick fitted with a SIM for mobile > internet that works with my iMac (High Sierra) and my > Mac Mini (El Capitan) but there is something stopping it from working on the > MacBook Air (El Capitan) so I want to clean out what > ever is stopping it from working. > > To make the WHY even longer; > Web pages I use were not loading any more while the OS on the MacBook Air was > Lion so I updated to El Capitan. > > The web pages work fine now using my home modem, but when I tried to access > the web using my old USB stick (from Optus, > mobile account with Exetel) that had been working fine since 2011 under Lion > it came up with a warning to install legacy Java SE 6 which I did, > > I in fact updated to the latest, and the warning went away. > But the stick still was not logging onto the web. > So I figured the stick is simply old technology that won’t work anymore and > got this latest one from Exetel with a new SIM and new > account. Except it’s not working on my MacBook Air but works fine on my other > computers. > > When the stick is first inserted a window pops up with an Install icon which > I double clicked and something was installed, what and > where I don’t know. The stick doesn’t appear as device on the system so there > is no way finding an un-install which probably doesn’t > exist any way. > > I feel that there may something from the old stick in the MacBook Air’s > system preventing it from working, (maybe the Java update?) > I can’t find anything in my Library and don’t know what to look for anyway > hence the desire for another clean install. > > I thought if I boot from an external drive with the stick in the MacBook Air > and it works I can be more confident in re-installing the OS on it. > > Of course I could just re-install the OS on the MacBook Air without doing and > external boot drive but I thought there would some benefit in > having one and I don’t want to risk disabling my MacBook Air by risking what > may be a faulty re-instal. > > I have a clone of my MacBook Air when it had Lion on it, but I only use the > machine when I’m out, it mainly gets used to access the web and nothing else. > > So I’ll have another go today to make a boot drive though I’m not super > confident after yesterdays fail. The drive I’m using has 3.99 TB available > and the MacBook Air has 208 GB available but I’m wondering if the USB powered > drive may be too slow and that may be effecting the install. > > I thought of going to something smaller like an iPad Air but then I’d end up > with a MacBook Air siting around doing nothing. > Plus I’m 70 now and don’t get about much any more so I don’t want to spend > heaps for a mobile device when I already have one, > even though at the moment it’s one that isn’t doing what I want. > > Exetel support tried to help but once they learned it works on other > computers they figured the fault lay with the MacBook Air. > > I’ve not tried to contact Huawei and I am not sure if that’s even practical > except to maybe to find what was installed and where. > > Thanks for your help. > > Brian > >> On 29 Jun 2019, at 6:18 pm, Neil Houghton <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi Brian, >> >> Before starting anything, I assume that you have at least one full up-to >> date backup of your existing system! >> >> >> I think you need to be a bit clearer on what you are trying to do and why. >> >> Some thoughts: >> >> • If you just want to have a temporary external USB boot drive then you >> do not need a large USB drive. When I decided to upgrade 3 computers to El >> Capitan I created a bootable USB flash drive with just the El Capitan >> installer on it. The actual USB drive is only 32GB capacity and only 6.2GB >> of that is used for the El Capitan Install app. >> • This drive allowed me to boot-up the computer and erase/reformat the >> internal hard drive and do a clean install of El Capitan. Obviously this >> approach requires that I have already got my original system and user data >> backed up elsewhere. Then you need to decide what apps and data you >> want/need to migrate over. >> • When you say "I would like to wipe MacBook Air’s drive and >> re-establish El Capitan on it. (Why I need to do this is a longer story)" - >> the "WHY" will probably have a bearing on "HOW" you should go about it! For >> example: >> • If your existing setup is all working fine and you just want/need to >> reformat the internal drive (say change the partition scheme) then you would >> probably just clone the existing system drive/partition to an external >> drive, reformat the internal drive and then clone back from the external >> drive to your new internal target. >> • On the other hand, if your reason(s) to wipe the drive and re-install >> the OS is down to some perceived problems with the existing set-up then just >> moving the existing set-up to the external drive and then back again will >> most likely retain the problem! >> • The nature of any existing problem would, most likely, tend to drive >> the best approach to reinstalling the system and user data - is the problem >> likely down to system corruption or user data/preference corruption? >> >> I'm not sure how helpful all that is but my experience has definitely been >> that more time spent analysing and planning BEFORE you dive in will often >> save problems down the track and save time in the long run. >> >> HTH >> >> >> Cheers >> >> >> Neil >> -- >> Neil R. Houghton >> Albany, Western Australia >> Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 >> Email: [email protected] >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Brian W >> Scott <[email protected]> >> Reply-To: WAMUG <[email protected]> >> Date: Saturday, 29 June 2019 at 17:23 >> To: WAMUG <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: Is it possible to have an External USB boot drive? >> >> Hi, >> >> I found I could do it with the Recovery Disk/Partition. >> >> But it’s complaining that the 4TB drive I’m trying to put it on is not >> big enough. >> >> I suspected it must using the MacBook Air drive to store stuff so I’ve >> made some room on it and will try again tomorrow. >> >> 208.95 GB should do it I guess. >> >> At one time it said it had About 1,102,053,030 hrs 22 mins to go. (That’s >> 125,722 average Gregorian years) >> >> But about a minute later it continued on to it’s next activity. >> >> >>> On 29 Jun 2019, at 1:34 pm, Brian W Scott <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I have a MacBook Air 13 inch, Mid 2011 with Mac OS 10.7.5 El Capitan >>> 10.11.6 on it. >>> >>> I would like to wipe MacBook Air’s drive and re-establish El Capitan on it. >>> (Why I need to do this is a longer story) >>> >>> I have a 4TB USB powered by the USB port it doesn’t have a power supply. >>> >>> I was thinking I could use it as an external boot drive while I deal with >>> the MacBook Air’s drive. >>> >>> If it is possible to do the above could someone please point me to some >>> instructions for getting this done. >>> >>> Thank you, >>> >>> Brian Scott >>> >>> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- >>> Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> >>> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> >>> Settings & Unsubscribe - >>> <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> >> >> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- >> Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> >> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> >> Settings & Unsubscribe - >> <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> >> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- >> Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> >> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> >> Settings & Unsubscribe - >> <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
