Imac installing mac os from scratch. Reinstalling ios on macbook air. Reinstalling Mac Os. How to quickly reinstall Mac OS. Run from macOS recovery partition. Install macOS or OS X

Mac won't boot because macOS has stopped working? Now you don’t know how to “resurrect” the device? We tell you how to restore the system on a Mac even in the most hopeless situations!

Your Mac won't start because your hard drive has died or you've done an unsuccessful experiment and the operating system on your MacBook or iMac is gone? This is quite a big problem, since getting a macOS image or a bootable Apple USB flash drive if you don’t have a Mac is extremely difficult!

I was inspired to write this article by a comment on our YouTube channel, a user’s HDD drive on a Mac failed, he replaced it, but didn’t know how to get a bootable USB flash drive.

How to reinstall macOS
from "Recovery" mode

Absolutely all iMacs and Macbooks have a special “Recovery” mode. This mode allows you to:

Restore data from backup
Reinstall macOS
Use Disk Utility

Actually, we need to reinstall macOS! I’ll tell you how to do this now!

In this simple way, you can reinstall the system on a Mac from Recovery mode.

How to reinstall macOS from Internet Recovery

How to reinstall the system on a Mac if the “Recovery” mode was damaged or you changed the HDD or disk? You should try installing the macOS operating system by switching your Macbook or iMac to Internet Recovery mode. From this mode you can download a system image and install the OS on a Mac.

If restoring mac os via
Internet not working?

Then you need to try changing the DNS servers on the router to public ones from Google:

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

How to create a bootable macOS USB flash drive on Mac
or Windows and reinstall the system?

What to do if the previous options did not help you, but you have a regular Windows computer or another Mac? The correct answer is to create a bootable Apple USB flash drive on it! We described how to do this in previous articles; I will not repeat myself, but will provide links.

Yes yes MAC

You can find out how to make a bootable macOS USB flash drive on an iMAC or MacBook in our previous article -

Reinstalling macOS does not require offline media. Apple officially recommends that users use a network installation of the system. You can run it from a special recovery partition on your hard drive or using the Internet Recovery function. In this article we will tell you how to reinstall macOS using both methods.

Every Apple computer comes with the OS pre-installed. It doesn’t matter whether you buy an all-in-one iMac or MacBook in any modification: Pro, Air or 12-inch Retina. Not every user will remember the version of the operating system it was on when purchased. Regular free macOS updates eliminate the need to fill your head with this information. You may need it when you decide to reinstall the system.

Click on the apple logo in the upper left corner of the menu bar. In the list that opens, select the topmost item marked in the screenshot.

On the main tab we can find out the installed version of macOS. Below is information about the model and release date of the laptop.

If you are not an obvious opponent of updates, then you should have the latest OS version available for your hardware configuration. Otherwise, knowing the model and year of manufacture will allow you to determine it.

Available options

Now that we know the necessary information about our Mac, let's look at the available options. There are only three options, which are selected by different key combinations pressed when starting the computer:

reinstalling the current version of the operating system using the recovery partition on your hard drive or SSD – (Command ⌘ + R);
Restoring to the old OS installed at the time of purchase. Depending on the year of release, this could be Mountain Lion, Yosemite or El Capitan - (Command ⌘ +Option ⌥ + R);
Download and install the latest version of macOS that your Mac supports - (Shift + Command ⌘ + Option ⌥ + R).

An indispensable condition for the successful completion of all the actions described below is to connect the computer to the Internet. You will need it instead of installation media to download the required distribution.

Call up the system menu and reboot.

Depending on the selected reinstallation option, press and hold the desired keyboard combination. Using the Option ⌥ key launches Internet Recovery. You can release the buttons when a rotating globe appears on the monitor. The indicator below it shows the time until disk utility starts, which will depend on the connection speed. The download source is automatically detected and your Mac's serial number is used to find the initial OS version.

After choosing to reinstall from the recovery partition to the SSD, wait until the loading bar logo appears on the screen. After this, the keys can be released. Any of the options used will lead us to the appearance of a window with macOS utilities. The next steps depend on whether you want to keep the previously created system settings or prefer a clean installation.

The usual reinstallation option will keep all user data in place, updating only the OS. By selecting Disk Utility, you can completely erase the boot volume. If Windows is installed on the second system, the Boot Camp partition can be left unchanged.

Installing macOS

Using Disk Utility is recommended when the usual one cannot be performed. For example, the installer diagnoses problems that may prevent the operation from completing without formatting the volume. When reinstalling and returning to the old version of the OS, erasing the system disk is a mandatory procedure. Otherwise, the macOS installer will report that it has detected a more recent version and refuse to continue.

Open Disk Utility on the left side of the window and select “Macintosh HD.” By default, the OS always uses this name for the system volume. In the top menu, the “Erase” checkbox will become active. In the drop-down window, select the FS type indicated in the screenshot. In some cases, at this stage the third line asks you to select a hard disk partition scheme. For all versions of macOS we set the GUID.

High Sierra supports the new APFS file system, adapted to work with SSDs. The installer will automatically select it when you reinstall to the latest current version of the OS. You don't have to enable disk encryption at this stage. If necessary, this can be done on an already installed system by activating the FileVault function. After formatting, close Disk Utility and start the installation.

We accept the license agreement by clicking the marked button in the drop-down menu.

The next few steps will allow you to complete the initial settings by specifying your preferred keyboard layout and region of residence. At the final stage, so that previously saved Safari bookmarks and music in iTunes appear in a clean OS, select login with Apple ID.

During the installation process, the computer will reboot several times on its own. Progress is shown by a filling indicator bar and a countdown timer.

In conclusion

As you can see, if you have an Internet connection, reinstalling macOS is not a difficult task. Creation in this case is a waste of time and may only be required if you want to use an OS version intermediate between the preinstalled and the current one.

Video instructions

The video below shows in detail all the steps described. After reviewing it, you can confidently proceed when reinstalling macOS yourself.

In this article, we will install macOS Sierra on a computer using the BDU (Boot Disk Utility) program and a special image for this utility. Finding an image for BDU and the utility itself on Google is very easy.

This is the easiest way to install macOS Sierra on a PC computer. True, this method will be simple only for those who have hardware compatible for these purposes. Specifically, you must have a motherboard with the following chipsets: H61, B85, Z77, H77, Z87, H87, Z97, H97, Z170. The processor must be at least Intel Core i3. The video card must be compatible. For example, Intel HD 4000 / 4600, AMD 7850, 7870, Nvidia 640, 650, 660 and so on (Kepler) or Nvidia GT 210.

If you use Fermi video cards (GTX 5XX, 710, 720, 730), then most likely you will not succeed with the installation. These video cards are extremely unstable. I will say the following about Nvidia 730 video cards: this video card can be either Fermi or Kepler. So, if the video card is Kepler, then it will work fine with web drivers. GTX 9XX, 1XXX video cards work only with web drivers.

Attention! If you are using an NVidia graphics card, then masquerade as an iMac 13.1 or 14.2; other devices may have boot problems, since in most cases Apple uses AMD graphics cards.

Remember, the more compatible your hardware is, the easier the installation will be. If you do not have an Intel Core processor, but have, for example, a Pentium or Celeron, you will have to disguise yourself as an Intel Core, and if you have an AMD processor, you will have to use a patched kernel.

Previously, I showed installation using a virtual machine with OS X installed from under Windows. Now we will install using the Boot Disk Utility (BDU) program, and will also try to use the standard config from Clover. Let the bootloader determine our hardware itself. I'll just add the kext to the network.

You can ask your questions about installing macOS Sierra in the comments, but be sure to describe your computer configuration as fully as possible, for example, I will install it on this configuration:

Gigabyte GA-Z87m-HD3
Intel Core i3-4330
8 gigabytes of RAM (2 x 4 GB, 1600 MHz. Samsung)
Intel HD 4600 + Gainward GTX 660 Ti
2 monitors (DVI + DVI), as well as a TV via HDMI.
120 GB SSD from SanDisk.

I also want to remind you that, just in case, you should have a flash drive with all the kexts and the Windows operating system, in case something goes wrong and you have to download files or programs. Well, or use another device for this.

Boot Disk Utility runs on Windows. In my case, I will use Windows 10. We will also need an image with macOS Sierra.

Let's launch BDU and format the flash drive:

Immediately after formatting the flash drive, the latest Clover will be installed on it. And all we have to do is deploy our image with the macOS Sierra operating system to a flash drive:

After we have written our image with the operating system to the flash card, I will upload the kext to the network. This is only needed for my computer and you may also need a kext, it all depends on your network card. By the way, when using BootDiskUtility, the FakeSMC kext is already in the kexts/other folder, so there is no need to insert it separately.

As soon as the flash card with macOS Sierra is written, we restart the computer and boot from our flash drive (F12). I will boot in UEFI mode. I will also specify the -v switch so that the operating system loads in text mode.

If you are using a non-Kepler NVidia video card, boot with the nv_disable=1 key. If your system freezes at boot, try booting with the -x switch (safe mode).

After selecting the language, we need to format our hard drive or SSD:

We continue installing macOS Sierra as usual:

After installing macOS Sierra, you need to fill out a lot of information:

All basic installation is complete. As you can see, on macOS Sierra, my GTX 660 Ti video card worked out of the box. Yes, this is the best video card I've tried for Hackintosh. Looking ahead, here is a picture for you to “seed”, though it’s El Capitan OS:

What to do after installing macOS Sierra?

After installing macOS Sierra, we will immediately install Clover on our SSD and configure config.plist, the config for each computer must be different, in particular the configs for Ivy Bridge / Haswel and laptops are very different, so it is recommended to read the khaki clover book and do experiments. If your system suddenly stops booting, you can always boot from a flash drive and fix config.plist.

I installed Clover with the following parameters:

You need to install the config on a hard drive, not a flash drive. Basically, if you have one, then Clover will select it by default. Also remember, the example config above is for a UEFI system; for Bios Legacy, such a Clover installation will not work.

After installing Clover, setting up config.plist and rebooting, we have a fully working system.

Briefly what I did in config.plist:

installed 32MB of memory for Intel graphics in UEFI and registered ig-platform-id 0x04120004
enabled P-states
dropped extra SSDT tables, because of which SpeedStep did not work for me
indicated iMac 14.2 model

Kexts that I used when installing and configuring Hackintosh:

FakeSMC.kext
RealtekRTL8111.kext - network
HDMIAudio.kext - sound on TV

Everything else works out of the box. Except for the sound on the motherboard. I didn’t turn it on on purpose, since I use sound on the TV. You can start sound using patched AppleHDA or VoodooHDA.

Remember, the more “correct” your Hackintosh hardware is, the easier the installation will be. Installing a hack on my computer is no more difficult than reinstalling Windows. But if you have specific hardware, for example a PCI Wi-Fi adapter, sound card or something else, then in most cases these devices will not work with the hack.

That’s actually the entire installation of macOS Sierra on a regular PC computer.

Greetings everyone! The question is really very useful, but as practice shows, not many users use this method of clean installation of the Mac OS X operating system. First, I would like to define what a clean installation of Mac OS is - this is a complete reinstallation of the same or another version of Mac OS X in advance formatted disk partition.

Why do many people strive for a clean installation?

The answer is simply banal, in order to get rid of all the bugs, changes made and errors of the already installed operating system. Errors can occur both due to the fault of the OS itself, for example, due to an error with access rights to folders and files, making any changes to system files when installing programs using the installation method, or due to the fault of the user himself who tried to configure something by forcibly replacing or changing system files. As a rule, such a change entails a number of consequences - the system begins to lag, slow down, and various errors appear during operation.

What you will need for a clean installation of Mac OS while saving data:

Flash drive from 8 GB. The size of the flash drive depends on the installation method. If you have a saved installation image of Mac OS on your PC or in the App Store, then you can write it to a flash drive using the terminal (the easiest way), using disk utility (more difficult), for this you will need a flash drive of at least 8 GB . If there is no image, but you don’t want to use it from a torrent, then it is possible to install via the network using a recovery partition; to create a flash drive with a recovery partition, a 1 GB flash drive is enough - this method is perfect for owners of real Apple equipment; on Hackintosh, problems may arise problems, not always, but still. You will find how to cut an installation flash drive on our website; we have described a lot of methods for different versions of Mac OS, so don’t be lazy to look through the sections or use the search.
Time Machine backup or installed system on another hard drive partition. After a clean installation, we lose all data: installed and configured programs, photos, music and much more, which takes a lot of time to restore and configure. This is exactly why we need a copy of Time Machine or the system on another partition; in this case, we will extract only the information we need and will not affect system files - the Mac OS installer itself will not allow us to replace them with damaged ones. As a result, we will get a brand new and clean OS, but with our own programs and personal files, documents, photos, videos, music, etc.

At first, the process is no different from a regular installation. We insert the flash drive, boot from it, go into the disk utility and format the hard drive partition on which a clean Mac OS will be installed, and start the installation. After some time has passed, we will see this window; it is the settings from it that will allow us to save our data!

In this window, we need to select the first item - Transfer data from a Mac computer, Windows PC, Time Machine backup or boot disk. Select this item and click continue.

We choose what we will transfer from from an installed system on another partition or from a Time Machine backup.

Select the backup date from which you want to transfer data. In my case, there is only one copy, so the list is almost empty. If you use Time Machine for a long time and create automatic copies, the list will be more impressive.

After which we will be provided with a list from which we can choose what exactly we want to transfer. Programs, documents, music, photos, system settings and the like. From this list, select everything.

We select, confirm and wait for the information to be transferred to the new system. The duration of this procedure directly depends on the amount of data being transferred and the speed of the hard drive.

After which we log into ICloud or skip the step - this is the same as during a normal installation. With this method, an account does not require creation; it will be transferred from the specified location, so the password will be from the same account.

After this is done, we get the purest Mac OS, but with the full amount of our information and working programs on board, and we can immediately get to work, rather than copying, installing and configuring.

Attention hackintosh people. When transferring data in this way, all the kexts that you previously needed to install on the system, such as network, video, for USB, etc. , will be transferred from the copy and will not require re-installation. But if you manually patched ALC or another quest, you will have to repeat the procedure, since the installer will not skip the changed files. You can also delete a blank kext from the Mac OS library and install a modified one taken from a copy using the kext utility.

The second way to transfer data to the OS:

The second method is not much different, the procedure is absolutely the same, but it is already suitable for users who did not use the Migration Assistant during installation. You can also transfer all data from another installed operating system or Time Machine copy. But in a slightly different way.

Because the Mac family of computers are known for their reliability and endurance, many users choose not to upgrade their device just because of the Retina display or a more powerful processor. However, not every such “old man” can install the latest software, including the OS X Mountain Lion operating system - Apple itself introduces restrictions here. What to do in such a situation?

Fortunately, no one forbids us to use a little trick to give Mac a second wind. We will look at installing OS X version 10.8.3 using the example of the special utility MLPostFactor. Of course, it was not developed in Cupertino, so you need to remember one simple and easy-to-remember rule.

You carry out all subsequent actions with your computer only at your own peril and risk!

We've sorted this out, so let's proceed directly to the operating system installation procedure. First of all, it should be noted that MLPostFactor does not support all generations of Mac computers, but their list is quite impressive.

MacBook late 2006, 2007 and 2008
MacBook Air mid 2007
MacBook Pro late 2007 and mid 2007
iMac 2006
Mac mini 2006
Mac Pro 2006 and 2007
Xserve 2006 and early 2008

Not supported

Macs introduced from 2006 to 2008 with PowerPC, Core Duo, and Core Solo processors.

Minimum System Requirements

Mac with Core 2 Duo processor and Lion operating system
Two gigabytes of RAM
A copy of Mountain Lion (more on that later)
Eight gigabyte external storage (optional)
Free partition for Mountain Lion (minimum 20 GB)

If your computer fully meets the above requirements, you can safely move on.

Download a copy of Mountain Lion

There are several ways to do this. The first is to buy the operating system from the new Mac from the App Store, copy it to an external drive, and transfer it to the old Mac. The second is to download the Parallels Desktop program (the trial version is enough), install Lion using it, and then buy Mountain Lion through the Mac App Store completely legally. Be sure to copy it to your Applications folder.

Partitioning the hard drive

Open Disk Utility and create two new partitions on your hard drive. We call the first “Install” and give it eight gigabytes of free space, and the second (ML) we give at least 20 gigabytes.