Have you ever thought of carrying your Mac OS on an external device and gain access to it at any time? If the reaction is yes, then you have arrived at the right post. We will be providing you with the information through which you can install macOS High Sierra on an external drive.
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Part 1. How to Install macOS High Sierra on the External Drive
Nov 15, 2016 Software for creating a bootable backup. You can technically use Disk Utility to copy your entire hard drive, but the result will not be bootable on an external drive. There are two main Mac options for creating bootable backups: Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner. Manually backup your computer with some other software such as Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner. If you are a beginner I recommend Time Machine. Apple’s way (Time Machine) is a lot simpler. It’s automatic. It doesn’t rely on you remembering to do anything. The big disadvantage is that the backup is not bootable.
Before beginning the process, there are a few requisites that you must meet. You will need an external drive with a minimum capacity of 16 GB, and second, you will need the copy of the macOS High Sierra installer. You can obtain the installer from the App Store by searching for 'macOS' and download it to your Mac hard drive.
Step 1: Formatting the External Drive
To allow the external drive to function as the startup disk, you need to format it to Mac OS Extended and employ GUID partition map. Start the utility disk. You can find it under the Applications category or search it using Spotlight.
As utility disk runs in the background, you can check for the format of the external drive. In the following example, the drive is in Master Boot Record format. First, unmount the drive. After unmounting, you can select the same drive from the left of the window as shown in the figure below. Now, from the tabs that appear in right window, choose 'Erase' option.
In the next window, you can now format the external drive as 'Mac OS Extended' and opt for GUID Partition Map. If you choose to, you can also give it a name. Press 'Erase' to proceed. After completion, you will see the following screen. Press 'Done' to proceed.
Step 2: Installing macOS High Sierra on the External Drive
After you complete the download of the macOS installer, double click the same from the Applications folder to begin the installation procedure. Press 'Continue' in the following screen.
Click 'Agree' to the accept license agreement. In the next window, press the 'Show all disks' option. The window will display the local drive and the connected external drive. Choose the external drive in this case. You will have to key in your system user name and password.
macOS High Sierra will begin installing on the selected external hard disk. It requires some time to complete the task. You can wait until the process is complete. Before it completes the installation, the Mac will restart. Therefore, it is preferable to save any other work that is in progress.
After restarting, the Mac will take a minimum of 15 minutes to complete the installation process. It will then reboot from the new device. You then have to proceed with the general process of activating Siri, time zone, and adding the user account. Once you complete these actions, you will possess the new version of macOS High Sierra on your external drive. Do not remove the external drive, as Mac OS will access the files on the drive periodically. You can now use the same every time you wish to use High Sierra.
Part 2. How to Use macOS High Sierra with the Bootable Hard Drive
As you now have macOS High Sierra in the form of bootable hard drive, you can use it with another compatible Mac or when the situation demands. However, remember that using the external device as a bootable drive will slow down the functioning of the system. More importantly, it is useful only when you are facing trouble with your existing internal drive of the Mac.
The following information will be helpful in case if you choose to use macOS High Sierra with the bootable hard drive:
Step 1: If there is a trouble with the current hard disk, and you wish to solve it or use the new version of the OS, then plug the bootable external drive to the Mac.
Step 2: Power on the machine and hold the option button until you notice the recovery screen appear. From the screen, you can choose the bootable external device that you have created.
Step 3: You will boot into the macOS High Sierra version for that particular session.
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by Jenefey AaronUpdated on 2020-01-11 / Update for OS X
For the last few years, Apple is pushing its AppStore - both the iOS and macOS - to distribute all applications, including the operating system. In the perfect world, this approach is fine and dandy, but we are not living there.
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This “everything on the cloud” method has several disadvantages, especially regarding macOS installer. First, the file size is too big for some to download over the internet. Second, those with more than one Mac has to re-download the installer file several times, once for each machine. It’s a waste of time and internet bandwidth.
Sometimes it’s better to install the macOS using drive installer. But you can’t just copy and paste the downloaded file to a USB drive. You need to create a bootable drive. Here’s the easy way to do it.
Downloading the macOS Sierra Installer
First, find and download macOS Sierra in the App Store. The installer will be saved in the Applications folder and automatically launch after the download, but you need to quit it. Because if you continue with the installation, the installer will be removed from your local hard drive after the process.
You can keep the installer in the Applications folder or make a backup copy in another drive/folder.
Preparing an External Drive
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To create the installer, you need a USB flash drive or external hard drive with minimum 8 GB of storage.
During the process, the drive will be reformatted automatically. So if you have valuable data on the drive, it’s wise to back it up somewhere safe.
And don’t forget to change the name of your drive to Untitled because it’s necessary for the next step.
Taking the Quick and Easy Way
You can create the bootable installer drive using the Terminal. But why taking the hard way when there’s the quick and easy way?
You can use one of these two apps to help you with the process:
Both apps are fast and straightforward. They also support the older version of OS X.
After downloading one of the two alternatives, all that you need to do is to start the app, choose the installer file, and follow the process. You’ll have the bootable drive in a few minutes.
Booting from the Installer Drive
After creating the bootable installer drive, you need to boot your Mac from it to install Sierra.
- 1. Plug your external drive into your Mac.
- 2. Restart your Mac and press down on the Option key while the Mac boots.
- 3. After a few moments, your Mac should display the Startup Manager, which will show you the available boot drives. Click on the external drive and hit Return.
- 4. Your Mac will display an OS X Utilities window. If you want to install Sierra and leave the data intact, select Install OS X. If you want to start over and wipe out the data, you need to go into Disk Utility to reformat the internal drive first, and then install macOS Sierra.
Backing up and Recovering Your Data
Whether you choose the clean install or upgrade your previous version of macOS, the process bears the risk of losing your data. To keep your data safe, there’s no other option than to back it up so that you can recover it later.
You can use the help from Tenorshare Data Recovery for Mac. This app is a complete Mac data recovery solution to recover all types of files from Mac's hard drive and also from other portable devices like USB flash drive, external hard drive, SD card, iPhone. The app supports all macOS versions including macOS High Sierra, EI Captain, Yosemite, or below.
- Recover data deleted, formatted or lost on Mac;
- Restore files from hard drive and external storage devices;
- Recover data from failed/crashed/dead MacBook;
- Fully supported latest macOS 10.15 Catalina;