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.
Part 1. How to Install macOS High Sierra on the External Drive
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.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/7/2/127299885/681200743.jpg)
Step 2: Installing macOS High Sierra on the External Drive
Mar 24, 2015 This video has steps on how to install Any version of Mac OS X (in this case Yosemite) onto an external harddrive, usb drive, sd card etc. Plug in external device (USB, Harddrive, SD) and format. Whichever method you choose, it will take anywhere from 15 to 30+ minutes to install OS X onto your external hard drive. Run Mac OS X From an External Hard Drive. While OS X is installing, your computer will restart a couple of times. Note that when it finally boots into OS X, that is the version running off your external drive. In this article we'll run through the steps necessary to create a bootable installer of the Mac operating system, whether it's so you can install the latest version of the macOS on multiple Macs. Mar 03, 2020 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.
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.
Recoverit
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Related Articles & Tips
When new versions of an operating system are released, its not uncommon to want to test out how the new software will work with your hardware, software, and data. The worst thing to experience is when your “upgrade” becomes a “downgrade” because none of your data is accessible or software available.
Apple recently released Snow Leopard and we walked readers through how to install snow leopard from a USB Drive. Now we’ll explain the steps on how to install snow leopard onto an External Hard Drive so users can test out the new OS X 10.6 without risking the potential negative impacts of an upgrade on their Leopard Installation.
Installing OS X Snow Leopard on an External Hard Drive
The steps to install Snow Leopard onto an external hard drive are very similar to the steps of booting OS X from a USB drive. In fact, if you have a large enough USB flash drive, you can use these same steps to install Snow Leopard on to it. This 128 GB USB Flash Drive can service just as well as a normal External Hard Drive, and may even run a bit faster than your typical HD.
Install Mac Os X Lion On External Hard Drive
- Insert the OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard DVD into your Mac, or boot into the USB Snow Leopard Installation we described in an earlier post.
- Open system preferences from the menu bar, select start up disks and then the OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Install DVD. Click the restart button to start the installation process
- After your computer restarts continue through the introduction and agreement pages
- The External Hard Drive won’t currently be an option for installation so we’ll need to use Disk Utility to make some configuration changes. Select Utility from the Menu Bar to access Disk Utility.
- Once Disk Utility opens, select the External Hard Drive you’d like to install Snow Leopard onto and then Select Partition. From here select 1 Partition and then click Options. To allow the Mac to boot from the external hard drive, the drive must be setup with a GUID Partition Table. Select GUID.
- To make sure that you don’t mistake the External Drive for your normal Hard Drive, be sure to name the Volume something like “Snow Leopard”. Apply the changes and continue to the next step
- Exit DisK Utility and the installation window will return asking which volume you’d like to install snow leopard onto. Select the External Hard Drive that we partitioned with GUID (Named Snow Leopard) to continue the installation. Follow the instruction until the installation is complete.
The installation requires at least 8.1gb of space, so a normal 8gb flash drive won’t work. If you’re using an External Hard Drive you can install the complete installation (11gb). If this isn’t enough space be sure to customize the installation and remove printer settings and extra languages.
Snow Leopard Installation Time
Once the installation to my External Hard Drive started, it took 30 minutes to complete. The total install time including setting up the External Hard Drive as a GUID bootable device took close to 40 minutes.
This time depends completely on your computer settings and hard drive speeds.
Snow Leopard Installation Problems
I didn’t have any problems installing Snow Leopard to an External Hard Drive with the steps listed above, however after the installation completed it tried to reboot to the external hard drive on its own. It got stuck during the restart but powering off the Mac and starting again holding down alt (option) allowed me to select and boot from the hard drive.
Let us know what problems you’re having with your installation efforts and Maciverse will do our best to Help.
External Hard Drive Snow Leopard Speed
I’ll be the first to admit that I was amazed at the speed of the OS on the External Hard Drive. I expected Snow Leopard to run slower than the native hard drive but that wasn’t the case. Safari opened quickly, finder also was zippy, and the dock functioned without any speed issues. Moving files around and creating video with Quicktime X worked flawlessly.
It functioned so well that I’ve decided to do a fresh install on to my internal hard drive on my Mac. I’ll backup the data on the drive and follow the steps listed above but will select my internal hard drive as the volume.