creatinstallmedia for Mac oS Catalina not working, Why?

Stephen Zelley wrote:

Hello, this is Stephen. I'm trying to use createinstallmedia to create a Mac oS Catalina install drive, but when I try I get the error, the volume could not be found. I made sure I was typing the name of the volume in Terminal correctly, which was Untitled, but I typed it exactly like that. I even tried dragging and dropping the Mac oS installer and the volume in terminal, but still the same error. Also, this is a fresh copy of the Mac oS installer, so I know it's a good copy. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Mac oS Catalina 10.15.3.

Hmmm.

copy and paste command line you used from your terminal window—maybe we can compare:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

verify your USB is at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.

That would need to be GUID (GPT) partition scheme and the file format as Extended Journeled.

Stephen Zelley wrote:

Okay well, here is what I'm typing in terminal, please let me know what I'm doing wrong: sudo /applications/install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/ Untitled

It also looks like you have an extra space after /Volumes/ before Untitled.

Compare the command in full, followed by your command as you posted above:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

sudo /applications/install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/ Untitled

Ever heard the computer phrase, "garbage in garbage out"(?) —used to express the idea that in computing and other spheres, incorrect or poor quality input will always produce faulty output.

Stephen Zelley wrote:

Okay well, here is what I'm typing in terminal, please let me know what I'm doing wrong: sudo /applications/install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/ Untitled

from your command line I see—

"Applications" needs to be capitalized

"Install" needs to be capitalized

"--volume /Volumes" note the small dash small dash

This is why we say copy and paste.

Stephen Zelley wrote:

Well, the small dash happens when I type in 2 dashes and I couldn't get it not to do that. Also when I tried reformatting the harddrive as, MyVolume, on Apple's article posted above and then copied and pasted into terminal, I still got errors and it still wasn't working. Keep in mind that I am using textedit to create a file containing the command for terminal, so that when a minor release for Mac oS comes out I can just copy and paste in terminal, and for some reason textedit is putting in the small dash when I try to put in 2 dashes like the article on Apple's sight, I can't seem to be able to get textedit to get that right for some reason.

Between that, and your diskmaker x not working maybe you are jinxed ?

Stephen Zelley wrote:

Never mind, I got it. I copied and pasted your corrected version of the command, and now it's creating the installation disk as we speek. Thank you very much.

Good computing Stephen Zelley ! You did it, w00t !!

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Well, I still suspect user error or formatting error, only in the fact I have never had an issue with the command line method.