Downloaded Lion install on my iMac. Tried to make copy on thumb drive, but each time I get message "Restore Failure" Could not restore-cannot allocate memory. Any idea what I am doing wrong? Using 8GB thumb drive. I have tried 2 times to move the file from my desktop to the thumbdrive and have gotten the same message both times.
iMac, Also have MacBook Pro
What file are you trying to put onto the 8GB USB thumb drive?
Are you trying to create a bootable USB thumb drive with the Lion installer?
I'm trying to copy the InstallESD.dmg file which I believe was attempting to create a bootable Lion thumb drive. My ultimate goal was to have Lion on a thumb drive so that I could take the thumb ddrive and install it on my wifes Macbook Pro. I was following the instructions at about.com where i searched for Lion copy USB. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Here's the guide I used to make a bootable USB from the Lion install app.
http://lifehacker.com/5823096/how-to-burn-your-own-lion-install-dvd-or-flash-dri ve
Lifehacker is what I tried and where I end up with the Restore Failure message I mentioned in my first post. Any ideas what may be causing this problem? Do I need a thumb drive larger than 8GB to perform this function?
Are you sure it's using a GUID Partition Table with one partition formatted in Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)? It will NOT work unless you do that.
Thanks for the link to Lion DiskMaker. I had no issues getting OS X 10.7.0 onto a USB drive with Disk Utility, but kept getting errors with 10.7.4. Lion DiskMaker just finished up, and all seems well.
I would like help on copying an EXISTING Lion partition, with a couple of key apps on it, to a thumb drive tht is bootable. The size is about 7 Gigs. Thus, I want a thumb drive back-up of my Lion OSX that I can boot in case of an emergency. Am using a Mac pro 2,1.
This is a somewhat different request than the one discussed so far, where a bootable Lion is made from the Lion install package.
Here is what I have tried so far:
1) Have succeeded in creating a bootable copy of my current Lion OSX partition, and my old Sno Leo partition on an INTERNAL third hard drive just fine.
2) Have booted into an old Sno Leo partition, and used disk utility to "restore" my current Lion instalation to a partition on my PNY 32 Gig USB thumb drive using GUID. Info shows that this thumb drive as bootable
3) However, when I hold down option at boot, with thumb drive in front USB port, the thumb drive is never displayed; at boot, OSX will not recognize thumb drive as a bootable option! Five other bootable options are recognized, and are bootable: Main Lion, Lion BKUP, Main Sno Leo, Sno Leo BKUP, and Recovery Disk. Why isn't my thumb drive displayed as a bootable choice?
3) I took out all my drives, and just tried to boot with the thumb drive alone in place; it still did not display as a bootable choice.
Solution Paths
Please suggest a solution path, if it is possible. I could be that Lion, or Apple, FORBIDS making a bootable copy of an existing, bootable Lion partition on an EXTERNAL USB drive. If so, please point this out to me.
Here are some ideas:
1) I could buy from Amazon an external terabyte drive with firewire for $190. Then, I think I could copy my existing Lion partition to this external firewire drive, and have it bootable. If a Colorado wildfire takes down my home, I could quickly grab this drive and put it in my car. But this is an expensive option; a 32 gig PNY thumb drive is only $20 at Best Buy.
2) Do I need to "bless" my thumb drive in Mac Unix to make it bootable? Am I missing some important step to succeed?
3) I have already clicked "repair disk" in disk utility from my Sno Leo partion, and it reports that it placed a boot on the thumb drive, and that the Lion thumb drive copy is clean, and bootable. But I cannot figure out why it is not recognized as a bootable OSX at startup.
Thank you for your patience and any ideas I could try.
I had this same issue, and was able to write to the bootable thumb drive by unmounting the named volume (not the higher-level drive in the left-hand panel) from the File menu within the Disk Utility.
I had the same error message in Disk Utility. But: the USB drive worked anyway.
Making backup of Lion on thumb drive?
