How to properly make a copy of Mountain Lion on a USB flash drive?

Question

Level 1

6 points

How to properly make a copy of Mountain Lion on a USB flash drive?

Please Help!

I tried to do the manual copy of Mountain Lion on my SanDisk cruzer blade 8gb flash drive but every time Disk Utility "finishes" the restore it displayes the following message:

'Failure Restore'

Could not restore - Invalid argument.

I tried 4 different times and the last one on a 32gb SanDisk flash drive but I get the same message.

I followed the steps on this address:

http://lifehacker.com/5928780/how-to-burn-os-x-mountain-lion-to-a-dvd-or-usb-fla sh-drive

Help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Aug 23, 2012 2:47 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 23, 2012 2:49 PM in response to Daniela21

Did you make sure that your USB drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

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Answer 2

Daniela21 Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 23, 2012 2:50 PM in response to Noble Seven

Yes I did. I did everything following the instructions on the link.

😕

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Answer 3

Aug 23, 2012 2:53 PM in response to Daniela21

Here, this was a comment on the article:

"I think there's an instruction missing here. You have to MOUNT the DMG file, not just drag it into the sidebar of Disk Utility. You have to select the MOUNTED disk image as your source (and also the MOUNTED partition of the USB drive as the destination) when restoring. Maybe this was obvious, but I thought it might be worth mentioning."

Try adding that step, and see if it works. Just mount the .dmg file in FINDER before opening up Disk Utility.

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Answer 4

Daniela21 Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 23, 2012 2:54 PM in response to Noble Seven

Yeah I'm not really good at this. So instead of dragging it, I should mount it? how??

sorry for my inexperience..

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Answer 5

Aug 23, 2012 2:57 PM in response to Daniela21

When you go into Finder to get the .dmg file, double click on it, and it will mount it for you. Then, you don't have to worry about dragging anything. Just go into Disk Utility, and you will see the mounted installer in the sidebar. You can just use that for Step 5. It should work.

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Answer 6

Aug 23, 2012 3:05 PM in response to Daniela21

Daniel,

You will probably find that despite the error, the drive was restored just fine. Ty booting to the drive and running disk utility. I bet it works just fine.

I have a USB drive for which I created an installer the same way, got the error too. Subsequently, I have installed OS X Mountain Lion from that disk to several machines without a hitch.

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Answer 7

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Aug 23, 2012 3:25 PM in response to Daniela21

Simple, download this program and run it with a 8GB USB thumb drive connected to your system and nthe ML download file stored on your interneal drive.

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Answer 8

Daniela21 Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 23, 2012 3:50 PM in response to Noble Seven

Ok so instead of dragging the .dmg I opened it like you said and it automatically appeared in Disk Utility but not when I click restore it shows:

'Restore Failure'

Could not restore - Resource busy

It doen'st even start the restore like it used to.

😐

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Answer 9

Aug 23, 2012 3:54 PM in response to Daniela21

Hmm. Have you bothered to try Lion Disk Maker like LifeHacker also suggested in their article? You might have better luck with it.

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Answer 10

Daniela21 Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 23, 2012 4:13 PM in response to Noble Seven

No I haven't, I guess I'll have to give it a try.

I'll report if I have better luck with that. Thanks.

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Answer 11

Aug 23, 2012 4:47 PM in response to Daniela21

Yes, please do let me know if it works for you. And you're welcome.

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Answer 12

Daniela21 Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 24, 2012 10:38 AM in response to Noble Seven

It did work, and it was waayyy easier and faster! Thanks for your help 🙂

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Answer 13

Apr 27, 2013 5:31 PM in response to Daniela21

For people encountered the same problem with Daniela21, you don't need any 3rd party software. Problem occurs because the partition on the disk (not the disk itself) is mounted. Just right+click or cmd+click on the partition beneath the disk and select unmount. Note it's important to unmount just the partition and not the disk.

For a more detailed explanation with a screenshot :

http://aproudlove.squarespace.com/blog/2011/7/23/how-to-fix-restore-failure-coul d-not-restore-resource-busy.html

Hope it works ..

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Answer 14

rynomay

Level 1

4 points

May 21, 2016 8:57 AM in response to Daniela21

For what it's worth. None of the above worked for me, but this did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Sft31B0l0

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Answer 15

May 22, 2016 10:09 AM in response to Daniela21

Use Disk Utility as explained here: http://www.macworld.com/article/1167857/how_to_make_a_bootable_mountain_lion_ins tall_drive.html

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