Apple Mac Os X 10.7 Lion Installer Usb Flash Drive

So, you’ve decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. There are many reasons that could point you to this radical decision. To begin with, some of your apps may not be working properly (or simply crash) on newer operating systems. Also, you may have noticed your Mac’s performance went down right after the last update. Finally, if you want to run a parallel copy of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, you too will need a working installation file of an older Mac OS X. Further down we’ll explain where to get one and what problems you may face down the road.

A list of all Mac OS X versions

We’ll be repeatedly referring to these Apple OS versions below, so it’s good to know the basic macOS timeline.

OS X Lion Install application (via Mac App Store) OR Official Apple OS X Lion Install USB drive. (Buy it at apple.com or Apple store) You can easily pirate an OS, but we recommend you buy OS X Lion, that ways your hackintosh becomes semi-legal. Update: We’re trying to make this OS X Lion guide compatible with OS X Lion 10.7.3 Update. The Apple Mac OS X Lion Thumb Drive was incredible simple to use. Plug in and follow the prompts. They process was simple, easy, and no-hassle at all. I would recommend this to anyone who need to update their software, and I will be looking for Thumb Drives for additional updates in the future. Connect to your Mac the hard drive or flash drive you want to use for your bootable Lion installer. This drive must be at least 5GB in size (an 8GB flash drive works well), and it must be formatted. Versions of the operating system earlier than the one that shipped with a particular Mac are not compatible. MacBook Air models running Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' or Mac OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' are capable of running a great deal of Mac software written for Intel-based Macs and the vast majority of Mac OS X applications written for PowerPC-based systems using the 'Rosetta Universal Binary.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is the seventh major release of Mac OS X (now named macOS), Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.On August 28, 2009, it was released worldwide, and was made available for purchase from Apple's website and its retail stores at. Jul 22, 2011  Apple disregarded these concerns with the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion by only allowing the initial release in the Mac App Store for download. A USB Flash drive version will become available in the future, but there is a way to get a clean install from a DVD or USB Flash Drive now with some effort.

Cheetah 10.0Puma 10.1Jaguar 10.2
Panther 10.3Tiger 10.4Leopard 10.5
Snow Leopard 10.6Lion 10.7Mountain Lion 10.8
Mavericks 10.9Yosemite 10.10El Capitan 10.11
Sierra 10.12High Sierra 10.13Mojave 10.14
Catalina 10.15

ฉันจะเดินผ่านขั้นตอนของการติดตั้งไดรฟ์ Lion Lion จากคีย์ USB flash drive ที่สามารถบู๊ตได้จาก Mac OS X 10.7 กระบวนการนี้เหมือนกับกระบวนการติดตั้ง DVD Lion ที่สามารถบู๊ต.

STEP 1. Prepare your Mac for installation

Given your Mac isn’t new and is filled with data, you will probably need enough free space on your Mac. This includes not just space for the OS itself but also space for other applications and your user data. One more argument is that the free space on your disk translates into virtual memory so your apps have “fuel” to operate on. The chart below tells you how much free space is needed.

Note, that it is recommended that you install OS on a clean drive. Next, you will need enough disk space available, for example, to create Recovery Partition. Here are some ideas to free up space on your drive:

  • Uninstall large unused apps
  • Empty Trash Bin and Downloads
  • Locate the biggest files on your computer:

Go to Finder > All My Files > Arrange by size
Then you can move your space hoggers onto an external drive or a cloud storage.
If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning the Mac manually, there are some nice automatic “room cleaners”. Our favorite is CleanMyMac as it’s most simple to use of all. It deletes system junk, old broken apps, and the rest of hidden junk on your drive.

Drive

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.4 - 10.8 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.9 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.10 - 10.14 (free version)

STEP 2. Get a copy of Mac OS X download

Normally, it is assumed that updating OS is a one-way road. That’s why going back to a past Apple OS version is problematic. The main challenge is to download the OS installation file itself, because your Mac may already be running a newer version. If you succeed in downloading the OS installation, your next step is to create a bootable USB or DVD and then reinstall the OS on your computer.

How to download older Mac OS X versions via the App Store


If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way. The purchased section lists only those operating systems that you had downloaded in the past. But here is the path to check it:

  1. Click the App Store icon.
  2. Click Purchases in the top menu.
  3. Scroll down to find the preferred OS X version.
  4. Click Download.

This method allows you to download Mavericks and Yosemite by logging with your Apple ID — only if you previously downloaded them from the Mac App Store.

Without App Store: Download Mac OS version as Apple Developer

If you are signed with an Apple Developer account, you can get access to products that are no longer listed on the App Store. If you desperately need a lower OS X version build, consider creating a new Developer account among other options. The membership cost is $99/year and provides a bunch of perks unavailable to ordinary users.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that if you visit developer.apple.com/downloads, you can only find 10.3-10.6 OS X operating systems there. Newer versions are not available because starting Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.7, the App Store has become the only source of updating Apple OS versions.

Purchase an older version of Mac operating system

You can purchase a boxed or email version of past Mac OS X directly from Apple. Both will cost you around $20. For the reason of being rather antiquated, Snow Leopard and earlier Apple versions can only be installed from DVD.

Buy a boxed edition of Snow Leopard 10.6
Get an email copy of Lion 10.7
Get an email copy of Mountain Lion 10.8

The email edition comes with a special download code you can use for the Mac App Store. Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it.

How to get macOS El Capitan download

If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8. So, here are main steps you should take:

1. Install Snow Leopard from install DVD.
2. Update to 10.6.8 using Software Update.
3. Download El Capitan here.

“I can’t download an old version of Mac OS X”

If you have a newer Mac, there is no physical option to install Mac OS versions older than your current Mac model. For instance, if your MacBook was released in 2014, don’t expect it to run any OS released prior of that time, because older Apple OS versions simply do not include hardware drivers for your Mac.

But as it often happens, workarounds are possible. There is still a chance to download the installation file if you have an access to a Mac (or virtual machine) running that operating system. For example, to get an installer for Lion, you may ask a friend who has Lion-operated Mac or, once again, set up a virtual machine running Lion. Then you will need to prepare an external drive to download the installation file using OS X Utilities.

After you’ve completed the download, the installer should launch automatically, but you can click Cancel and copy the file you need. Below is the detailed instruction how to do it.

STEP 3. Install older OS X onto an external drive

The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.

  1. Start your Mac holding down Command + R.
  2. Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage).
  3. Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X.
  4. Select external drive as a source.
  5. Enter your Apple ID.

Now the OS should start downloading automatically onto the external drive. After the download is complete, your Mac will prompt you to do a restart, but at this point, you should completely shut it down. Now that the installation file is “captured” onto your external drive, you can reinstall the OS, this time running the file on your Mac.

  1. Boot your Mac from your standard drive.
  2. Connect the external drive.
  3. Go to external drive > OS X Install Data.

Locate InstallESD.dmg disk image file — this is the file you need to reinstall Lion OS X. The same steps are valid for Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

How to downgrade a Mac running later macOS versions

If your Mac runs macOS Sierra 10.12 or macOS High Sierra 10.13, it is possible to revert it to the previous system if you are not satisfied with the experience. You can do it either with Time Machine or by creating a bootable USB or external drive.
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS High Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Mojave

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Catalina

Before you do it, the best advice is to back your Mac up so your most important files stay intact. In addition to that, it makes sense to clean up your Mac from old system junk files and application leftovers. The easiest way to do it is to run CleanMyMac X on your machine (download it for free here).

Visit your local Apple Store to download older OS X version

If none of the options to get older OS X worked, pay a visit to nearest local Apple Store. They should have image installations going back to OS Leopard and earlier. You can also ask their assistance to create a bootable USB drive with the installation file. So here you are. We hope this article has helped you to download an old version of Mac OS X. Below are a few more links you may find interesting.

These might also interest you:

On every OS X Lion installation a hidden partition is created to enable a method for Lion to be reinstalled on the machine, it is known as the recovery partition or drive and is 650mb in size.

If you bought a new machine from Apple you have OS X 10.7 already installed – but no back up disk! and since you haven’t bought the OSX Lion 10.7 App from the App store you can’t re-download it – so thats why you have the recovery drive as a partition in your main hard drive and to boot from it you need to restart the machine holding down “command” + “r” keys.

From recovery mode you can run Disk Utility, get online help and do a restore from a Time Machine backup and re-install Lion leaving all your other files intact – it just replaces the core operating system.

You can make a bootable USB drive or disk of the recovery drive, but involves a small trip to the Terminal….

1) Launch Terminal from /Applications/Utilities and run:

The primary drive in this list is No.2 with the “Identifier” of disk0s2, the boot recovery drive is disk0s3

We can also identify the recovery drive by the name and the size – set at 650mb

2) Mount the drive:

Output should be:

Now the Recovery HD is mounted in the Finder and you can see it in the sidebar under Devices
Navigate to it from the sidebar – Recovery HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg.

3) Doubleclick BaseSystem.dmg to mount it also in the sidebar. This will mount the volume ” Mac OSX Base System”

Installer

mac-osx-lion-base-system

4) Open Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities

5) Put in a 2GB+ USB drive, let Disk Utility load it. The USB drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled, if its not, its time to format it in Disk Utility…

6) Finally in still in Disk Utility, select the “Restore” tab – drag the mounted volume “Mac OSX Base System” into the Source field and drag the USB drive “Volume” (mine is called SuperBootUSBDrive) to the Destination.

restore-volume-osx-usb

7) Click Restore – 25 minutes later – One bootable USB drive

Apple Mac Os X 10.7 Lion Installer Usb Flash Drive Windows 7

Your bootable USB drive will be called “Mac OS X Base System” after the restore is complete. Now to boot from it just select it as the Start Up disk in System Preferences or hold down option key on boot and select it from the choice of bootable devices.

If you have downloaded the Lion App from the App Store then you can also make a boot disk/drive from this, guide is here, you need to make the boot drive/disk before you install the Lion App, as the installer is deleted after running it. Thats why the guide here can get you out of trouble.

Couple of footnotes on this – Apple has released a knowledgebase article about the recovery partition, also just released from Apple is an app that will do the same as above.

Update For Newer Models – hidden BaseSystem.dmg

If you have the latest models from Apple that came already shipped with OSX 10.7, then you may not have the “BaseSystem.dmg” but instead see a “BaseSystem.chunklist” , the “BaseSystem.dmg” is there it’s just hidden.

Apple Mac Os X 10.7 Lion Installer Usb Flash Drive Download

To show it so you can see it in the finder – go to Terminal – enter:

Apple Mac Os X 10.7 Lion Installer Usb Flash Drive Tool

Now it will be visible in the Finder.

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