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I have a rescued 2013 MacBook Air with a broken screen backlight due to a beverage spill and missing its internal SSD. I don't yet have any OS installed on it. I have access only to (32 bit) Windows PCs otherwise.

I believe there are bootable live USBs these days like we used to use live CDs back in the day. For a Mac live USB stick I'm not sure what partitioning / formatting / filesystem is needed for it to be bootable by Mac firmware. Thus I'm not sure if or how I can create one using a Windows box.

Existing questions that I originally thought were identical are about creating a USB key from an Intel machine running Linux. I currently don't have Linux on any of my Intel machines, all are running only Windows. Thus it appears mine is a novel question here.

hippietrail
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  • Why couldn't I find the previous question in either Superuser search or Google until I posted it? (-: – hippietrail Apr 28 '16 at 07:21
  • Could be how you worded it? The system did not recognize how you typed it possibly. – NetworkKingPin Apr 28 '16 at 07:23
  • Actually the existing question is about using a Wintel Linux box while I don't currently have any box running Linux, I only have Windows boxes right now. I think this is clear without editing the question text. Regretting closevoting myself now (-: – hippietrail Apr 28 '16 at 07:24
  • Use this [Unetbootin](https://unetbootin.github.io/) It will allow you to make a bootable linux usb on Windows,Linux or Mac. – NetworkKingPin Apr 28 '16 at 07:26
  • @NetworkKingPin: Really? In that case is the last section of this answer to a similar question wrong/out-of-date? https://superuser.com/a/589600/58110 – hippietrail Apr 28 '16 at 07:29
  • Ive used it in the last 6 months. Haha I didnt even look at the question. I just read what you said. – NetworkKingPin Apr 28 '16 at 07:34
  • @NetworkKingPin: Sorry are you saying that you have used it to create a USB bootable on Mac from a Windows PC? Even the tool's own website still currently says it can't do that. I looked it up based on reading it in that old answer. – hippietrail Apr 28 '16 at 07:37
  • There is no way to do this natively in Windows, this question will only draw 3rd party software solutions which are off topic here, your might be better re-wording the question and post here....http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ – Moab Apr 28 '16 at 15:51
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    http://superuser.com/questions/775017/is-it-possible-to-create-bootable-linux-on-usb-drive-using-windows-command-line – random Apr 29 '16 at 05:23

2 Answers2

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Universal-USB-Installer

Freewere. works on windows very well to make many types of bootable drives. Windows, Linux, Mac. SImple to use. small file. try it.

fixer1234
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Abdul Rehman
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  • Software recommendations as answers are frowned upon here, a better site to recommend software is...http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ – Moab Apr 28 '16 at 15:49
  • @Moab OP asked for a solution. I didn't knew people don't like software recommendation here. I won't delete the answer. maybe that would help the OP. Everything is software opensource or not. why not mention it. – Abdul Rehman Apr 28 '16 at 17:34
  • Software recommendations on SU should be comments. Yes you can make them answers but usually don't get much rep for it. – Moab Apr 28 '16 at 18:35
  • I see you use software recommendations heavily in your answers. nvm. Have a good day – Abdul Rehman Apr 28 '16 at 20:13
  • When the only answer to a quesion is using 3rd party software, the question or the answer does not belong here on SU. – Moab Apr 28 '16 at 23:37
  • says who? written anywhere? Would help me in using the site properly, because I didn't see it written anywhere. – Abdul Rehman Apr 29 '16 at 09:58
  • Asking for third party software recommendations is Off Topic on SU it is considered a product..http://superuser.com/help/on-topic – Moab Apr 29 '16 at 19:25
  • Asking for software recommendations is off-topic, but providing one as an answer is not. However, the answer needs to be high quality to not be viewed as spam. Key is to make it a solution to what was asked in the question rather than just pointing at a product and quoting a few generic features. To me, your answer meets the (bare) minimum requirements; it looks like @Moab may disagree. It would be a much better answer is you included some basic instructions on how to use the product to do what was asked in the question. – fixer1234 May 01 '16 at 04:29
  • Some good guidance on providing a software recommendation as an answer: http://meta.superuser.com/questions/5329/how-do-i-recommend-software-in-my-answers. – fixer1234 May 01 '16 at 04:35
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Rufus works very well to create these installers. You can get it from https://rufus.akeo.ie/

From the site It can be especially useful for cases where:

you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.) you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS you want to run a low-level utility

and you dont need to install it

Shiva Shankar
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  • Software recommendations as answers are frowned upon here, a better site to recommend software is...http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ – Moab Apr 28 '16 at 15:48