How to Create an OS X Mavericks Installer Media via 'Terminal'?

Nowadays, OS X 10.10 is among Mac users. Mac has been introduced many OS X versions but Mavericks is the strongest one among all the earlier renderings and many of us still love to work under the Mavericks environment. The good thing about Mavericks is that, it can be downloaded free from the App store. If your Mac is running Lion, or Mountain Lion then this version works very well. But there is a fact that many Mac novices (without possessing extra technical knowledge) face issues in simply downloading and installing this free version. It becomes a little difficult for them to know basic hardware & software requirements to proceed further for installation. Wouldn’t it be the best, if novices just plug an OS X ‘Installer media’ into the Mac and let that media drive to work automatically on their behalf?

USB Device

Here is an expert and easy way to create an Installer drive of Mavericks. It is also the best for those users, who don’t want to log in to App Store and initiate downloading. Just plug the ‘Mavericks Installer Media’ into the Mac system and simply reboot Mac to select this Installer drive to work automatically and sit with an ease.

Basic Requirements

It’s very easy to create an OS X Installer media. if you are a novice and making this experiment first time then don't forget to have a Mac drive clone prior to all these. All you need to have few things mentioned below:

• 64-bit Intel CPU (from Apple menu, click About Mac)

• There is also few hardware compatibility list

iMac (Mid-2007 or later)

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)

MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)

Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)

Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

Xserve (Early 2009)

Don’t worry after looking at this list; if your Mac is running OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion then you can easily take the benefits of Mavericks features

• Internet connection to access App Store

• External Drive or USB Flash Drive with 8GB capacity or bigger

Try to have a drive, formatted with bootable GUID partition table. If you don’t have then please follow these quick steps

1. Connect the drive with Mac machine

2. Open Disk Utility (Applications> Utilities> Disk Utility) and choose the attached external drive

3. Choose the “Partition” tab showing in upper middle side, select “1 Partition” from the ‘Partition Layout’ menu, then click “Options” and choose “GUID Partition Table” then “OK”

4. Choose “Apply”

Manage External Drive via Disk Utility

How to create an Installer Media of OS X Mavericks?

• Launch Terminal (Applications> Utilities> Terminal or via typing Terminal in Spotlight)

• Type this command shown in below image and be sure to type in one line. Otherwise, having any space or any wrong special character will resist Mac, not to work correctly.  

Command Script

 Replace “Untitled” term with <external drive name>

• Enter the Macs administrator password and hit ‘enter’ to continue the process (password will not be appeared just because of security concern and existence of ‘sudo’ term in command)

Let this command get executed and wait till you see “done” message on screen.

Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%...100%...
Copying installer files to disk...

Copy complete.
Making disk bootable...

Copying boot files...
Copy complete.
Done.

• Exit form Terminal and go back to the Finder window to check then Installer app of OS X Mavericks in left pane sidebar.

How to Use Installer App?

If you want to upgrade Mac from Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6, Lion 10.7, or Mountain Lion 10.8 then choose OS X Installer app and close other applications for letting it to start automatically.