preparing new hard drive for mac os install

Preparing New Hard Drive Full MacOS Installer

There are a couple of options with an erased partition.

We have instructions for making a bootable installer with macOS Sierra (as well as archived versions for several previous releases).

The article includes instructions on obtaining the installer, which might involve you having to use someones else Mac to download it, if you dont have a replacement Mac on hand yet.

Normally, you can start up a Mac while holding down Command-R to boot into what Apple now calls macOS Recovery.

That allows you to run Disk Utility, reinstall or wipe and install the system, access Terminal for command-line functions, and so on.

In that mode, when you choose to reinstall without erasing the drive, my recollection is that Recovery looks for the current OS system installer on your startup disk in the Applications folder, and uses that.

Apple doesnt document that, and I havent had to test that for years.) Failing finding it, Recovery downloads the currently installed version of macOS (or OS X), which is about 5GB.

When complete, it installs it and reboots, and places the installer in the Applications folder.

However, theres yet another option: macOS Recovery over the Internet, which requires either a Mac model released in 2012 or later, or most 2010 and 2011 models with a firmware upgrade applied.

Preparing New Hard Drive Full MacOS Installer

There, the Mac reaches out over a Wi-Fi or ethernet connection to download the relatively modest Recovery software, which then bootstraps the download of the full macOS installer.

Apple says Internet-based Recovery should happen automatically on supported models, and you should see a spinning globe when that mode is invoked while the download occurs.

However, if you have normal Recovery installed and it refuses to install macOS for some reason, you can manually invoke Internet Recovery.

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Preparing New Hard Drive For Mac Os Install