If your Mac has multiple bootable disks—via either a partitioned internal disk or external FireWire drives—you’re probably very familiar with the Startup Disk System Preferences panel. As you’d guess ...

In last month's column, I described the hurdles that Mac OS X puts in your way when you try to create a bootable disc, especially a custom bootable CD, DVD or flash drive. I offered various solutions ...

Apple has released Mac OS X Lion in the Mac App Store for $30. Separately, Apple will also begin offering Lion on a USB thumb drive in Apple stores come August. Right now, you can grab Lion from the ...

Performing a clean install of macOS Tahoe can be a necessary task in some situations, offering a way to start fresh on a Mac.

Apart from the default startup disk, Mac computers can be set to start up from a different disk like an external drive, network volume, or a USB flash drive. This article explains the process for ...

Despite Apple’s best efforts, you can make a bootable install disk of Mac OS X Lion… but it’s not for the faint-hearted, or those who aren’t tech inclined. Luckily, there’s an even easier way to make ...

If you have bought an Apple Silicon Mac or MacBook but need to upgrade your storage without buying a brand new device, you can set up your Mac to run from an external drive. Here's how to boot macOS ...

Is it time to upgrade to macOS 11 Big Sur? I’ll write more about that soon. However, there is one general concern that has caused us to hesitate to recommend upgrading. That’s the complexity of ...

Bootable hard drives. Creating a bootable hard drive in Mac OS X is not difficult, but is still a significant undertaking. The most common method is to boot from a Mac OS X Install disc, run the ...