A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent ...

If your Mac is having problems, macOS has multiple keyboard combinations that you can hold to recover your system, start in safe mode, run diagnostics, and more. Here's how to use them. Apple's macOS ...

I harbor no nostalgia for Mac OS 9. Aside from a couple of old games, I never even think about using OS 9 anymore. With one exception...I long for OS 9's simplicity in creating bootable drives and ...

It's handy to have an external, bootable macOS Ventura installer, but you practically have to fight Apple to make one. Here's what you have to do. In Apple's ideal world, you let your Mac update ...

I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.

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 ...

Bootable disc image files may contain all the data necessary to create a disc from which computers can boot, but if you want them to work, you can't just burn them to a disc the way you would regular ...

[Editor’s note: This article is part of our series of articles on installing and upgrading to Lion (OS X 10.7). We also have a complete guide to installing and upgrading to Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8).] ...

The software will be incorporated into Apple's Leopard OS 10.5, and beta users looking to continue using the software will have to download an update from the Leopard OS installation disk to continue ...

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 ...