Although macOS Monterey is currently in beta, being able to create a bootable external drive with which to perform a clean installation of the system is very useful. In this way we can completely remove the previous installation and create a new one that, at least in theory, should have better performance and fewer failures.
What do we need?
For this process we will need a flash memory of at least 16GB of storage . Bear in mind that we will completely erase your content, so if necessary, we will save the files in another location.
We will also need a copy of the Monterey installation application . We can get this app through the developer portal or by following this tutorial .
Last but not least, the Mac with which we create the installer, even if it is intended for another Mac, must be compatible with macOS Monterey .
Terminal, here we go
Well, once the necessary ingredients are gathered, let’s get to work . The process is quite simple and consists of these steps:
- We connect the flash memory to the Mac and change the name to “FLASH”, without the quotes.
- We open the Terminalapp , which we can search using Spotlight.
- We copy and paste the following
sudo / Applications / Install \ macOS \ 12 \ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume / Volumes / FLASH –nointeraction
- We press Enter (↩︎).
- We write the password of our Mac and press Enter again.
The process can take up to 20 minutes depending on the speed of the computer we are using. We will see several process indicators in the same terminal and when it is completed we will see “Done” in the last line. And just like that, we’ve created a bootable Monterey installer.
And now that?
Now we can proceed to the installation of macOS Monterey from scratch. To do so, we simply turn off the computer, connect the flash memory and turn it on while pressing the option key (⌥) in the case of Intel computers or holding down the power button until we see the “Boot Options” in Mac with Apple Silicon. When the menu to choose from appears, we select the Monterey installer.
Remember that some Intel Macs with the T2 chip require us to activate this external boot option . To do this, we simply turn off the Mac and turn it on by pressing Command (⌘) + R. Then, in the Utilities menu we choose * Startup Security Utility and we will mark the option Allow startup from external support . After restarting the computer, we will be able to use our installer on the Mac.
Let us bear in mind that for the installation to be from scratch it is necessary to erase the content of the entire hard disk , the process is very easy, as we explain in the video that heads this section.
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And that simple. We have created a bootable macOS Monterey installer and have seen how to use it to create a clean installation of the system. A resource that forces us to reinstall applications and settings after the process, but that can improve errors and the overall performance of the computer.
