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Is it necessary to create the bootable USB from the same kind of device in which you wish to use it. I want to create one for my MBP (for which I have deleted the recovery drive as well) and I have a working Macbook Air.

So if I use my Air to create the drive for MBP, will it work?

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  • Not to contradict Allan's answer, he knows way more than I and has helped me in the past. However, I personally was unsuccessful booting/installing with a MBP created USB drive on my mini, and was similarly unsuccessful booting/installing with a mini created USB drive on my MBP. Maybe I was doing something else wrong, but was only able to get a USB boot/install drive to work when created on the target machine.
    – Bosque Bill
    Mar 13, 2018 at 17:34
  • What error did you used to get while recovering mac from a USB created from a different Mac?
    – dreamboat
    Mar 13, 2018 at 19:29
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    I don't recall the exact message, it was something like "image corrupted - disk unusable" or "file corrupted." Sorry I don't remember better, it was a couple months ago and I didn't write it down - too busy scrambling to come up with a solution.
    – Bosque Bill
    Mar 14, 2018 at 0:35

1 Answer 1

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You can create a bootable USB from any machine capable of running a version of macOS that has access to the App Store.

If you use a MacBook Air running Yosemite, you can download the installer for High Sierra and use it to create the USB installer and then procede to use it on a MacBook Pro (and every other Mac that supports that version of macOS).

There's no specific installer for Mac hardware types.

(Personally, I keep a USB installer of every major version of macOS - Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, and High Sierra)

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    Do you have any idea why it shows this error? The operation couldn't be completed (com.apple.osinstallersetup.LinkFileDownload error 3.)
    – dreamboat
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:34
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    I have tried this many times and not been able to solve this. Please help. Once I was able to get ahead, but the installation failed later saying auth:failed to write to <private>
    – dreamboat
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:35
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    Do you have a good Internet connection? Have you tried Internet recovery on the MacBook Pro?
    – Allan
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:39
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    I tried. Once it went to 200 blocks downloaded and stopped. Other times it remains stuck at the globe.
    – dreamboat
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:45
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    So, you don't have a good Internet connection. Try going to a location with better connectivity and attempt to create the USB installer and/or do Internet recovery from there.
    – Allan
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:47

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