I have two different computers at home. The first one is a Mac, which I use to edit videos as a part of my work for my YouTube channel, the second one is a Windows 11 PC which I use primarily for playing games.
A few days back, while editing one of the videos for my YouTube channel, my Mac stopped working all of a sudden. It just sat there doing nothing with a blank screen and a bunch of cryptic error messages on it. I was at the end of my wits since I was supposed to finish editing the video by the following day and so didn’t have the time or the option to give the Mac to an Apple Service Center.
I decided to take things into my own hands and wanted to create a Bootable USB for my Mac. But without another Mac within my reach, it seemed impossible until I read about how you can create a bootable USB for Mac on a Windows 11 computer using a utility called UUByte DMG Editor.
If you have ever faced such a situation or are in such a situation right now, you can follow this tutorial to create a bootable USB for Mac on your Windows 11 PC and repair the Mac by installing a fresh copy of macOS. It becomes easier to create a bootable USB for Mac if you have another Mac available. However, it cannot be done without a third-party utility on a Windows 11 computer because the Windows operating system cannot recognize the DMG file used to create a bootable USB drive for a Mac. This DMG file is somewhat like the Windows ISO files that you can download from the Microsoft website to generate a bootable Windows 11 USB drive to install Windows 11 (or other versions of the Windows operating system).
Note: This trick also works on Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7.
Prerequisites for making a Mac bootable USB on Windows 11
You need to keep three things handy because you can start creating the bootable USB for Mac drive on your Windows 11 computer.
A blank USB drive (of at least 16GB in size): More recommended if you could get a USB 3.0 or above USB drive. A fast USB saves time! Also, ensure that take a backup of the USB drive because all the data on the USB drive will be deleted anyway while creating the macOS bootable USB.
UUByte DMG Editor: It is a third-party utility that not only lets you create bootable USB for Mac devices on your Windows PC, but it can also extract files and folders from a DMG image file on your Mac and Windows 11 computer. It is a pretty nifty tool that supports various versions of Windows (including the latest Windows 11), Linux operating system, macOS, Android, and images of different other operating systems. It has excellent speed compared to its competitors and can create multiple bootable USBs all at once. You can download it from their website and install it on your Windows 11 computer.
macOS DMG file –DMG file is a disk image that contains a copy of bootable macOS. It is another type of macOS installation media. These can be downloaded from Apple’s website. However, when you are in trouble finding a working macOS dmg file, go above to the UUByte website and download the right one.
Creating Mac bootable USB on Windows 11 with UUByte DMG Editor
You now have gathered all that is needed to make the bootable USB for Mac drive on your Windows computer, so let’s start with the process:
Step 1:Insert the blank USB drive in your Windows computer (I am not writing Windows 11 specifically since, as mentioned earlier, UUByte DMG Editor works on all versions of Windows).
Step 2: Launch the UUByte DMG Editor app by double-clicking on the program’s icon from the desktop or Windows 11 Start menu.
Step 3: The first window that you will see is divided into two parts for this utility’s respective functionality: Burn and Extract. Each of these parts will have a Next button beside them. Since you are creating a bootable USB from the DMG image file and not trying to look into the files and folders inside that DMG image file, click the first Next button.
Step 4: That should take you to the next window, where you need to choose the macOS DMG image file that you had downloaded earlier (macOS Monterey) and the blank USB. Click the Browse button to add the DMG image file and click the Change button to select your USB drive. There should be a placeholder named Volume Label where you can type in a name to recognize your USB drive as a Mac bootable flash drive.
Step 5: Once done, there would be a Burn button on this same window. Click on that to initiate the operation of creating the bootable USB for Mac using UUByte DMG Editor.
Step 6: Once the operation starts, you’ll see a new window with a measurement bar to mark the operation’s completion of creating the bootable USB. It should take around 5 to 10 minutes. You’ll be able to see an estimated completion time so that you know how long you need to wait. Once the completion bar shows 100% completed, exit the UUByte DMG Editor utility, and pull the USB drive from your Windows 11 computer.
Booting the Mac from the bootable USB
Now that you have the bootable USB for Mac, you need to boot your Mac using this USB drive to reinstall macOS.
The moment your Mac tries to boot up, which you would be able to make out by hearing the sound of your Mac trying to boot up, you’ll need to press and hold down the button labeled Option on your Mac’s keyboard. It will open the Startup Disk Manager utility to recognize the bootable USB. In this example, the USB name is Install macOS Monterey.
Click on this USB drive, and your Mac will boot from this USB drive. After a while, it will start the process of reinstalling macOS. Follow the instructions on the screen, and you should have a working Mac in no time at all.
Points to note when creating bootable USB for Mac
It would be best if you remember the following while creating the bootable USB for Mac on your Windows 11 computer:
- For macOS X El Capitan, please don’t use the link provided by Apple. Because macOS X El Capitan is available in PKG format instead of the usual DMG format, this usually confuses the UUByte DMG Editor.
- You might see an error message (The writer process ended unexpectedly) pop up while at the end of the burning task. You don’t need to worry about this error.
- The USB drive will not be visible in Windows File Explorer until the burning is complete. You can find the drive name in the Disk Management utility.
- If you run across any issues while creating Mac bootable USB with DMG editor, you can always reach out to their technical support to fix the problem you currently meet.
- UUByte DMG Editor is a freemium utility. You need to pay for it to use the software’s full functionality; however, you can still use it in the free trial period to create the Mac bootable USB.
Creating a Mac bootable USB on Windows 11 is easy with UUByte DMG Editor software. It could be a great help when the Mac runs into weird issues and cannot get into the desktop.
