Can I obtain Yosemite on a Disc

I live out in the sticks and I have a pretty slow DSL broadband. So it will probably take me forever to download Yosemite. I was able to purchase Snow Leopard on disc. Can I also obtain Yosemite on disc? Thank you in advance.

No. Snow Leopard was the last OS X version that was released on disc. All subsequent releases have been via App Store download. Are you updating the Mac in your profile?

If you know someone with a faster connection you can have them download the file and create a bootable USB stick. That requires an 8 GB memory stick. There are several ways to create the bootable drive. This is probably easiest DiskMaker X

To add to the excellent info Slydude mentioned. If your home internet is super slow. If you have a laptop computer. The next time you go shopping…stop in at a place with free WiFi…an download Yosemite there.

- Nick

I neglected to mention earlier that if you are updating the Mac in your profile you will need to install Snow Leopard first to get the App Store program,

Also keep in mind if you are using older software that Snow Leopard was the last OS that ran Poweer PC software. OS X 10.7 and higher does not support that software.

Slydude said:

No. Snow Leopard was the last OS X version that was released on disc. All subsequent releases have been via App Store download. Are you updating the Mac in your profile?

If you know someone with a faster connection you can have them download the file and create a bootable USB stick. That requires an 8 GB memory stick. There are several ways to create the bootable drive. This is probably easiest DiskMaker X

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input Slydude, even though it was bad news. I will soon be updating my iMac profile..........I ordered the Snow Leopard disc yesterday and it should arrive in a couple of days. After I get it successfully installed, I will update my profile. I will also investigate DiskMaker.

pigoo3 said:

To add to the excellent info Slydude mentioned. If your home internet is super slow. If you have a laptop computer. The next time you go shopping…stop in at a place with free WiFi…an download Yosemite there.

- Nick

Click to expand...

Good idea. But I may not be as bad off as I thought. My DSL provider now has me running at 2.2 to 2.6 Mbps. So if Yosemite is about 8 GB in size and if I did the math right, my download time would be around 1 hour, which isn't bad. I was worried that it would be more like 4 or 5 hours.

Yosemite is 5.1GB from memory so that is even better news.

At 8Mbps it took about ten minutes to download and twenty to install.

Bootable USB Thumb Drive

harryb2448 - Let me first say that I successfully upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard and then did the update to 10.6.8. Now I want to upgrade to Yosemite, which I understand must be a download from the App Store.

I've never downloaded an OS, neither on my iMac or on my Windows PCs. So I always had an install disk from which I could do repairs and/or recovery.

But I won't have an install disk for Yosemite. In your signature you recommend making a bootable USB thumb drive before running Yosemite. In this regard, I have 2 questions:
(1) Exactly how do I make a bootable thumb drive?
(2) If I later need to boot from this thumb drive, exactly what options will it present, i.e., repair my OS, reinstall my OS, or what?

Thanks in advance

Please, please, may I humbly and strongly suggest you spend the time and money if needed, and create and test a bootable clone of your SL Mac with CCC or SD (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) before you do any Yosemite install!!

Bypass the suggestion at your own peril, assuming you have data you want to keep and use.

durango said:

(1) Exactly how do I make a bootable thumb drive?

Click to expand...

Just do an internet search. Lots of step by step instructions available.

durango said:

(2) If I later need to boot from this thumb drive, exactly what options will it present, i.e., repair my OS, reinstall my OS, or what?

Click to expand...

Same thing as a bootable/install disk.

- Nick

Create a bootable Yosemite installer

Booting from the bootable installer presents options for running Disk Utility, restoring files from a Time Machine backup, or reinstalling the OS.

Simplest way is to use an 8GB USB thumb drive and LionDiskMaker X:-


http://liondiskmaker.com

pm-r said:

Please, please, may I humbly and strongly suggest you spend the time and money if needed, and create and test a bootable clone of your SL Mac with CCC or SD (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) before you do any Yosemite install!!

Bypass the suggestion at your own peril, assuming you have data you want to keep and use.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestion.

So you are saying create a bootable clone of Snow Leopard in case something does wrong during the Yosemite install? Then assuming that the Yosemite install goes well, I would then make a bootable clone of Yosemite for recovery purposes?

If I create a Yosemite clone using either CCC or SD, can this clone be put on an 8GB USB flash drive and/or on a partition of my Time Machine external drive? Then would there be any need to create a bootable USB install drive using something like DiskMaker X?

Slydude said:

Create a bootable Yosemite installer

Booting from the bootable installer presents options for running Disk Utility, restoring files from a Time Machine backup, or reinstalling the OS.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. But I want to make sure I understand the sequence.
- I make available an 8GB USB flash drive
- I first download the DiskMaker X application
- I next download the Yosemite installer from the App Store
- I then launch DiskMaker from the Applications Folder
- And then just follow the DiskMaker directions

Then to actually install Yosemite, I can then go back to the Yosemite installer in my download folder or use the bootable installer I just created on my USB flash drive? The internet article I read implies that since I have a slow internet connection, it might be better (faster?) using the bootable installer I just created.

Thanks in advance for your help.

The steps that you outlined will work fine. Once you download the installer and use Diskmaker to create the bootable disk you can run the installer from either the bootable disk or the downloaded file. I don't think that matters much.

Here's what I did last time I did this:
1. Download Yosemite installer.
2. At some point you will be asked to continue / complete the installation. Make the bootable install disk before going any further. If you finish the installation before making the disk the installer self-deletes and you have to re-download.
3. Finish the installation.

At one point in running Diskmaker it may ask where the Yosemite installer is located. It will not be in your Downloads folder it will be in Applications.

harryb2448 said:

Simplest way is to use an 8GB USB thumb drive and LionDiskMaker X:-


DiskMaker X

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. I printed out the instructions for what is now called Disk Maker X. And I ordered me a couple 8GB flash drives.

I am curious about one thing. Is it better to create the bootable drive before you actually install Yosemite or can you do it after installation? I assume that when you download Yosemite from the App Store, you are actually downloading the installer; and then when you run the installer it goes back to the App Store to get Yosemite.

See my post directly above yours. I think it answers your question.

Thanks for that info..........you probably saved me from making a couple of time-consuming mistakes.

Slydude said:

See my post directly above yours. I think it answers your question.

Click to expand...

Yes it does. You have been a big help............thanks much.

Glad that helps a bit. I think I made that time consuming mistake when I installed 10.7.