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 easy to make boot disks on old Macs for older hardware, but as the years have gone on, it's gotten a little more difficult. Here's how to make classic Mac OS 9 and early Mac OS X boot media ...

How to make a bootable USB drive If you're trying to install a new operating system or flash your BIOS, you're going to need a bootable USB drive - here's how to make one.

Though you can install Mavericks (OS X 10.9) directly from your Mac's hard drive, a bootable installer drive can be more convenient for installing the OS onto multiple Macs. And if your Mac is ...

Thankfully, it’s easy to create a bootable install drive from the Mountain Lion installer that you download from the Mac App Store. I show you how, below.

Wait until a new window pops up informing you your bootable installer has been created and is ready to use. Once complete, eject the USB drive and put it away for safekeeping.