OS X Lion and its downloadable installer create a conundrum for Mac users who would like to have bootable media from which to install Lion. The reason many people want to have a bootable Lion installer is to create clean installs: that is, to install Lion on a freshly formatted hard drive that doesn't contain any previous OS.

Have you tried firing up the Lion installer (assuming you saved a copy before it was deleted), and just pointing at your USB Stick (after using Disk Utility to a) format it as an HFS+ and b) using the partition options to specify it uses GUID partition table. The other approach is to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your existing drive to the HFS+/GUID partitioned USB stick. You can deselect folders that you are not going to use on the USB stick in order to save space.

Of course you could download and use the 'Recover Disk Assistant' from Apple and use that to put a Lion Recovery Partition on your USB stick. A Recovery partition will actually boot faster than a full Lion install on a USB stick. Have you tried firing up the Lion installer (assuming you saved a copy before it was deleted), and just pointing at your USB Stick (after using Disk Utility to a) format it as an HFS+ and b) using the partition options to specify it uses GUID partition table.

The other approach is to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your existing drive to the HFS+/GUID partitioned USB stick. You can deselect folders that you are not going to use on the USB stick in order to save space. Of course you could download and use the 'Recover Disk Assistant' from Apple and use that to put a Lion Recovery Partition on your USB stick. A Recovery partition will actually boot faster than a full Lion install on a USB stick. Apple Footer • This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums.

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