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My macOS filesystem is so broke that I can't even enter recovery mode. I am now on a Linux live system and have InstallESDDmg.pkg which I could extract with 7z. I could also use dmg2img to create an ISO file.

Following the instructions in this post, I am able to to copy the image to the USB flash drive using dd. However once I start the Mac with the option key pressed I don’t see the option to boot from that USB drive.

So I assume I must create a partition table and make the device bootable. as far as I understand from this Ubuntu tutorial, this method only allows to make the ISO bootable if it is a Debian-like system. For macOS I would need something different.

I see some suggestions in this post here but since they are so different I wonder which ones help

So how am I supposed to proceed from here?

Giacomo1968
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Rene Pickhardt
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Your core problem is that Mac hardware will only boot off a device that has a GUID partition table and either an HFS+ or APFS partition containing the operating system.

Getting those two things onto a USB stick without a Mac will be difficult. If you don't have access to a Mac to do it then I'd visit an Apple Store. Just stick the thumb into a Mac, run Disk Utility (which is in the "Utilities" folder found in "Applications") and proceed from there.

Once you have the right partition table and partition format then you can proceed with Making a bootable OSX USB from dmg on Linux and it should be fine.

Tony Williams
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