Updated
August 29, 2016.
A clean install of OS X Mavericks allows you to start fresh, either by erasing all of the data on your startup drive and then installing OS X Mavericks, or by installing Mavericks on a non-startup drive; that is, a drive that doesn't contain an operating system.
The OS X Installer can perform both an upgrade install (the default) and a clean install on a non-startup drive. However, when it comes to performing a clean install of Mavericks on a startup drive, the process is a bit more difficult.
Unlike the older versions of OS X that were distributed on optical media, the downloaded versions of OS X don't provide a bootable installer. Instead, you run the installation app directly on your Mac under the older version of OS X.
This works fine for the upgrade install and the non-startup drive install, but it doesn't allow you to erase your startup drive, a necessary process if you want to perform a clean install.
Luckily, we have a way for you to perform a clean install of OS X Mavericks; all you need is a USB flash drive.
What You Need for a Clean Install of OS X Mavericks
Let's Get Started
- We're going to start the process by taking care of two preliminary tasks that must be performed.
- Since the clean install process will erase all of the data on your startup drive, we must have a current backup before we can begin. I recommend performing a Time Machine backup and creating a clone of your startup drive. My recommendation is based on two things, First, I'm paranoid about backups, and prefer to have multiple copies for safety. And second, you can use the Time Machine backup or clone as the source for migrating your user data back to your startup drive after OS X Mavericks is installed.
- The second step we need to perform to prepare for the clean install is to create a bootable version of the OS X Mavericks installer. You can do this by following these instructions:
Once you complete these two preliminary tasks, you're ready to begin the clean install process.