Can I use Disk Utility to install Zorin Pro on iMac 14,2 running High Sierra?

I got stuck right at the beginning by not being able to install Balena Etcher on macos 10, tried to upgrade to macos11 but won't allow me for some reason...
I have 2.7TB available and want to create a partition and run Zorin separately while keeping my macos as well.
While searching for an alternative ISO burner it was suggested to use Disk Utility... could someone help me out please? I don't want to stuff it up...

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Welcome to the Forum!

You have a couple of Options in Zorin beneath Disks if You are worried:

  • Fedora Media Writer (comes from Fedora; there exists a MAC-Version)
  • Popsicle (comes from POP OS)
  • ISO Image Writer (comes from KDE)
  • Impression
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Hello,

I used Unetbootin on my Mac, it seems to be still compatible with High Sierra: https://unetbootin.github.io/

I hope this helps.

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I would follow this guide here for dual booting:

I suspect the reason why you can't upgrade from 10 to 11 is down to the way Apple demands you to get new hardware. I worked as a Vision Support Technician, supporting students in Secondary (High School) and Further Education (College). One of our students was allowed to use the Service's MacBook for his course. The wonderful Apple Technicians based at the college had without consulting us installed a higher OSX than the MacBook was built for. Consequently it crashed, what at first looked like the student having lost 6 hours of project work. I did some research on how to get the data back. The college had then provided the student with one of their MacBooks. I asked the student to ask the College Technicians to provide him with a Thunderbolt cable and to bring the new MacBook to our Service location. The student had been told by the specialist Apple Technicians at College that they could not see it working. I connected the newer MacBook to the Service one with the Thunderbolt cable and retrieved all of the student's data. I then had to take the Service notebook to the School's IT Department where our Service was based, because I could not connect to Apple recovery as it was blocked on the School Network, so it finally got back the original OSX it had come with! Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhh!

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Thanks for the advice guys... I used Unetbootin to burn the iso on the flash drive and it worked seemingly perfectly. Then, following all the other instructions have attemptedd to boot/install it. The screenshot shows how far I got and it just sat there waiting for something... if anyone can interpret it i'd be grateful. The other two shots are my system info, in case it helps. I put a help request in formally this time yesterday but so far Ive had no response other than the automated one. Cheers



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I would advise following this guide:

(Zorin is a fork of Ubuntu)

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It could be that your Zorin ISO image is corrupted. You can make sure that your ISO file is ok checking here: Check the Integrity of Your Copy of Zorin OS - Zorin Help
Also, you could try a different USB flash drive to see if it makes a difference.

Once you manage to install Zorin OS, I found this page with some tweaks that you might need to apply on your specific Imac: Installing Ubuntu 20.04 on 27-inch late 2013 iMac – Miljen's Tech Blog

I hope this helps

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Thanks again for the advice. I managed to get a working copy of Balena Etcher and I used Disk Utility to erase the flash drive prior to re-burning the iso onto it. I also used Disk Utility to create a partition for the new installation. Now everything seems to be going as planned other than the fact that the Zorin installer doesn't recognise my mac os, saying it is "unknown", so I'm afraid that if i go ahead with the installation I'll not be able to boot back into mac os when and if I need to in the future. Is this something anyone else has come across?
Also, I sent Zorin OS Support a service request on Saturday using the support code I received with my purchase, I received the automated response, but still have heard nothing from them. I would have thought I'd have received a reply from them by now... any clues?
Cheers again...

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Be aware that ZorinOS devs are just two people, so please be patient awaiting support from them.

Please ensure you do a backup of all your personal files and also a means of re-installing macos before proceeding to install any second operating system alongside macos.

Have you had a look at this pre-insrallation advice, Before you install. It is primarily for PC, but expect would equally apply to Mac. Especially checking SHA256 checksum of the downloaded ZorinOS .iso.

When installing ZorinOS, did you use "Install alongside..." or the manual "Something Else" proceedure?

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