Install Mac Os El Capitan From Usb

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Oct 04, 2015 Created a bootable USB with El Capitan installer. Booted from it, erased my MBP (mid 2009), clean install from USB installer. Decided to use migration assistant, most apps not working plus all the clutter from pre clean install. Decided to do another clean install but MBP won't boot from USB and uses the recovery version instead. OS X El Capitan Installer. Official OS X El Capitan Installer from the Mac App Store. Un-archive the zip archive and you will get the app Installer. A bootable ISO or bootable USB can be made from this installer. Instructions on how to do that are on the Internet/Youtube. Clean installing or restoring a Mac offline with USB pen drive. As said earlier, you could use the macOS USB installer to do a clean install or restore it upon a boot failure. Just connect the USB disk and press the Option/Alt Key when you hear the boot sound. The Mac will then display all the startup disks available. Mar 04, 2021 Select OS X El Capitan installer on the USB flash drive and then press Return to start up the Mac from the installer. Before you can clean install OS X El Capitan, you must first erase the current startup drive that holds the older version of OS X. Select Disk Utility and Continue.

Summary

How to make a bootable USB drive on Linux Mint (19.3) to allow you to install Mac OS X El Capitan on a MacBook with broken or corrupted recovery mode.

Background

I was recently given a 2011 MacBook Pro that had been “well-loved” and was therefore a mess of missing applications, ghost files and generally slow-as-hell. Since there wasn’t much worth saving I wiped it and initiated recovery mode in order to re-install OS X (El Capitan).

Having recently fixed a busted MacBook Air I had learned a bit about Recovery Mode (hold Command+R whilst pushing the Power button and release a few seconds after the machine wakes up). I tried that with this machine, and upon hitting “Reinstall MacOS X” was greeted with a prompt telling me it would take -2,148,456,222 days and 8 hours (an uncaught buffer overflow, me thinks). After about 30 seconds, a window pops up saying “Can’t download the additional components needed to install Mac OS X” and the installation gives up. The detailed error log says “Chunk validation failed, retrying” about 1000 times and eventually gives up altogether.

Further investigation suggests this may be something to do with security certificates having expired and hence the machine not being able to download the necessary files from Apple’s servers, but it seems the error can appear for all sorts of reasons. I also tried Internet Recovery (Command+Option+R) but that gave exactly the same error (and would also only have installed OS X Mountain Lion).

I then turned to attempting to make a bootable USB stick of OS X El Capitan from an image downloaded from Apple. I use Linux Mint on my main laptop and that was all I had available. Apple seem to assume everybody has a spare MacBook from which to create a bootable USB so they provide absolutely no documentation to help with this. I also couldn’t find a single guide online that worked from start to finish, so here I summarise what needs to be done.

Steps

As usual, this is all at your own risk 🙂

First you need to go to Apple’s OS Download Page and (step 4) get ahold of “InstallMacOSX.dmg” for El-Capitan. It’s a 6GB file so it might take a ‘lil while. You will also need to find a USB drive with at least 8GB capacity, and make sure it’s blank. The format doesn’t matter, because this procedure will format it correctly.

(In total you will need to use about 15-18GB of disk space by the time you’ve done all the extracting necessary, which shouldn’t be a problem for most computers but it was a challenge for my laptop with it’s 128GB SSD and dual boot Windows/Linux!)

Then you need to get a program called ‘dmg2img’

You can then extract the DMG

Now double click the .img file to mount it. In there is a InstallMaxOSX.pkg file. This requires a utility called “xar” to extract, which can be installed with these instructions (from https://www.oueta.com/linux/extract-pkg-and-mpkg-files-with-xar-on-linux/)

Then build and install with

Now you can extract the .pkg file. It will extract to the current working directory

Capitan

Now, within the extracted files you will find something called InstallESD.dmg. This actually contains all the interesting boot files, but it isn’t a pristine image, so we can’t just burn it to a USB. Thankfully, a script exists to convert this DMG to a bootable usb, and it’s available here. It takes the DMG and writes everything directly to the USB in the right place.

ONE CAVEAT: When I ran this script on my InstallESD.dmg, it crashed because it didn’t recognise the checksum. I think this is because Apple updates the dmg’s anytime there is a security update for El Capitan so the checksum list isn’t updated. All I did was delete the checksum check from the script above. Essentially, just open the script and delete this section

Once I had done this, I ran the script with my USB connected (/dev/sdb for me, but CHECK YOURSELF with fdisk or similar) and after quite a while it finished copying.

I plugged the USB into the MacBook, and opened the startup menu by holding down Option whilst pushing the power button. This gave me the choice of booting from EFI, or choosing a WiFi network. Click on the EFI, and then follow the prompts to install OS X from the USB drive!

When you’re done, you may need to use Parted or a similar utility to re-format your USB as a normal drive again.


Prior to El Capitan, you had to insert a USB Flash Drive and Boot Camp Assistant copied the Windows installer from an ISO disk image to the flash drive, and then downloaded and set up the Windows drivers to the correct location in the installer for the Mac hardware. El Capitan makes this a lot simpler. Jan 26, 2018 If you insist on using El Capitan you will need to sign into the App Store on a Mac that cannot run High Sierra and download EL Cap, then make a bootable usb installer to use on your MBP. More Less Jan 27, 2018 7:01 AM. Reserve it exclusively for DiskMaker X Pro at this time. 64 GB or more minimum if you want your drive to be able to install any OS from OS X El Capitan to macOS Catalina. Prefer a very fast disk (SSD FTW!). Apr 13, 2018 I have prepared a USB key Boot 16 Gb Install Mac OSX El Capitan 10.11.6 on my old Mac Pro 1.1 I bought in 2006. If you are interested in getting the new USB key, you can contact me (nanou6835@yahoo.fr) and I can help you by sending it to you along with easy accurate explanations, even for a very beginner. Nov 17, 2020 The El Capitan installer is downloaded to the /Applications folder, with the file name Install OS X El Capitan. If you have already installed El Capitan and wish to now create a bootable installer, you can force the Mac App Store to re-download the installer. You will also need a 16 GB or larger USB flash drive.


Apple OS X El Capitan beta was first released to developers in July 2015 and was released to the millions of Apple consumers worldwide September of 2015, following several beta releases. This version of the Apple Mac OS X marks a significant milestone in Apple Mac OS history for many reasons. It was the 12th major release of the Mac OS X line, since the introduction of the new brand in 2002 by Apple from its previous product line of Mac OS.

Download El Capitan OS X is also significant since it’s the last version of Apple Mac OS X releases as its successor Sierra was released in the year 2016 under the brand macOS. El Capitan is a rock formation found in Yosemite National Park, which gives out the meaning that the new release is a solid version of its predecessor, Yosemite. The naming convention to use important landmarks of Northern California started with the Apple release of Mavericks.

At the time of release, El Capitan was promoted as a significant release by Apple similar to how they promoted Mavericks and Yosemite upgrades which were the predecessors of El Capitan.

Brief Guide For Download El Capitan

In this article, we’ll also discuss few things that you should do before you upgrade your OS to the new Download El Capitan version in order to make sure your computer is all ready for the new upgrade including whether your Mac is compatible both in terms of hardware and software. There we will discuss the minimum system requirements and supported Mac devices released in the past.

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Installation Methods For Download El Capitan

1. Download El Capitan Mac OS X from scratch while upgrading the current Mac OS version

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The new Apple El Capitan supports two installations methods. As in the case of many other operating system installations, Apple El Capitan also provides an option to upgrade from your current OS version or the option to install the new download El Capitan Mac OS X from scratch. The default method which is the upgrade installation option will try to install OS X El Capitan to your Mac device while protecting your user data and app data. This is currently the most frequently used method of upgrading to the new version of Mac OS X and also the easiest too. If your Mac computer is in very good shape and running smoothly, it is recommended to install using this method.

2. Download El Capitan and install fresh the Mac OS without upgrading current Mac OS version

The second method of installations is the clean install method. It basically erases the entire content of your chosen drive and installs a fresh, smooth version of the new operating system which is download El Capitan Mac OS X in this case. This would mean no older versions of the Mac OS X, system applications and user data all will be wiped out with a clean install. This is an excellent choice to test an operating system on a separate disk drive or a partition in cases where you have had prevailing software issues on your computer which you have been unable to fix. Therefore when these issues become a major headache for you, your best option is to perform a clean install of the OS X – El Capitan. Although you may have to let go of your apps and their data, it becomes a smaller price to pay for when compared to running the system in its current state with a truckload of software issues.

The upgrade install option is pretty straightforward. Therefore in this article, we will only discuss the download El Capitan and clean installation of El Capitan Mac OS X.


Install
Download El Capitan iso and dmg installer

Upgrading your Macbook is a very easy task if you are already running a previous version of Mac OS X. You just need to download the new OS Installer from the App Store and after that, it’s just like a normal installer setup. But the problem comes, when your Mac OS got corrupted and you need to install a clean setup without having to access the App Store.

Arguably, Mac OS is a more stable and reliable OS as compared to Windows. It crashes less and gets fewer malware attacks as compared to windows. Therefore there are very few documentations regarding clean installation for Mac OS relative to Windows Reinstallation.

In this tutorial, I would try to cover up as much detail I could to help you Reinstall a Clean Mac OS on to your Macbook or iMac. I recommend you to use 16GB or higher USB drive. Also, make sure to backup all your files and data before you initiate the setup.

Watch Video Tutorial

Step One: Download macOS Installer files

You can download the Mac OS Installer file from App Store. Or, if you don’t find the required OS on the App Store, then you can download the Mac OS Installer files from ISORIVER.

Step Two: Formatting Your USB Flash Drive

You can create a boot installer for macOS on Mac. If you are using a flash drive that already has data, be sure to back up all important files as you are about to erase everything in an instant.

Open search engine. Go to Applications > Utilities and open Disk Utility. You should see your flash drive in the External section of the left panel. After selecting it, click on the “Erase” button at the top.

Choose a descriptive name (which you will use later) and be sure to select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this format. Finally, click on Erase and you will be done with this step.

Step Three: Creating a Bootable USB Using DiskMaker X

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DiskMaker X is a user-friendly and reliable software for creating a bootable macOS USB disk. You can download DiskMaker X for free.

After Installing DiskMaker X, you need to change security permissions for the app to work without breaking.

Navigate to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. To make changes, click the lock icon at the bottom and enter your credentials.

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Then click on the Plus button, navigate to the Applications folder, select DiskMaker X, and click open. DiskMaker X should now appear on the list.

As soon as you start DiskMaker X, you will be asked to confirm the download of the macOS installer.

The following message shows one of the advantages of DiskMaker X, as it is possible to create multiple installation disks. This means that you can create multiple partitions on the USB drive and have different macOS installers for each partition.

If you prefer to create an installation disk, select “Erase all disk“. Finally, confirm that you want to delete the entire contents of the USB drive.

El Capitan Reinstall

DiskMaker will continue to create the disk in the background and update it while it works. After a few minutes, DiskMaker X will inform you that your startup disk is ready and will give you some instructions on how to use it.

Step Four: Booting Your Mac From a USB Drive

Simply connect the USB drive you created to an open USB port on your Mac. Turn on the system or restart it if it is already on. Immediately press and hold the Option (Alt) key on the keyboard when it starts.

Mac

Mac Os El Capitan Wikipedia

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You should now see an option to select the USB drive as a boot disk. Once selected, the system will start from the USB drive and will be directed to the macOS utility screen.

Download El Capitan Without App Store

Watch a Video Tutorial

Mac Os Sierra

That’s it for the tutorial If you face any issues or had any query then please let us know in the comment section below. You can also send us an email via the contact us page for personalized support.