OS X 10.11 El Capitan wil not install!

Question

OS X 10.11 El Capitan wil not install!

Hi there,

I have recently brought a 2009 non-unibody macbook as my starter into the mac world. It came with 10.6 Mavericks installed. I'd like to use this as my main computer until I eventually buy a newer Mac, so i want to install 10.11 El Capitan. Thats where the problem starts.

First, I went directly to apple and downloaded the 10.11 installer, went through all fine, got to the apple logo with the progress bar with a time amount underneath, and towards the end of the installation, it stopped and displayed the 'The MacOS installation could not be completed' The mac was then stuck in a loop, restarting, installing, failing.

Luckily, I intended to replace the HDD with a SSD to speed up the ageing computer, so had cloned the stock hard drive to the SSD. I proceeded to restore the HDD from the clone SSD and then tried the El Capitan install again.

This time, I waited for the app store to find the update, and eventually, it did. EXACTLY THE SAME THING HAPPENED. OS downloaded, install started, apple logo with bar, 'The MacOS installation could not be completed'

Since then, I have brought a El Cap recovery dvd, here's what I've tried with that:

Started the installer from the disk in finder (El Capitan can't install straight from a disk apparently)
Booted from DVD (Installer froze)
Partitioned main drive and copied installer, then booted to partition ('The MacOS installation could not be completed')

I really do hope that someone can help me, as I'm all ran out of ideas and fed up of coming back to the Mac saying 'The MacOS installation could not be completed' and having to restore the disk to escape the recovery loop.

Many thanks,

John (First time mac user)

Sidenote: The Mac has no battery and is running off the mains adaptor as the battery had expanded.

MacBook, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jun 27, 2019 12:35 PM

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Answer 1

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,688 points

Jun 27, 2019 5:04 PM in response to JohnGarland2001

First off sort out the problem with the battery.

Next confirm whether your Mac is running 10.6 which is Snow Leopard or 10.9 which is Mavericks.

If it is 10.6 Snow Leopard make sure it is fully updated to 10.6.8, use the App Store for that, if it is 10.9 Mavericks make sure it is fully updated to 10.9.5. Click on the Apple top left of your screen then click on About This Mac to see info about your Mac.

Whichever OS you are actually running open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder in your Applications folder and run Verify/ First Aid on your disk to check for errors. If errors are found then you will need to boot to your Recovery Drive, this will have been installed along with Mavericks, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support then use Disk Utility from there. If you are on Snow Leopard you will need the original install DVD so you can boot from it and open Disk Utility from there. El Capitan was only ever available as a free download direct from Apple, if you are buying it or any 'recovery' DVD you are being ripped off.

To download El Capitan, read this, How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan - Apple Support scroll down to Section 4 and click on Get El Capitan.

Some other things that might be of use to you are to reset the NVRAM, reset the SMC, boot to Safe Mode. You could also try installing El Capitan in Safe Mode.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jun 30, 2019 6:38 PM in response to JohnGarland2001

Have you tried installing macOS to an external drive? You may need to have a properly macOS formatted drive (GUID with HFS+) installed internally or the installer may complain. If this works, then you may need to replace the internal hard drive cable.

You could also try installing Ubuntu Linux or Linux Mint to the drive to see if any OS will install and boot the laptop. Perhaps Linux will provide some clues to the problem. You can create a bootable Linux USB installer using Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux). Option Boot the Linux installer and select the orange icon labeled "EFI".

Have you tried running the Apple Hardware Test?

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Answer 3

Jun 28, 2019 7:35 PM in response to JohnGarland2001

It is not clear from your post whether you actually tried to install El Capitan to the new SSD. That portion of your post sounds like you tried reinstalling OSX to the hard drive again. My guess is the hard drive is failing. Install the SSD into the laptop and download and run the El Capitan installer again this time on the SSD.

If you did try installing El Capitan to the new SSD, then what is the make & model of the SSD? Is the SSD's firmware up to date? Some older Macs can be picky about SSDs since some SSDs have trouble auto-negotiating to a slower link speed. This is especially common with NVidia chipsets.

Get rid of the El Captian DVD you bought since Apple never distributed El Capitan on DVD. Who knows whether the DVD contains malware or other issues.

If you have download El Capitan from the App Store, then you can create a bootable USB installer. If you want to create a bootable USB installer, then you must do so before actually performing the upgrade since the installer will be removed from the system after the upgrade is finished. I highly recommend creating the bootable USB installer just in case something goes wrong. Make sure to test that the USB installer will actually boot your system.

Apple still provides the instructions for creating a bootable El Capitan USB installer here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

685,899 points

Jun 27, 2019 7:33 PM in response to JohnGarland2001

If the above doesn't work, try booting into the Recovery Partition, use Disk Utility to erase/reformat the disc as Mac OS Extended (Journal) with option GUID, then reinstall the OS. Reboot normally and try the El Capitan installation agin.

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Answer 5

Jun 30, 2019 1:04 PM in response to Eau Rouge

I'm currently running 10.9.5, all up to date. I got my version numbers mixed up as 10.9 has the skeuomorphic design of IOS6. I've ordered a battery so will see if things improve after. I have tried the install on many different disks, and have ran first aid on all of them, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I'll try resetting the NVRAM and SMC and safe mode after the battery has arrive and ill let you know.

I know El Capitan was never sold as a dvd, but as Mavericks installed so easily from the disk i though I'd try that.

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Answer 6

Jun 30, 2019 1:13 PM in response to HWTech

I've tried the install direct from apple many times on multiple HDDs and SSDs, from a bootable usb too, none of which has worked. I cloned the HDD to the SSD and tried installing with that first. After the install failed on the SSD, I thought it may have been an issue with the interface with the SSD, so I tried it with the HDD straight away, to the same result.

Both from the download on Apple's website and the app store update, on all the disks I've tried, the desktop installer window goes through fine, 3/4 of the bar below the apple logo goes through after the restart, then it crashes to the 'The MacOS installation could not be completed' - this has happened every time.

I knew the DVD wasn't genuine, I just used it as another option. It is since been thrown.

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OS X 10.11 El Capitan wil not install!

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