El Capitan. no packages were eligible for install.

GeoShifter:

Once you've gotten to re-setting the date, the 'manual

setting' allows you to later reset the date & time, too.

So it can be actual time, but not automatic to local zone.

+ others:

This is child's play compared to being locked into the

former system. If these older macs could use Internet

Recovery, and start from there (assuming the physical

connections were correct and proper format used, etc)

As that implies, the utilities online would be used to

reformat (a)new storage drive (SSD or HDD) to work.

To use a bootable USB installer requires the terminal

command line to get correct macOS installers to use

that USB-flash, stick, or external drive. If compatible.

This is not something I do every year, but then I have

clones on boot-capable external hard drives; my newer

Mac (Late 2012 quad core mini server) has Time Machine

too. ~ However I've previous experience with hundreds of

Mac installations (antiques?) & refurbished 500+ to donate.

Hopefully someone with recent experience can interject

ideas; that is most difficult without a physical presence.

Sorry to not be helpful; and due to offline time constraint

and obligation I'm unfollowing this and other discussions.

Good luck & happy computing! 🌞🍀🌤🌍

This 2019 date worked! The other date did not.

the date worked but what I had to do was

1. shut off WiFi
2. Go to Utilities Terminal
3. Set the date
4. Close Terminal
5. Hit continue and accept the EULA
6. It then completed the install

Just letting you know what I did

yeni_torres... this is the info I back in Dec. the solution worked for me after 2 weeks of fighting to get it reinstalled. I hope this helps with your installation.

And a Happy Thank You for this information. I used jmaiers directions with complete success. The only difference i used was to leave the ethernet cable disconnected until install was complete. Thanks to all others for additional help.

no usb needed

1. use disk utility and clean drive you will install on...
2. Connect to a wifi or plug in ethernet and download os x (second option I believe ..) It will download and then try to install itself and then fail with no packages were eligible message with option to restart ....
3. shut off wifi (top right) or unplug ethernet cord
4. go to utilities -terminal- type this and only this, date 0115124517
5. it will show new date with new time it should be jan 1 12:45 2017
6. now hit restart ( wifi will reconnect automatically)- if using ethernet hit reset and connect ethernet cord

——it will now do its thing and you will notice a different screen then previous—- thank you for everyones input I figured a simplified straight to the point version would be beneficial to everyone- no usb needed

In terminal screen you first type date and press enter it would show you the current date of the system to change you again type date space and the date you want in this format mmddhhmmyr press enter if you are trying this to install OS X El Capitan make sure you are switching off the WiFi

Total legend, thanks sooo much you just saves me hours of head scratching. This works (as seems to have done for some many others). I'd sold it on eBay and the poor buyer spent hours on the phone with Apple as coudl not get it re-installed. Finally gave up and send it back to me

Had this issue and it drove me nuts, one comment helped me but still didn't work since, here was my list i followed

1. use disk utility and make new user disk, ex "Mac HD"
2. Connect to a wifi or plug in ethernet and download os x It will download and then try to install itself then itll turn off then boot back up and hit you with that error saying contact apple and stuff and give option to restart
3. shut off wifi (top right) or unplug ethernet cord AND make sure you hold option on key board when you click wifi and click disconnect from your wifi AND then TURN OFF WIFI
4. go to utilities -terminal- type this and only this, date 0115124517
5. and Press ENTER
6. now hit restart
7. it'll continue downloading

notice when it starts it'll look a little different then before :)

jmaiers, the steps are correct. Just one note for other who may get stuck. OSX may NOT download if you change the system date first or if you retry the steps leaving the date in 2017. To get the download of OSX, make sure the date and time is current first. If you changed it in Terminal, go back and restore it to current date and time. Then let it download, run the install and let if fail. Then go to terminal and change the date and only let the install run again. Also, I had to clean the HDD to make it work. OSX did not want to install over the previous system.

Just change the date in terminal:

"date 010110152017"

Quit your terminal and hit install, that worked for me.

Charlee78 wrote:

Hi guys and gals!!

Been having a weird trouble lately. I've got a macbook pro 3.1 that was working alright but I bought a newer one so I took the SSD and did a swap between the 2. Problem is I wiped the hard drive that is now in my old Macbook before selling it and whatever I do I get this error:

Os x could not be installed on you computer. No packages were eligible for install.

What i did so far:

-I rebuilt another usb drive from a new El Capitan freshly downloaded from the App store.

-I formatted the hard drive, again.

-I re tried to install but still the same.

-I then held command+r and tried to install from there but I get the same issue.

-I then found a guide to adjust date and time but it was already correct.

-Reset SMC and PRAM and restarted the whole process.

-I tried to install on an external usb drive but still the same.

At this point I'm out of ideas...

Made an account to bump this since this saved my mac book air. It bricked when upgrading to Catalina and nothing worked. Safe Mode, Recovery, Internet Recovery, etc.

Setting the date to 2017 and re-installing El Capitan did the trick for me.

In the Terminal, someone says to use this : $ date -u 020100002016

But it fails if you use the dollar sign... just remove it and only type this : date -u 020100002016 (don't forget the white space each side of the -u )

Then hit ENTER and make sure you're not connect to the internet (disable WiFi) because the OS may reset the time automatically. QUIT the Terminal and the installer will bring you back to the INSTALL window... just hit the button RESTART and everything should be fine.

after I change the date the installer won’t even start :/

Wow. Thanks a lot GolyApple. Setting time to Nov 2016 worked like a charm. Cheers!!!

Thank you so much GolyApple!!! I finally got over that hurdle because of your advice.

same here - nothing worked when trying to (re-) install El Capitan to my MacBook Pro 5,1 late 2008 system. Got Yosemite running fine