"OS X could not be installed on your computer"

Question

Level 1

9 points

"OS X could not be installed on your computer"

"no packages were eligible for install. contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart you computer and try again."

I have a pretty old mid to late 2009 macbook that was donated to me by my school as a gift and when i tried to upgrade the os to something past 10.10, it just won't work. i don't have any other mac computers and i can't go in to have them help me. They don't have anything to deal with this kind of issue, since most of these computers were handled by an outside company for the school. i know for a fact that they can support yosemite, and most definately el capitan, but i'm not sure why this isn't working. please let me know what i can do to remedy this issue. if i have to make an installer, i don't have access to another mac, just a windows computer.

MacBook

Posted on Jan 14, 2020 6:00 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Jan 14, 2020 7:08 AM in response to EnderDave

Recently certificates for older install apps for certain macOS's expired meaning they could no longer be installed.

If you are using an old bootable USB installer you created a while ago then that is the error message you will see.

One thing you can do as a workaround is to change the Date & Time of the mac to a date in 2018 for example.

The installer should now work, when the installation has finished you can change the Date & Time back to today.

Apple did release updated installer files at the end of October, you can get El Capitan here,

How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan – Apple Support

At Section 4 download InstallMacOSX.dmg. When that has downloaded open it and you will get InstallMacOSX.pkg.

Double-click on that and an installation window will open, this will convert InstallMacOSX.pkg to the

Install OS X El Capitan.app which will be in your Application folder.

Use the Install OS X El Capitan.app to create a new bootable USB installer, How to create a bootable installer for macOS – Apple Support

Please note you can only convert the InstallMacOSX.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app on a mac that can install El Capitan.

Therefore if your mac came with macOS Sierra, macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina pre installed you will not be able to convert the InstallMacOSX.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app.

Reply

Answer 2

EnderDave Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 14, 2020 7:25 PM in response to Eau Rouge

Thank you very much for this info! i was able to get the installation working again! I'm going to make sure i have a backup on standby now.

Reply

"OS X could not be installed on your computer"

Similar questions