Restarting Computer

Hello, I was trying to upgrade my old iMac - early 2008 to Catalina using info from YouTube. I got as far as specifying a new start disk to be the one with the Catalina installer on, and it's telling me its a bad version of the macOS, but I can't seem to specify the disk with the good macOS, El Capitan X. I'm in some sort of a loop I can't get out of. Thurning on and off and restarting don't help. Any ideas? I'm a newbie with Apple and I'm trying out an old gimme machine to see if I like Apple.

Thanks, Ray

iMac, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jul 30, 2020 9:56 AM

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rreinhardt93

Level 4

1,862 points

Posted on Jul 30, 2020 10:05 AM

Hello,

Thanks for posting your concern on the Apple Support Communities.

Your iMac Early 2008 is on its latest version of OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. It cannot be upgraded anymore. Therefore, Catalina is giving you an error message because it's not compatible with your iMac.

If you need to reinstall OS X El Capitan visit Step 5 in How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan - Apple Support

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rreinhardt93

Level 4

1,862 points

Jul 30, 2020 10:05 AM in response to rjwohltman

Hello,

Thanks for posting your concern on the Apple Support Communities.

Your iMac Early 2008 is on its latest version of OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. It cannot be upgraded anymore. Therefore, Catalina is giving you an error message because it's not compatible with your iMac.

If you need to reinstall OS X El Capitan visit Step 5 in How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan - Apple Support

Jul 30, 2020 10:23 AM in response to rjwohltman

Try going into Recovery Mode by holding Command-R on startup. Once there see if you can reinstall OS X El Capitan to your hard drive.

rjwohltman Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 30, 2020 10:09 AM in response to rreinhardt93

OK, it's officially not upgrade able, so I want to go back to El Capitan, but I'm stuck in a loop, I can't seem to do anything to return to booting off the disk with El Capitan installed.

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Restarting Computer