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Can't install El Capitan from USB bootable installer

Hello,


I have El Capitan starting to install and then stopping because "OS cannot be verified and might be damaged". I have done the whole process again and same result. Any idea?


Many thanks,

Alex

MacBook

Posted on Dec 13, 2020 8:17 AM

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Posted on Dec 15, 2020 4:58 AM

Hi, thanks for your help. I did try changing dates before and it never worked. I have now tried something different: booting from a Lion disk assistant USB and launching the El Capitan install from there. With this schema, El Capitan is downloaded from the Internet and there is no such verification needed.

Cheers,

Alex

4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 15, 2020 4:58 AM in response to CoolGuy36

Hi, thanks for your help. I did try changing dates before and it never worked. I have now tried something different: booting from a Lion disk assistant USB and launching the El Capitan install from there. With this schema, El Capitan is downloaded from the Internet and there is no such verification needed.

Cheers,

Alex

Dec 13, 2020 12:10 PM in response to AlexB7777

When did you create this bootable USB, was the copy of the Install OS X El Capitan.app

downloaded by you prior to October 2019, if so the certificates for that version of Install OS X El Capitan.app

have expired and will install unless you reset the Date & Time to a date prior to October 2019.


What method did you use to create your bootable USB.


Or you can download the updated version of Install OS X El Capitan.app by following the instructions here,


Open your Safari browser and click on the link below


How to get old versions of macOS – Apple Support


Go to Download OS and click on OS X El Capitan 10.11

this downloads InstallMacOSX.dmg to your Downloads folder.


The next section can only be done on a mac that is capable of running El Capitan,

a mac that came preinstalled with an OS later than El Capitan will refuse to do the next bit.


When downloaded open to InstallMacOSX.pkg, double-click on

that and an installation window will open, this does not install El Capitan

but converts the InstallMacOSX.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app which 

you will find in your Applications folder, it should be 6.2GBs in size.


(If the installation window asks which disk you want to install to, you must pick 

the disk that you are booted to at the time. Not any internal or external disk that 

you want to eventually install El Capitan on, that is for later.)


To start the installation of El Capitan double click on the Install OS X El Capitan.app.


The copy of the install app self deletes after installing El Capitan, so make sure you keep a copy of the 

InstallMacOSX.dmg if you need it in future, or you could just make a copy of the Install OS X El Capitan.app 

prior to installing and moving it to an external drive for safe keeping. 

It is also possible to create a bootable USB installer disk using the Install OS X El Capitan.app in the Applications

folder and the createinstallmedia command in the Terminal app. 


Read the instructions here,

How to create a bootable installer for macOS – Apple Support

Can't install El Capitan from USB bootable installer

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