Help creating Bootable USB drive for El Capitan

Question

Help creating Bootable USB drive for El Capitan

I found my problem, I just need someone to help fix it. :)

Trying to install OS X on a friends old MacBook Pro 2009. El Capitan is what's recommended. I can't create a bootable drive of it with my MacBook because its too new.

creating bootable usb drive - Apple Community

Someone in this old post said they could help unpackage the installer somehow? That's all over my head. But they said they needed the the board ID which I got per their instructions.

| "board-id" = <"Mac-66E35819EE2D0D05">

Can someone help with this? Thanks. I don't know of anyone that has an older model MacBook that can make the bootable drive for me.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Jan 20, 2021 7:10 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 25, 2021 9:10 AM in response to SouthernAtHeart

SouthernAtHeart wrote:

The friends MacBook crashed so it has a new hard drive now, so it can’t do anything. I finally found another friend in another state with an old enough MacBook. He was able to download and unpackage El Capitan so he sending me a bootable usb thumb drive.

All new hard drives need to be erase/formatted/initialized before you can do anything.

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/19.0/mac/10.15

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2021 7:20 PM in response to SouthernAtHeart

SouthernAtHeart wrote:

I found my problem, I just need someone to help fix it. :)

Trying to install OS X on a friends old MacBook Pro 2009. El Capitan is what's recommended. I can't create a bootable drive of it with my MacBook because its too new.

creating bootable usb drive - Apple Community

Someone in this old post said they could help unpackage the installer somehow? That's all over my head. But they said they needed the the board ID which I got per their instructions.

| "board-id" = <"Mac-66E35819EE2D0D05">

Can someone help with this? Thanks. I don't know of anyone that has an older model MacBook that can make the bootable drive for me.

Did you download the El Capitain...(?)

If you have issue— verify you are using the Safari browser to download/initiate the macOS links:

older macOS back up on the servers: links here—

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211683

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Answer 3

Jan 20, 2021 7:24 PM in response to leroydouglas

Yes, I downloaded El Capitan with Safari. The link I posted in the beginning explains my problem to a tee. I'll quote it here for anyone who might be able to help.

The problem might be that your wifes' MacBook Air maybe too new to install El Capitan, I know that is not what you want to do but if your wifes' mac came installed with a newer OS then Mac OS X El Capitan it will refuse it.

Even though you simply want to convert the Install MacOSX.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app so you can make a bootable USB installer for your MBP, the mac does not understand that and assumes your intention is to try and install El Capitan on a mac that cannot run it. What happens is that the installer checks what mac you are using against the Distribution file in the InstallMacOSX.pkg which includes a list of macs it can be installed on, if there is no match you will get the error.

Can you let me know what MacBook Air you have, look under About This Mac for the Model and year

and also open the System Information.app (Application/Utilities) and tell me what the model identifier is,

highlight the Hardware section.

There is a way round it but it takes modifying the Distribution file by adding the Board ID of your wifes' mac and repackaging it and then hopefully it would work.

To find the Board-ID of the MacBook Air you need to open Terminal and copy and paste the text,

ioreg -lp IOService | grep board-id

then press Return

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Answer 4

Jan 25, 2021 8:58 AM in response to Limnos

The friends MacBook crashed so it has a new hard drive now, so it can’t do anything. I finally found another friend in another state with an old enough MacBook. He was able to download and unpackage El Capitan so he sending me a bootable usb thumb drive.

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

427,391 points

Jan 25, 2021 8:35 AM in response to SouthernAtHeart

Why doesn't your friend just download the installer to the 2009 MBP and then create the bootable installer from there?

If you really need to do it your way, check the Pacifist.app

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Answer 6

Limnos

Level 10

427,391 points

Jan 20, 2021 7:16 PM in response to SouthernAtHeart

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - https://support.apple.com/HT201372

To me it doesn't look like the steps outlined in the link require the computer to be able to boot from the OS.

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Answer 7

Limnos

Level 10

427,391 points

Jan 25, 2021 9:13 AM in response to SouthernAtHeart

Your friend should be able to install using the original DVD that came with the computer, then upgrade from there.

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Answer 8

Jan 20, 2021 7:20 PM in response to Limnos

You have to be able to create the bootable USB drive installer. So you download El Capitan, unpack it, create the install disk... But my new MacBook won't unpack it because it think I'm trying to install too old of OS X on my new computer.

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Answer 9

Jan 24, 2021 12:02 PM in response to SouthernAtHeart

Anyone have any idea how I can get the El Capitan Installer? I can download El Capitan dmg file, but my new MacBook won't unpackaged it because it thinks I'm trying to install EC on my new laptop. I just new to get the installer file into the applications folder, so I can create a bootable USB drive from it for the old laptop.

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Answer 10

Jan 25, 2021 10:43 AM in response to leroydouglas

correct. Though that wasn’t the problem.

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Help creating Bootable USB drive for El Capitan

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