You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: geomatty
geomatty Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

I was giving away my old MacBook Pro and I was trying to reinstall the El Capitan. A window pops up indicating that have to verify with Apple. Another window that states "An error occurred with preparing the installation... Want OS installed.

For some reason I can not install an operating system on my old MacBook Pro. I was looking to give it to a friend. The operating system was El Capitan Operating System. Basically the laptop is useless. It never asks for my Apple ID not sure what to do.

It shows a message "To download and restore OSX, your computer's eligibility will be verified with Apple.

then it logs into some where and another message pops up:

"An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."


I've tried over 15 times with different initial key presses in the beginning, nothing works. Please help.


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 23, 2022 3:50 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,416 points

Posted on Apr 24, 2022 12:22 PM

If you have access to another Mac from 2008 to 2015, then you can use it to create a bootable macOS 10.11 El Capitan USB installer using the instructions in this Apple article:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


Make sure to read the article carefully since there are multiple steps to extract the installer into the Applications folder before the command line can be used to create the bootable macOS USB installer.



View in context

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,416 points

Apr 24, 2022 12:22 PM in response to geomatty

If you have access to another Mac from 2008 to 2015, then you can use it to create a bootable macOS 10.11 El Capitan USB installer using the instructions in this Apple article:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


Make sure to read the article carefully since there are multiple steps to extract the installer into the Applications folder before the command line can be used to create the bootable macOS USB installer.



Reply

I was giving away my old MacBook Pro and I was trying to reinstall the El Capitan. A window pops up indicating that have to verify with Apple. Another window that states "An error occurred with preparing the installation... Want OS installed.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up