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User profile for user: dumb-yu
dumb-yu Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

how to download El Capitan installer into an USB drive

My 2007 iMac (Emc 2134) running El Capitan would not boot. I replaced the 500Mg HDD with a Crucial Mx500 SSD. Now after I power up the iMac, it displays with a File icon with a question mark in it, and nothing else. The mouse seems to be working though. I search the internet for any clues or instructions to get it boot up to a stage that I could at least launch the Disk Utility. The last attempt I made was to use my Mac Book to initialize a USB for Mac OS Journaled, and tried to download the El Capitan Installer into the USB, hoping I could boot up my old iMac with this USB. But somehow my Mac Book would not allow me to download the installer, saying that the version of the current OS is too new for El Capitan. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

Posted on Aug 6, 2022 4:59 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,452 points

Posted on Aug 6, 2022 9:43 PM

You will either need access to another Qualifying Mac to download and extract the macOS 10.11 installer. A Qualifying Mac for macOS 10.11 would a Mac from 2008 to 2015 although the Qualifying Mac can currently be running any version of macOS. You can use the information in this article to confirm which Apple hardware qualifies as compatible with macOS 10.11:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility


Here is an Apple article with instructions for downloading and creating a bootable macOS USB installer (make sure to read the instructions carefully as there are multiple steps to download & extract the installer to the Applications folder before you can use the Terminal commands):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


The other option is to boot the Mac with a retail version of an OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard upgrade DVD so that you can install a version of macOS to this Mac which will then allow you to download & extract the macOS 10.11 installer (use the Apple article I just linked to for a link to download macOS 10.11 installer). You can use the instructions in this article to prepare the new SSD (partition & format) for installing macOS:

https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf


If you are able to create a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer, then you will need to launch Disk Utility after booting the macOS installer to erase the whole physical SSD as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) before selecting the "Reinstall macOS" option.


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,452 points

Aug 6, 2022 9:43 PM in response to dumb-yu

You will either need access to another Qualifying Mac to download and extract the macOS 10.11 installer. A Qualifying Mac for macOS 10.11 would a Mac from 2008 to 2015 although the Qualifying Mac can currently be running any version of macOS. You can use the information in this article to confirm which Apple hardware qualifies as compatible with macOS 10.11:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility


Here is an Apple article with instructions for downloading and creating a bootable macOS USB installer (make sure to read the instructions carefully as there are multiple steps to download & extract the installer to the Applications folder before you can use the Terminal commands):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


The other option is to boot the Mac with a retail version of an OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard upgrade DVD so that you can install a version of macOS to this Mac which will then allow you to download & extract the macOS 10.11 installer (use the Apple article I just linked to for a link to download macOS 10.11 installer). You can use the instructions in this article to prepare the new SSD (partition & format) for installing macOS:

https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf


If you are able to create a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer, then you will need to launch Disk Utility after booting the macOS installer to erase the whole physical SSD as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) before selecting the "Reinstall macOS" option.


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how to download El Capitan installer into an USB drive

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