El Capitan update won't boot

Do you have a Time Machine or other backup?

Yes

Yes, me too.

I thought it might be because of the FileVault2 encryption.

Is your HD encrypted too?

You already tried booting OS X Recovery and reinstalling OS X, and it still won't boot? I don't know of any other way to recover from that situation other than to boot from some other device. If you have no such device, get one (an external USB hard disk drive would be the least expensive alternative), boot OS X Recovery, format it if required, install OS X on it, migrate your User account from the volume that won't boot, finally erase it and start over. That's probably just as much a pain to do, if not more so.

Startup Manager allows you to choose the startup volume. Choose the external, until you get the internal one working.

Then, use the external device for Time Machine backups so this won't happen again.

DSMOS: don't steal Mac OS X. The point at which the boot sequence stalls doesn't really matter though.

I have 13" Macbook Pro retina circa 2014. I'm on my third wipe and install through recovery partition. Mine boots but there are no apps.

I'm going clean this time with no restore until it's all up and running, assuming it gets to that point.

Unfortunately, I've just lost my Apple support since I've passed 90 days on this new Mac.

urquhartps wrote:

Just trying another install of El Capitan from recovery. Not feeling too hopeful! 3rd time lucky?

Maybe. You have nothing to lose.

"Rolling back" isn't an option without a Time Machine backup anyway. The Recovery Partition will reinstall the OS that is currently installed. Not that I am advocating doing so, but if you wanted to reinstall your Mac's originally installed operating system add an option key to the Command R key chord: in other words ⌘ option R (three fingers) invokes OS X Internet Recovery. That will force the Mac to download its originally installed OS from Apple's servers. That may or may not have been Yosemite for your Retina MBP.

Be advised I have not tried that with El Capitan yet. Upon upgrading I noticed it appeared to install a firmware update in addition to installing El Cap. I do not yet know the reason for the firmware update.

John Galt wrote:

add an option key to the Command R key chord: in other words ⌘ option R (three fingers) invokes OS X Internet Recovery. That will force the Mac to download its originally installed OS from Apple's servers. That may or may not have been Yosemite for your Retina MBP.

Be advised I have not tried that with El Capitan yet.

I just confirmed that it still works.

I just tried to reinstall Yosemite from an USB stick. No luck, it says: "The installed system is newer that the one you want to install ..."

So going back with TimeMachine seems to be the only option 😟

I'm on a MacBook Pro mid-2012 model and the exact same scenario is happening to me too. This is so frustrating. I've tried multiple re-installs to no avail. I've tried the internet recovery with no luck either. It just hangs on the Apple logo with progress bar at 100%, but doens't go beyond that. I've even run disk utility several times for good measure, and still nothing.