Installation of El Capitan on new ssd - "error occured, try again later"

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Level 1

12 points

Installation of El Capitan on new ssd - "error occured, try again later"

Hi everyone,

I upgraded the disk of my MacBookPro5,5 mid 2009 to a Crucial MX200 SSD. Before I put this SSD into my Laptop, I partitioned and formatted it (connected via USB to a Mac). Then, I booted from a bootable USB drive with El Capitan which I prepared beforehand (this morning). The SSD is recognized in Disk Utilities, the installer recognizes it as well. Disk Utility does not show any problems whatsoever with either of both drives. However, when I start the installer, it only takes a few seconds until I get the error "An error occurred. Please try again later".

Of course, I checked all relevant sources for fixes. I tried the following without success; first, I synchronized the date of my Mac with that of apple's server using the terminal (my Mac's timezone is PDT although I live in Central Europe, i.e. should be CEST - i suppose that is not a problem...) and second, I reset the NVRAM. As I said, neither of those worked.

Can anybody give me a hint what to do next? Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on May 3, 2016 1:53 PM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

May 4, 2016 3:42 AM in response to trefix

Is the SSD format Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

I would try installing El Capitan from the Apple App store (I assume that the Mac has Snow Leopard (10.6.8) installed or a later OSX).

Ciao.

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Answer 2

trefix Author

Level 1

12 points

May 4, 2016 4:08 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

The SSD is correctly partitioned and formatted, ie Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

I can't install the OS from the Apple App Store as the SSD is empty. Thus, as expected, I get the grey folder with the question mark when starting up in the Recovery Mode. This is why I intended to do boot from the USB drive and install the OS from there.

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Answer 3

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

May 4, 2016 4:11 AM in response to trefix

Do you still have the original HDD? Does it have an OSX on it, Snow Leopard (10.6.8) or newer? If so, clone the HDD to the SSD and then install El Capitan.

Ciao.

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Answer 4

trefix Author

Level 1

12 points

May 4, 2016 4:39 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

My old one is mal-functioning, that won't work. Will have to go to the Genius Bar then I am afraid...

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Answer 5

May 14, 2016 7:26 PM in response to trefix

To fix the aforementioned “unspecified error”, follow the steps below:

First click “OK” on the error window.
Then click on “Utilities”, then “Terminal”.
Once opened type in “date” without the quotes and hit enter. This will give you the computer’s current time and date.
To fix the date, type in the current date/time in the following format: “date mmddHHMMyyyy”. (mm = two digit month, dd = two digit day, HH = 24 hour, MM = minute, yyyy = 4 digit year) So if it is currently 10:46am, June 19, 2015 the command would look like: “date 061910462015”.
Once you have the current date/time inserted, you will then hit enter. You can double check to see if it was set properly by using the “date” command once more, it should show the date/time you have just typed in (see image below).
Once the proper date and time is set on the computer. Exit the Terminal and run the OS X installer once more. This time it should go through without any errors!

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