Installing El Capitan on new hard drive using createinstallmedia option

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Level 1

8 points

Installing El Capitan on new hard drive using createinstallmedia option

I am not able to restore the OS on an newly installed hard drive. I replaced my hard drive on a Macbook Pro 2009 or 2010 version. I have created a recovery file on a USB thumb drive for El Capitan using the createinstallmedia command from Terminal. The specific command was: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

booted up the computer holding the Option button but not seeing anything that is running the OS install or options to select an install disk.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Jul 30, 2016 4:13 PM

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Answer 1

jndupuis1

Level 2

462 points

Jul 30, 2016 4:36 PM in response to agehr

Hi!

"Createinstallmedia" erases and writes on the entire thumb drive. So, erase your entire thumb drive and make sure it is formatted as One "Mac OS Extended (journaled) GUID Partition Map and named "Untitled" by default. Not two partitions, won't work. I highly recommend an 8 or 16 GB thumb drive that you can devote specifically for this purpose. Here is Apple's Support doc and a tutorial with copy and paste command from Mac World.

Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support

http://www.macworld.com/article/2981585/operating-systems/how-to-make-a-bootable -os-x-10-11-el-capitan-installer-drive.h…

make sure you are logged in under your Apple ID when downloading Install El Capitan app. If you don't, your iCloud apps and data will not be associated with the Installer! Experience talking here. 😉

Excuse Mac Worlds sponsors, please. Hope this helps out.

Cheers!!

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Answer 2

ben114

Level 1

9 points

Aug 1, 2016 9:12 AM in response to agehr

I would try making another bootable USB installer. This time you could try using this: http://macdaddy.io/install-disk-creator/ which automates it for you. And I would suggest trying Yosemite, because the reason it may not be booting up for you is because that Macbook Pro may be too old to run Mavericks, at a guess.

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Answer 3

agehr Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 1, 2016 9:15 AM in response to ben114

The download install for El Capitan was corrupt. I ended up locating the original OS install disk (Mountain Lion 10.6.5) and installed that version and then had to upgrade to get the App Store. From there I was able to upgrade to El Capitan. Works now!

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Aug 1, 2016 9:20 AM in response to ben114

Any Mac that can run Yosemite can run Mavericks

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Answer 5

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,028 points

Aug 1, 2016 9:21 AM in response to agehr

agehr wrote:

The download install for El Capitan was corrupt. I ended up locating the original OS install disk (Mountain Lion 10.6.5) and installed that version and then had to upgrade to get the App Store. From there I was able to upgrade to El Capitan. Works now!

Well that is one way to do it.

Good computing agehr !

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