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Unable to download El Capitan to create bootable USB drive

I have a mid 2009 MacBook Pro, and recently something occurred to the hard drive to the point that it will not boot (it gets stuck about 1/3 of the way through the progress bar). I have booted in to Disk Utility and attempted to repair the drive, but I get a message that says it cannot be repaired. I have a separate iMac running Sierra, and so I created a bootable USB drive with High Sierra, and also got a new hard drive. After multiple attempts and failures to install High Sierra (I keep getting the prohibitory symbol), I did more research and discovered that my vintage of MBP does not support Sierra/High Sierra (only mid 2010 models). I attempted to download the El Capitan installer on my iMac from the App Store, but it won't download there because it's running a newer copy (Sierra). Since I can't even get to my MBP to download it, how do I get a copy of the El Capitan installer so I can create a bootable USB drive?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), Mac OS X (10.0.x)

Posted on Mar 16, 2018 10:48 PM

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Posted on Mar 16, 2018 11:37 PM

Before downloading ElCapitan to the old 2009 MacBook Pro, you first need to replace its defective hard drive with a functioning one. It will need to be formatted to a GUID partition with HFS+. The original software that came with the 2009 MacBook Pro could help you with this. Once 'Apple ready' install Mac OSX 10.6 software from the DVD onto the new hard drive. Once 10.6 is installed, log into the App Store and then in your 'purchases' you should have available the El Capitan that you previously installed, and be able to again reinstall it, and also make a new bootable USB if you want.


So the first thing is, you need to get a functioning HD sorted in your MacBook Pro.

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Mar 16, 2018 11:37 PM in response to Wonder95

Before downloading ElCapitan to the old 2009 MacBook Pro, you first need to replace its defective hard drive with a functioning one. It will need to be formatted to a GUID partition with HFS+. The original software that came with the 2009 MacBook Pro could help you with this. Once 'Apple ready' install Mac OSX 10.6 software from the DVD onto the new hard drive. Once 10.6 is installed, log into the App Store and then in your 'purchases' you should have available the El Capitan that you previously installed, and be able to again reinstall it, and also make a new bootable USB if you want.


So the first thing is, you need to get a functioning HD sorted in your MacBook Pro.

Mar 17, 2018 2:17 AM in response to Wonder95

On your iMac that has Sierra installed you could login to the App Store with your AppleID you use for the MacBook Pro and then look in the Purchased page to see if El Capitan is available for download. If it does download then you could make a bootable USB and then transfer it over to your MBP. How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support remember to use the correct command line for El Capitan.


Edit, I forgot to ask what OS was your MBP running before the disk failure? If you hadn't upgraded it to El Capitan then the above maybe irrelevant. Had you ever downloaded El Capitan?

Mar 17, 2018 10:31 AM in response to Wonder95

Yes so if you try to download El Capitan from the App Store whilst you are running Sierra you will get that notice.

But if you go into the Purchased section and El Capitan or Yosemite are there then you should be able to download them, you will get a notice saying you are trying to download an older OS but you can click on Continue to go ahead with the download. If you don't see El Capitan there, then it looks like you did not download it before (although it may be hidden, click on View My Account under Store in the menubar, click on manage next to Hidden Items . In this case you could download Yosemite and make a bootle USB of it and then use that to install on your MacBook Pro, and then once you get your MBP up to speed with all relevant updates for Yosemite you can then try to install El Capitan using the link above.

Unable to download El Capitan to create bootable USB drive

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