To create bootable USB installer for Mac to Install Mac OS X El Capitan on Windows, on Mac or VirtualBox, you have to create bootable USB flash drive. Let’s get started on how to do it. First, you have to download TransMac software for Windows and install it on your computer. If Your Mac hard drives break down and stop working. If you are upgrading or replacing a Mac hard drive and you don't have an operating system, this video wi.
Select version of OS X (in our case El Capitan) Select copy of OS X installation app. Select USB drive that will be used for USB installation. And wait a few minutes till the the DiskMaker X finish creating process. To install OS X El Capitan restart computer hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu.
Customers get Software upgrades for Mac computers through the online app store ever since the release of macOS Lion. Be it a clean install or upgrade, Mac App store require you connect to the internet to download whole installation files. The online OS update is OK if you have stable broadband connectivity and enough bandwidth. Apple also provides an option for internet recovery of macOS if your computer fails to boot. But there are situations where you can’t download the OS from the Apple servers. Having a macOS offline installer or a bootable USB disk is the only solution in such scenarios.
Installing macOS without internet requires a bootable USB disk. And you need to download a full-size macOS installer for making this disk. Hence, before anything, we will tell you how to download macOS offline installer directly from Apple to your Mac using a GitHub script.
Download the gibMacOS script from this link and extract it to your Mac. From the extracted folder, run the script called gibMacOS.command — it will open the Terminal as shown below.
Wait for the script to fetch the macOS download catalogue from Apple. When the list is ready choose a number as per your OS option and press the Return/Enter key. You can use this script to download macOS Big Sur (11.1), Catalina (10.15), Mojave (10.14), and High Sierra (10.13.6). A new folder “macOS downloads” appears in the “gibMacOS-master” as you provide a download option, and the OS starts downloading as you can see in the video.
The OS gets downloaded as parts, PKGs, DMGs and other files. For macOS versions up-to Big Sur, you need to use another script “BuildmacOSInstallApp.command” in the main folder to join all the downloads and make the full macOS installer app. All you need is to drag and drop the downloaded macOS folder to the terminal window. The script will build the offline installer and save it to the same folder.
You don’t need to use the second script if your choice is macOS Big Sur. Because, for macOS Big Sur you get a full-size installer from Apple in PKG format. Double-click and open the InstallAssistant.PKG to save the “Install macOS Big Sur.app” to the Applications folder.
Apart from this, some older versions of macOS are available for direct download from Apple (Sierra, EL Capitan, Yosemite) in DMG format.
It is possible to create a backup macOS installer on a DVD or USB drive but later is the best choice. Most of the Macs these days don’t have DVD slots, and the installation through a disc is very slow. Hence we discuss only about making macOS recovery installer on a USB disc. For this you need a Mac and a USB pen drive of at least 8 GB space, and a third-party app called DiskMaker.
Unfortunately, the above app is not compatible with macOS Big Sur 11 and above. Check the instructions on Apple website, the manual method to make macOS offline USB installer.
What is the alternative if I don’t have usable Mac at the moment?
This method is applicable when you have a Mac, and the internet recovery fails. But think about a situation when your only Mac stops to boot, and you don’t have USB installer or TimeMachine backup! Downloading MacOS DMG file might save you. If you have a macOS DMG, you can create bootable USB disk from a Windows PC — use a software like TransMac for this purpose.
As said earlier, you could use the macOS USB installer to do a clean install or restore it upon a boot failure. Just connect the USB disk and press the Option/Alt Key when you hear the boot sound. The Mac will then display all the startup disks available.
Pick the USB drive starting with the label “Install macOS” and follow on-screen instructions to complete the installation. If you need, use the Disk Utility to format the drive for doing a clean install.
I accepted a Mid 2012 macbook pro from my dad, which hasn't been used for years (in fact since the year he bought it). So the first thing I did was upgrade the system straight to El Capitan, but then I found the system a bit slow so I am planning to install a new SSD and a new and clean OS for better experience.
So I started preparing all kinds of things, one of which is a USB containing the Install El Capitan app.I did this by downloading El Capitan from appstore and creating a usb media through the following command lines. The USB drive was erased and formatted before operation.
sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/OSX --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app --nointeraction
This should make the USB a install media. So I restarted, pressed option key and saw the original Macintosh HD and the USB, everything was going fine until now. Then I selected the USB and it just stuck at the loading screen like this.
I have been stuck here for hours. In fact I haven't installed the SSD yet. I'm just trying to see if the USB install media worked fine, but obviously it didn't. I know I could use a software to clone my system from HDD to the new SSD, that would be far more simpler, but I really want to install a new OS. Does anyone have any ideas about what the problem is or what should I do next? Thanks a lot.
MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
Posted on May 18, 2016 12:56 AM