Bootable Installer El Capitan

Install the macOS installer. Dec 16, 2019 How to create a bootable installer for macOS. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. A bootable installer doesn't. Aug 21, 2019 For a clean install, at first, you will need a bootable version of OS X. Bootable Macos Installer El Capitan. Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the Internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing. Press and hold the Option (Alt) ⌥ key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac. Release the Option key when you see a dark screen displaying your bootable volumes. Aug 28, 2021 As long as I erased my Mac and 'bootable usb El Capitan install drive' installation process complained with verification problem I decided to reinstall 'Yosemite' using the built-in recovery disk, then I downloaded installer for 'El Capitan' from 'App Store'. What you need to create a bootable installer.

  1. Learn how to create a bootable USB flash drive for the OS X El Capitan installer, allowing you to boot a new version of El Capitan whenever you'd like.
  2. To create a bootable El Capitan installer drive, you need the El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store and a Mac-formatted drive that’s big enough to hold the installer and all its data.
A bootable installer is one of the fastest ways to install El Capitan. Rather than copy the installer to a local drive you can run it right off a USB disk (or Thunderbolt if you dare). Such a little USB drive would be similar to the sticks that came with the older MacBook Air, when we were all still sitting around wondering how you would ever install the OS on a computer with no optical media or Ethernet otherwise. Luckily, Apple loves us. To make a bootable USB/flash drive of El Capitan like the one that used to come with the MacBook Air, first name the USB drive. I’ll use mavinstall for the purposes of this article. The format should be Mac OS Extended Journaled. The installer is called Install OS X El Capitan and is by default located in the /Applications directory. Inside the app bundle, there’s a new binary called createinstallmedia (nested in Contents/Resources). Using this binary you can create an installation drive (similar to what we used to do with InstallESD). To do so, specify the –volume to create the drive on (note that the target volume will be erased), the path of the Install OS X El Capitan app bundle and then we’re going to select –nointeraction so it just runs through the whole thing /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/mavinstall --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app --nointeractionNote: You’ll need to elevate your privileges for this to run. Once run you’ll see that it erases the disk, copies the Installation materials (InstallESX, etc) and then makes the drive bootable, as follows: Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 100%... Copying installer files to disk... Copy complete. Making disk bootable... Copying boot files... Copy complete. Then you can either select the new volume in the Startup Disk System Preference pane or boot the computer holding down the option key to select the new volume. Note: If you can do this on a system with a solid state drive it will be faster. Although this took 17 minutes last I ran it even then so be patient for the files to copy.

Are you trying to make a bootable installer? Do you have the El Capitan installer downloaded from the App Store? You cannot make a bootable DVD but you can make a bootable flash drive.


Bootable USB Installers for OS X Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra


First, review this introductory article: Create a bootable installer for macOS. Second, see this How To outline for creating a bootable El Capitan installer. Simply replace the Terminal command with the one from the preceding article by copying it into the Terminal window. You will need an 8GB or larger USB flash drive that has been partitioned and formatted for use with OS X.


Drive Partition and Format

  1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities' folder.
  2. After Disk Utility loads select the drive (out-dented entry with the mfg.'s ID and size) from the side list.
  3. Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility toolbar. Name the drive, 'MyVolume'. <---- IMPORTANT!
  4. In the drop down panel set the partition scheme to GUID. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
  5. Click on the Apply button and wait for the Done button to activate. When it does click on it.
  6. Quit Disk Utility.
El capitan usb installer


Create Installer

Open the Terminal in the Utilities' folder. Choose the appropriate command line (in red) depending upon what OS X installer you want. Paste that entire command line from below at the Terminal's prompt:


Create Bootable El Capitan Installer

Command for macOS High Sierra:

sudo /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app

Command for macOS Sierra:

sudo /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app

Make bootable el capitan installer on windows

Command for El Capitan:

sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app

Command for Yosemite:

sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app

Command for Mavericks:

sudo /Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app


Press RETURN. You will be asked for your admin password. It will not echo to the Terminal window. Then press RETURN again. Wait for the return of the Terminal prompt signifying the process has completed. It takes quite some time to finish. Be patient.

Bootable El Capitan Usb

Mar 3, 2018 7:47 PM