I've forwarded the early 2008 machine drives (unaware than getting the installer is going to be so challenging). I am unable to open the El Capitan package to get the installer on my 2019 machine. I just need a bootable version of El Capitan, or to install on an external hard drive so I can reboot my early 2008 machine.
I'm a bit confused by your post on what you are trying to do here. Are you trying to boot into Recovery Mode to install macOS to an external USB drive or are you trying to boot from a macOS USB installer to install macOS to the internal drive?
Here are the instructions for creating a bootable macOS USB installer:
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- If you don't have any OS installed on the Mac (but still have data on it) and no external backup of your data, then you should first create such a backup to an external drive, then install El Capitan using the USB stick and then copy the data back from your external backup to your iMac.
- All you need to perform the installation is a spare 8GB or larger USB thumb drive, an external drive to back up all your data to (if you have any), and a copy of OS X 10.11 El Capitan. OS X 10.11 El Capitan can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.
- Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it. How to get macOS El Capitan download. If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8.
Make sure to carefully read the section regarding macOS 10.11 as there are extra steps required to extract the real installer from the downloaded .dmg archive to the Applications folder. After running the .pkg file from the mounted .dmg file you can then proceed to use the command line to create the bootable macOS USB installer itself.
Macs are very picky about the drives used for booting a Mac plus the quality of many USB sticks is extremely poor so try using another USB stick especially a different brand.
Install Mac Os El Capitan On External Drive
How To Install El Capitan On External Drive
When erasing the drive make sure to select the whole physical drive within Disk Utility and erase the physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). The physical drive should be the top most item which is usually identified by the make & model of the drive itself.
Aug 21, 2021 12:52 PM