Os X El Capitan Cannot Be Installed On Macintosh Hd

To upgrade from OS X Mountain Lion, first upgrade to OS X El Capitan, then upgrade to macOS Big Sur. Download macOS Big Sur If you're using macOS Mojave or later, get macOS Big Sur via Software Update: Choose Apple menu System Preferences, then click Software Update. You will also need to have first downloaded the OS X El Capitan installer from the App Store, and have this present in your Applications folder. The Terminal may take a while to complete this step, but when done you can reboot your Mac and hold the Option key to show the boot menu, and then select the El Capitan installation drive you just created to run the installer and upgrade your Mac’s internal hard drive. Even if you did a clean install of El Capitan it would not explain why you are seeing OS X 10.6.8. OS X 10.6.3/4 was the original system on your computer. Still, it’s hard to know where the 10.6.8 came from, unless Time Machine has been disabled or disconnected for the last 8 years or so.

These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.

What you need to create a bootable installer

  • A USB flash drive or other secondary volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, with at least 14GB of available storage
  • A downloaded installer for macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or El Capitan

Download macOS

  • Download: macOS Big Sur, macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, or macOS High Sierra
    These download to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS [version name]. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
  • Download: OS X El Capitan
    This downloads as a disk image named InstallMacOSX.dmg. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.

Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal

  1. Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer.
  2. Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  3. Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're using. If it has a different name, replace MyVolume in these commands with the name of your volume.

Big Sur:*

Catalina:*

Mojave:*

High Sierra:*

El Capitan:

* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath argument and installer path, similar to the way this is done in the command for El Capitan.


After typing the command:

  1. Press Return to enter the command.
  2. When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
  3. When prompted, type Y to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the volume is erased.
  4. After the volume is erased, you may see an alert that Terminal would like to access files on a removable volume. Click OK to allow the copy to proceed.
  5. When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Big Sur. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.

Use the bootable installer

Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:

Apple silicon

  1. Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
  2. Turn on your Mac and continue to hold the power button until you see the startup options window, which shows your bootable volumes.
  3. Select the volume containing the bootable installer, then click Continue.
  4. When the macOS installer opens, follow the onscreen instructions.
Capitan

Intel processor

  1. Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
  2. Press and hold the Option (Alt) ⌥ key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
  3. Release the Option key when you see a dark screen showing your bootable volumes.
  4. Select the volume containing the bootable installer. Then click the up arrow or press Return.
    If you can't start up from the bootable installer, make sure that the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility is set to allow booting from external media.
  5. Choose your language, if prompted.
  6. Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.

Learn more

Os X El Capitan Cannot Be Installed On Macintosh Hd 2

A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the internet, but it does require an internet connection to get firmware and other information specific to the Mac model.

For information about the createinstallmedia command and the arguments you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter the appropriate path in Terminal:

Os X El Capitan Cannot Be Installed On Macintosh Hd Free

My machine: mid 2007 24' iMac, 2 GB RAM Intel Duo, 667MHz, 2.8GHz, 500GB HD, superdrive, OS X 10.8
The install of El Capitan, at least what I thought was the installation, took a while. A screen shows up with the 10.11 logo stating to install click continue, agree to terms and install OS, I got the option to use disk utility, time machine or recovery or click the install button. I clicked, installation (from bootable flash drive) it stated to restart, with this done a message came that there was installation media on the destination volume, try again.
I restarted and got a progress bar (Apple logo above) which never fully finished, or it did but nothing happened. After walking away for an hour or two, I powered the machine down, restarted it with the option button to get the start up disk manager but only got the apple logo and progress bar, again. I tried to start in recovery mode, also in safe mode with the progress bar appearing after each attempt.
Obviously, I cannot access the drive to remove whatever install media is present on that disk. What options do I have at this point?
Thank you
I