EI Capitan (10.11) is the last release of OS X. After it, the OS versions are under a name called macOS. From our observation, there are still many people using EI Capitan on their Mac as some of the apps are not running on macOS. Hence, if your Mac was something wrong with it and you need to create a bootable installation media to reinstall OS X EI Capitan on your Mac. Honestly speaking, it is a tough process for EI Capitan and you might receive errors when using the dmg file downloaded from Apple website.
I read through it though but what I needed was a way to make a bootable El Capitan USB (for use in an older Mac) while on a newer Mac running Catalina. Plug in your USB device that is larger than 8 GB that you'll be making bootable and putting the El Capitan installer on. Connect your USB drive. Right Click on your USB drive option in TransMac and select Format Disk for Mac. After that, right-click the USB Drive and select Restore with Disk Image. Point to your Mac OS.dmg or.iso file by clicking the add button. After that TransMac will create bootable Mac OS USB within few minutes. May 13, 2021 Download: OS X El Capitan This will be downloaded as a disk image called InstallMacOSX.dmg. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, which has the name InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. I repair Macs, and thus I often need a bootable installer for various macOS versions. I just upgraded to an M1 Macbook Air, and it appears I'm no longer able to use the 'createinstallmedia' command line app: it errors out on 'Killed: 9': The same is also true for El Capitan, Sierra, High.
Please don't worry. In this tutorial, we will share you all the necessary steps to make a bootable EI Capitan bootable USB on a Windows 10 PC. Here is a screenshot of our tutorial's output.
P.S. If you have a Mac, then please follow this official guide to create EI Capitan USB installer on macOS by using createinstallmedia command: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USBVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app
Preparation
Please get started, there are a few things you should prepare for.
First, a USB drive with at least 16 GB storage as the installation file of EI Capitan (.dmg) is over 5.5GB. USB 3.0 is more recommended as it has faster reading and writing speed. This will save a lot of time.
Secondly, download EI Capitan (10.11.6) DMG file from this link: This is the modified version of Apple's dmg file dedicated for USB booting.
Warning: The download file hosted on Apple.com (InstallMacOSX.dmg) will only work on Mac platform. For creating installation media on Windows, please use the above link instead. The dmg file provided by Apple contains a .pkg file in DMG archive, which will result failure if you are using it on a PC.
Tutorial: How to Create EI Capitan Bootable USB on Windows 10 PC
To make a bootable USB from EI Capitan dmg file, we need a special software in place. In our case, it is UUByte DMG Editor, an award-winning app for creating bootable OS X and macOS USB installer.
Step 1: Install UUByte DMG Editor on your PC and open it from Desktop shortcut. After that, plug in a USB drive into the computer and eject other unused USB devices.
Step 2: Click Burn button from welcome screen and import downloaded EI Capitan DMG file into the program. You will also see USB drive name in second field.
Step 3: Click Burn button at the bottom to write dmg file to USB drive. There is a progress bar on the screen. This tells how much time left for the burning task.
Step 4: Wait for 5-10 minutes and a bootable EI Capitan installation disk is created. You need to wait more time for USB 2.0 device.
Install OS X EI Capitan on Your Mac
Before installation starts, make sure the hardware meets the minimal requirements of EI Capitan. You can check it from here: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP728?locale=en_US
To install EI Capitan from USB, please insert the bootable disk into Mac. Keep pressing Option button during startup. You will see a drive name (Install OS X EI Capitan) on startup window. Click on it to enter into OS X Recovery mode.
Make Bootable El Capitan Usb On Catalina Software
From macOS Utitilies window, click Reinstall macOS and follow the screen prompt to install EI Capitan on your Mac.
The above is a complete tutorial that shows you how to easily create a bootable USB installer from EI Capitan DMG file on a Windows PC. And this is the easiest method you could find. No complex settings and command line!
If you use pkgutil to expand the InstallMacOSX.pkg it opens to three items, the Distribution file, InstallMacOSX.pkg and Resources. You can alter the Distribution file to ignore the supported platform check, see below.
Creating the Install OS X El Capitan.app on a mac that came with a newer OS than El Capitan.
Download the InstallMacOSX.dmg from Section 4 of How To Upgrade To El Capitan
Double-click to open InstallMacOSX.dmg to Install MacOSX.pkg.
Drag InstallMacOSX.pkg to the Desktop.
Open Terminal, enter the text
A folder will be created on the Desktop after a while with the contents of the .pkg file.
Make Bootable El Capitan Usb On Catalina Download
In there you will see an item called Distribution, Control-click on that and select Open With
El Capitan Usb Installer
go to Other and select Text Edit.
When the file opens scroll down to the section that reads,
function isSupportedPlatform(){
type in at the end return true; so it now reads as,
function isSupportedPlatform(){return true;
Now click Save and close the document.
Go back to Terminal and enter the text,
press Return, after several minutes, be patient, (check to see if the prompt has returned to Terminal) a new package will be created on the Desktop.
When created double-click on that and an installation window will open where you will now convert the
new InstallElCapitan.pkg to the Install OS X El Capitan.app which will be placed in your Applications folder.
You can now create a bootable USB using the install app and createinstallmedia,
If you have the time I would be grateful if you could give this a trial, it works here on my mac, but I would like confirmation from yourself or any others reading this that the procedure works on macs that came with macOS Sierra or newer pre-installed. Oh and tell me if my description of the procedure is easy to follow and understand..
Make Bootable El Capitan Usb On Catalina Mac
Jan 15, 2020 12:58 AM