Repair the Drive for El Capitan
- Restart the computer and after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Utility Menu appears.
- Select Disk Utility and press the Continue button.
- Then select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the the side list.
- Click on the First Aid tab in the toolbar and wait for the Done button to activate. Click on it, then quit Disk Utility.
- Select Restart from the Apple menu.
If you have problems then please post a snapshot of what Disk Utility is showing on the screen. Your explanation is just too vague to be helpful.
To Post A Screen Shot
OS X El Capitan Contents Page 4 Introduction Page 5 System Startup BootROM EFI Kernel Drivers Initialization Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) Compressed Memory Power Efficiency App Nap Timer Coalescing Task-Level Scheduling USB Power Management Page 10 Disk Layout Partition Scheme Core Storage File Systems Page 12 Process Control. Clean up the 'Other' storage space with this software (here's a free trial:) Your startup disk is almost full. You need to make more spa.
El Capitan 10.11.6 is now released as the latest version of Download El Capitan. For OS X El Capitan users this update is recommended. The upgrade to OS X El Capitan v10.11.6 enhances your Mac's reliability, performance and protection and is advised for all users. Solves a problem that can prevent parental control accounts from saving settings. As I've done a thousand times before I created an install-USB by downloading El Capitan from the App Store and compiled it on to the USB-drive by using Apples own terminal command. However, the install-USB is not bootable and does not show up i the 'Startup disk preference panel'.
- Press Command-Shift-4 which will change the cursor to crosshairs.
- Hold down the mouse button and use the crosshairs to select the part of the screen you wish to capture.
- Release the mouse button and the image will be saved to your Desktop.
- Click on the Camera icon in the toolbar of the forum message editor.
- Drag the image onto the Choose File button and click on the Insert button.
The above is only useful when running Disk Utility from the running system. If you boot from the Recovery HD, then you will need to snap an image using an iDevice in order to post the image here.
Sep 12, 2016 4:23 PM
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
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer.
- Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- 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:
- Press Return to enter the command.
- When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
- 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. - 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.
- 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
- Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
- Turn on your Mac and continue to hold the power button until you see the startup options window, which shows your bootable volumes.
- Select the volume containing the bootable installer, then click Continue.
- When the macOS installer opens, follow the onscreen instructions.
Intel processor
Create El Capitan Startup Disk
- 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 showing your bootable volumes.
- 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. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Learn more
Startup Disk Usb
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.
Startup Disk Full Mac El Capitan
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: