I am salvaging a mid 2013 MacBook Air 11' that was discarded with a broken screen backlight due to beverage spill and missing its SSD. (I have a very tiny budget right now so I'm only spending on more expensive items when my testing shows the machine might work well.)
Making the installer drive. Connect to your Mac a properly formatted 8GB (or larger) drive, and rename the drive Untitled. (The Terminal commands I provide here assume that the. Make sure the El Capitan installer (or at least a copy of it), called Install OS X El Capitan.app, is in its default. Step 2: Now that El Capitan is downloaded, you will now need to create a bootable OS X El Capitan USB flash drive. Doing this will allow you to install a fresh copy of OS X on your Mac from the flash drive, rather than having to upgrade to the new OS over an existing installation.
I got the Apple Store to test the hardware then tested the computer myself by taking about two days to install OS X from one USB 2.0 flash drive to another USB 2.0 flash drive using an external display.
It seemed to work quite well other than that it ran at about 1% the speed of a normal Mac for anything that required disk access. This made it hard to test in any depth as problems could easily be due to OS X internal timeouts.
I have now purchased a USB 3.0 external hard drive and knowing how slow USB 2.0 flash drives are to install from and to, I'm hoping to use the fast external hard drive for both, but I'm not sure whether this is possible or how.
The external drive happened to come pre-formatted for Mac with two partitions, which to seems ideal.
Can I just copy the contents of the El Capitan bootable installer USB to one of the partitions? I fear I may need to copy it as a drive/partition rather than as a file or folder, since it must be bootable. Does such a copy require special software?
I need to ask the experts here without being able to experiment since I'm unable to justify the purchase price of a magsafe 2 power supply until I'm confident the machine will work well. I am able to borrow a power supply only occasionally from friends.
I realize doing an Internet OS restore via Wi-Fi is another possibility but the Wi-Fi I have access to is both slow and behind a captive portal. So for this question I'm not pursuing that option thank you.
Introduction
Apple officially released OS X 10.11 El Capitan operating system in September 2015 as an update through Apple App Store. This actualization will update core of your system and preserve your user data.
However, if you want to have a clean installation of El Capitan on your Mac you will need to create a special installation USB drive and in this article we will show you how.
Four ways how to create El Capitan USB installation flash drive:
Preparation - get OS X El Capitan installer and USB flash drive
Download El Capitan installer (Install OS X El Capitan.app in Applications folder) available in Mac App Store.
Prepare a flash drive with OS X Disk Utility. Format it with GUID Partition Table and name it as Untitled. The minimal capacity of flash drive must be 8 GB.
How to create El Capitan installation USB drive with createinstallmedia tool
The createinstallmedia is a command line tool distributed with OS X installer.
When you have prepared your USB flash drive and El Capitan installer is downloaded from App Store ► open Terminal and type command:
sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app --nointeraction
In our case 'Untitled' is the name of USB flash drive! Replace 'Untilled' by name of your flash drive.
Wait a few minutes and your El Capitan installation USB drive will be prepared.
To install OS X El Capitan ► restart computer ► hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu.
How to create El Capitan USB installation with Terminal commands
When your USB flash drive is ready and El Capitan installer downloaded from App Store ► Open Terminal and type the following sequence of commands:
sudo hdiutil attach /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg
sudo asr restore -source /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/Untitled -erase -format HFS+
sudo rm /Volumes/OS X Base System/System/Installation/Packages
sudo cp -a /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/Packages /Volumes/OS X Base System/System/Installation/Packages
sudo cp -a /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/OS X Base System
sudo cp -a /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/OS X Base System
sudo cp -a /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/OS X Base System
hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS X Install ESD
Now wait until your bootable installation flash drive with OS X 10.11 El Capitan is made.
To install OS X El Capitan ► restart computer ► hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu.
How to create El Capitan USB installation with Disk Utility and Finder
When your USB flash drive is ready and El Capitan installer downloaded from App Store ► Open Terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1 && killall Finder
This command allows you to view hidden files in Finder.
Now Open Finder ► Applications ► Install OS X El Capitan.app ► right click ► Select Show Package Contents option.
Navigate to Contents/SharedSupport ► Mount InstallESD.dmg file
Open OS X Install ESD archive in Finder and mount BaseSystem.dmg archive
Connect USB drive and open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities)
Select the USB drive from the list of disks, select Restore tab and pick Select OS X Base System archive as a source and USB flash drive as the destination. When ready click on Restore button.
After the Restore process is finished, open Finder ► open USB drive (OS X Base System) ► go to the System/Installation folder and select Packages file and delete it.
Open OS X Install ESD volume in Finder, select Packages folder and copy them to System/Installation folder on USB drive.
Also copy BaseSystem.chunklist and BaseSystem.dmg files from InstallESD.dmg volume to root of USB flash drive (OS X Base System).
Now your El Capitan installation USB drive is prepared and ready for use.
To install OS X El Capitan ► restart computer ► hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu.
How to create El Capitan USB installation disk with DiskMaker X
DiskMaker X tool is Wizard like tool that allows you create OS X installation disk. Download DiskMaker X to your Mac and copy it to Applications folder.
When you have prepared your USB flash drive and El Capitan installer is downloaded from App Store ► open DiskMaker X.
Create El Capitan Install Usb
Select version of OS X (in our case El Capitan)
Select copy of OS X installation app
Select USB drive that will be used for USB installation
Reinstall Mac Os El Capitan
And wait a few minutes till the the DiskMaker X finish creating process.
Create El Capitan Usb Installer
To install OS X El Capitan ► restart computer ► hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu.
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