Quit Disk Utility and install El Capitan. If you already attached the SSD you can use Internet Recovery Mode (hold cmdR or altcmdR while booting) to first partition the new internal drive and then restore the original system (10.7 Lion). Then - after configuring Lion - you can to upgrade to El Capitan. Then name it El Capitan Type and Version = MAC OS X (64bit) and click on Next. Allocate more than 3GB of ram and click on next. Then click on Use an existing virtual hard disk file and browse for the virtual hard disk file extracted from El Capitan Disk ISO Image and click on Create. Then select El Capitan virtual machine and click on Settings.

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. The copy of the install app self deletes after installing El Capitan, so make sure you keep a copy of the InstallMacOSX.dmg if you need it in future, or you could just make a copy of the Install OS X El Capitan.app prior to installing and moving it to an external drive for safe keeping. It is also possible to create a bootable USB installer. How to format Western Digital. WD Elements, WD My Book western digital, my passport wd, we my cloud,wd my passport ultra,Western Digital. Seagate backup plu.

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:

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.

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

It was 2009 when Apple last released a new operating system on physical media. Things have proceeded remarkably smoothly since version 10.7 switched to download-only installers, but there are still good reasons to want an old, reliable USB stick. For instance, if you find yourself doing multiple installs, a USB drive may be faster than multiple downloads (especially if you use a USB 3.0 drive). Or maybe you need a recovery disk for older Macs that don't support the Internet Recovery feature. Whatever the reason, you're in luck, because it's not hard to make one.

As with last year, there are two ways to get it done. There's the super easy way with the graphical user interface and the only slightly less easy way that requires some light Terminal use. Here's what you need to get started.

• A Mac that you have administrator access to, duh. We've created El Capitan USB stick from both Yosemite and El Capitan, but your experience with other versions may vary.
• An 8GB or larger USB flash drive or an 8GB or larger partition on some other kind of external drive. For newer Macs, use a USB 3.0 drive—it makes things significantly faster.
• The OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary.
• If you want a GUI, you need the latest version of Diskmaker X app. Version 5 is the one with official El Capitan support.
• Diskmaker X is free to download, but the creator accepts donations if you want to support his efforts.

Play Music From Usb Drive

The easy way

Once you've obtained all of the necessary materials, connect the USB drive to your Mac and run the Diskmaker X app. The app will offer to make installers for OS X 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11, and it should run on OS X versions all the way back to 10.7—support for 10.6 was dropped in the most recent release.

Diskmaker X has actually been around since the days of OS X 10.7 (it was previously known as Lion Diskmaker), and it's still the easiest GUI-based way to go without intimidating newbies. If you're comfortable with the command line, it's still possible to create a disk manually using a Terminal command, which we'll cover momentarily.

Select OS X 10.11 in Diskmaker X, and the app should automatically find the copy you've downloaded to your Applications folder. It will then ask you where you want to copy the files—click 'An 8GB USB thumb drive' if you have a single drive to use or 'Another kind of disk' to use a partition on a larger drive or some other kind of external drive. Choose your disk (or partition) from the list that appears, verify that you'd like to have the disk (or partition) erased, and then wait for the files to copy over. The process is outlined in screenshots above.

The only slightly less-easy way

If you don't want to use Diskmaker X, Apple has actually included a terminal command that can create an install disk for you. Assuming that you have the OS X El Capitan installer in your Applications folder and you have a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)-formatted USB drive named 'Untitled' mounted on the system, you can create an El Capitan install drive by typing the following command into the Terminal.

sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app --nointeraction

The command will erase the disk and copy the install files over. Give it some time, and your volume will soon be loaded up with not just the OS X installer but also an external recovery partition that may come in handy if your hard drive dies and you're away from an Internet connection.

Install El Capitan On External Disk

Whichever method you use, you should be able to boot from your new USB drive either by changing the default Startup Disk in System Preferences or by holding down the Option key at boot and selecting the drive. Once booted, you'll be able to install or upgrade El Capitan as you normally would.