Reinstall macOS. Select Reinstall macOS from the utilities window in macOS Recovery, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions. Follow these guidelines during installation: If the installer asks to unlock your disk, enter the password you use to log in to your Mac. If the installer doesn't see your disk, or it says that it can't. 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.
Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:
Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window. Click the gear icon labeled Options, then click Continue.
Before you can use your new SSD with your Mac® system, or install macOS® onto it, you have to initialize and partition it first. Follow the steps in this article if you are using OS X El Capitan or later. If you have not upgraded, follow our guide for earlier versions of OS X. Once you’ve done that, here’s how to install, reinstall, or upgrade to El Capitan, step by step: Boot from your Recovery HD partition by restarting your Mac while holding down the Command+R keys. The OS X Utilities window appears. Select Reinstall OS X, and click Continue. The OS X El Capitan splash screen appears. Installing the Mac operating system on an external drive is the safest way to get a good look at a new OS without changing anything on your Mac. Is optimized for SSD and the computer will be.
Make sure that your Mac has a connection to the internet. Then turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold Command (⌘)-R until you see an Apple logo or other image.
If you're asked to select a user you know the password for, select the user, click Next, then enter their administrator password.
Select Reinstall macOS from the utilities window in macOS Recovery, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Follow these guidelines during installation:
After installation is complete, your Mac might restart to a setup assistant. If you're selling, trading in, or giving away your Mac, press Command-Q to quit the assistant without completing setup. Then click Shut Down. When the new owner starts up the Mac, they can use their own information to complete setup.
When you install macOS from Recovery, you get the current version of the most recently installed macOS, with some exceptions:
You can also use these methods to install macOS, if the macOS is compatible with your Mac:
I’m trying to sell a 2009 MacbookPro. It’s the model MacbookPro5.5 and Apple supports macOS El Capitan 10.11 as latest available version.
I’ve wiped all data from the installed SSD and had to boot from an external disk. Now I’ve got two problems:
Luckily I’ve found this blog post from Chris Warrick who explained how to extract the installer App from the package:
Now we can try to create the install media from the installer app. Make sure you’ve attach another disk which can be overwritten by the installer. In this example its named „MyBlankUSBDrive“:
The InstallESD.dmg image is missing, which we’ll need to add to the right location:
Now we’ll have a valid installation medium which can be used to start the installer from. You can reboot from that disk and should be able to install El Capitan.
However, I’ve encountered another annoying issue which caused the installer to fail:
El Capitan Installer cannot be verified
Oh great… On to the next commands you can try from the Terminal inside the Recovery OS:
installer -pkg /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg -target /Volumes/'XXX'
where XXX is the name of the disk you’re installing to.Great, you’ve got El Capitan installed! Apple had some issues with certificates and people found a way to either use the above commands for installation or you’ll have to tinker with your Macs time settings so that the signature is valid again. I would have expected that Apple resigned all installers so I wouldn’t have to use these commands at all but doesn’t look like they did.