Plug-in your USB key on a turned-off computer. Start your Mac, press immediately OPTION (aka ALT) Select the Orange icon (aka a USB stick) labelled El Capitan. If it does not detect it after 10 sec and you only see your hard-drive.
Matt Cone January 17, 2013 TutorialsMac
It’s a good idea to have a bootable emergency drive on hand, just in case disaster strikes your Mac. An emergency drive (also referred to as an OS X Recovery Disk) can help you repair the hard disk, reinstall the operating system, and restore from a Time Machine backup to get your computer back fast.
With previous versions of OS X, you could have used the installation DVD to fix problems. But OS X Mountain Lion is sold in the App Store as a digital download — no physical disk is provided. What’s a maintenance-minded Mac user to do?
Create your own bootable OS X USB drive, of course! It’s easy, and if you’ve already purchased OS X and have a USB drive that’s 1 GB or larger, it’s completely free. Carry it in your pocket or put it on your keychain so it’s available if the worst-case scenario occurs. You’ll thank yourself for taking the time to complete this project.
Evaluating Your Emergency Drive Options
- I created a USB disk with a bootable El Capitan as per this documentation. Plug-in your USB key on a turned-off computer. Start your Mac, press immediately OPTION (aka ALT) Select the Orange icon (aka a USB stick) labelled El Capitan. If it does not detect it after 10 sec and you only see your hard-drive. Try another USB port and wait 10 sec again.
- Bootable USB Stick - macOS X El Capitan 10.11 - Full OS Install, Reinstall, Recovery and Upgrade.
It can happen to any of us, even those who own brand-new Macs. First your computer starts freezing infrequently, then crashing more often, and then it won’t start at all. For situations like this, you need an emergency drive on hand to start up your computer and troubleshoot the problem.
Emergency USB Drive: Creating a bootable USB drive is your safest bet. This device is self-contained and kept entirely separate from your computer — and any potential problems associated with it. But if you don’t want to create a USB drive, you may have access to two other types of emergency drives, depending on when you purchased your Mac.
Recovery HD: Every Mac running OS X Lion and later has a hidden Recovery HD partition that can be used to boot the computer and repair the hard disk. (To use the Recovery HD partition as your startup disk, hold down Command-R at startup or, if that doesn’t work, option.) But the Recovery HD probably won’t work if the internal hard drive is damaged. When you can’t boot from the regular startup disk, chances are you won’t be able to boot from the Recovery HD either.
Internet Recovery: Macs purchased after OS X Lion was released have an additional feature called Internet Recovery, which works even if your internal hard drive is damaged. If there’s a problem with your computer, it can network-boot from Apple’s servers. First, your computer’s memory and hard drive are checked for major issues. If none are found, your Mac downloads and boots from a Recovery HD image. But even if your Mac has this feature, you’ll still benefit from having an emergency drive, as it can take a while to download the Recovery HD partition.
Purchasing a USB Drive for Your OS X Recovery Disk
If you don’t have a spare USB drive, you’ll need to purchase one. We recommend the Amazon Basics 8 GB USB Flash Drive, which is a simple and affordable option available for less than $10.
El Capitan Recovery Usb Download
Making Your Own Emergency OS X USB Drive
The best option is a Recovery HD partition on a bootable USB drive. This drive provides you with all the tools you need to troubleshoot problems, repair the hard drive, reinstall OS X, and restore from a Time Machine backup. In short, it’s the perfect safety net for those rare times when your internal hard drive is hosed.
Here’s how to create an emergency USB drive:
Connect a hard drive or USB drive to your computer. If the drive is larger than 1 GB, consider partitioning it to make a 1 GB partition for the recovery disk. (If you don’t create a partition, this process will use all of the available space on the drive, no matter how large it is.)
Open the Recovery Disk Assistant application. It’s available for free from Apple’s website.
Accept the license agreement. The Recovery Disk Assistant window appears, as shown below.
Select the disk and then click Continue.
Authenticate with your administrator username and password. The Recovery Disk Assistant creates the recovery disk, as shown below. The process takes approximately five minutes.
When the recovery disk has been created, click Quit.
Like the Recovery HD partition on your startup drive, the emergency drive is invisible when it’s connected to your computer. The Finder won’t provide any indication that it exists, but don’t worry — it’s there, waiting for your signal to help with a disaster!
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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
MyVolumein 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
Yto 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
- 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.
El Capitan Recovery Usb
Learn more
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.
Recovery Usb Drive
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: