Create a bootable USB drive for macOS X versions including El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur. Before getting started, you will need to download Mac OS El Capitan latest version from App Store and also download latest UniBeast-6.1.1 from here directly, but the full resource you can find it here. When the OS X El Capitan and Unibeast downloaded, open Disk Utility and click Erase then enter a name and select format, click Erase.

I am trying to rescue my dad's 2008 iMac. It is running Snow Leopard but the most recent OS it supports is El Capitan. It won't boot past a spinning progress bar on a grey screen, and will not boot into Recovery Mode or Safe Mode.

It seems to me next step is to try a bootable USB stick. I am running into walls trying to make the stick from my own computer, which is an M1 MacBook Air running Big Sur.

1. In this tutorial and video walkthrough, I’ll show you how to create a bootable USB drive for OS X El Capitan in just a few easy steps Note: your USB flash drive must be at least 8GB in size. Ensure that there’s nothing on the drive that you wish to keep, as this process will completely erase the drive including any volumes.
2. Apr 26, 2021 You need a copy of the El Capitan installer to make a bootable USB. The El Capitan installer is downloaded to the /Applications folder, with the file name 'Install OS X El Capitan.' If you've installed El Capitan and want to create a bootable installer, re-download the installer from Apple.

An El Capitan .DMG is downloadable directly from the Apple Support page, which provides instructions on how to make a bootable volume, with a major caveat On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg

I used a utility to extract the Install OS X El Capitan.app file from the .dmg and then ran the terminal command from that support page:

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

El Capitan Pkg To Usb

But this yields /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application.
When I google this error some results indicate it is due to an expired file, but changing my system date to 2016 does not fix it. I assume the real problem is a system incompatibility.

El Capitan To Big Sur

Surely there is just an ISO I can get and write without all these hoops?s