How to install os x el capitan on a blank hard drive

#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE HOW TO#
#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE DRIVERS#
#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 10#

It will make your life easier in Windows before you install the Apple drivers. This is particularly important if your trackpad is broken like mine, but have one anyway. Again, having more than you need is a good thing. Apparently at least one flash drive has to be USB 2.0 for the BootCamp drivers, although I didnвЂ™t test this.

A few blank DVDs and USB flash drives.

Two separate external backups of the current OS X installation as outlined above.

A working OS X installation of some description (in my case, Yosemite).

ItвЂ™sвЂ¦ well, stupid, but it seems to be the only way. This means that unless weвЂ™re careful, not just during the install but for the life of the installation, the data on one side is at risk from disk utilities on the other. IвЂ™m not going to get into BIOS/EFI thing too much, but essentially when weвЂ™re done weвЂ™ll have two overlapping partition schemes on the hard drive that donвЂ™t properly match up: a GPT scheme for OS X and Linux, and an MBR scheme for Windows. ItвЂ™s a shame because hybrid MBRs really do suck but it is what it is. All I ever got was frozen boots and BIOS boots. I tried every possible combination of everything until I ran out of ideas of what to try. I tried removing MBR bootloader files from ISOs, hacking BootCamp to force an EFI install, installing to a blank disk that had been formatted a few different ways and booting it with the internal hard drive removed entirely. I tried with both CDs and flash drives, created them by different methods under different operating systems and booted through the stock bootloader, rEFInd, BootCamp.

#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 10#

The damn thing just refuses to boot any Windows 10 media in EFI mode. IвЂ™d love it if someone was able to get it done but I threw everything I could think of at it.

This will give us a brand spanking new clean install of everything and a neat method of selecting the desired operating system on startup.ДЇor anyone out there wondering if you can get Windows 10 to install on this Macbook model in EFI mode, you canвЂ™t. Erase the MacbookвЂ™s internal hard drive.

#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE DRIVERS#

Get the BootCamp drivers for Windows 10.

Create installers for our three new operating systems.

Just consider yourself warned that this procedure is potentially troublesome and itвЂ™s naive to think that you wonвЂ™t have any trouble.

The bottom line is that if you want to do this IвЂ™m going to assume you have some idea of the risks and rewards associated with it. I ended up going ahead under less than perfect conditions with two separate non-bootable backups (although youвЂ™ll only use one, having data in only one place isвЂ¦ well, stupid). If you need to use your current OS X installation I recommend a bootable clone and Time Machine, or some equally robust/versatile arrangement that gives you peace of mind and access to your data even if youвЂ™ve bricked your internal drive. And despite having the benefit of my guidance, you can and probably will break your system at some point during this process. AppleвЂ™s official line states that it cannot and/or should not be done. If youвЂ™re reading this you hopefully understand that this is not to be taken lightly in terms of your system and data.

#HOW TO INSTALL OS X EL CAPITAN ON A BLANK HARD DRIVE HOW TO#

There are quite a few guides out there explaining how to perform aspects of this install, but having information for this particular machine would have saved me about a week so IвЂ™m going to relay what worked in the end.

How to install os x el capitan on a blank hard drive