OSX El Capitan Installation

Michael Otterstedt

• 4 min read

Installation efforts on an early 2009 iMac 24.

Working Procedure January 2004

Preparations:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app
  • External FireWire 800 Disk with El Capitan USB Installer and a partition for OS Installation
  • NVRAM Reset (cmd + alt + p + r)

Procedure:

  1. Boot and hold option key
  2. Choose El Capitan USB Installer partition as startup disk
  3. Choose option to Install OSX
  4. Complete installation on iMac 2013
  5. Login
  6. Open Safari
  7. Download the ISRG Root X1 (direct download) certificate file.
  8. Open the Keychain Access app and drag that file into the System folder of that app.
  9. Find the ISRG Root X1 certificate in System and double click on it, open the Trust menu and change "Use System Defaults" to "Always Trust", then close that and enter your password to confirm the change
  10. Make a Time Machine backup to the startup disk and hope that partition will survive a future disk crash, disable this backup for future backups.

Conclusions:

  • No need to change date.
  • If getting bless errors in the final step of installation, NVRAM reset seems to do the trick.
  • Any installations relying on online downloads seem to fail bad due to certificate issues client side/server side.
  • It is possible to install the OS on another iMac and move the disk.
  • Old iMacs are a pain in the ass when the internal disk dies.

Notes from earlier attempts

Command line from USB Installer Boot:

#Applications -> Terminal
installer -pkg /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg -target /Volumes/<Target Disk>

Failed due to bless command not able to set startup disk. Says nvram is not supported.

A lot of errors about fonts, seems it actually does not affect the installation. This is how it can be installed though.

#Install Google Noto fonts to USB installer at
/System/Library/Fonts

Currently unable to successfully install using the iMac Early 2009. This has worked two times before booting from the USB Installer and installing to external disk connected by firewire cable.

It works to install to the external disk by booting from the USB Installer on an iMac Late 2013 and then install to the external disk.

The installer is stuck for a long time at 'a second left'. Then it reboots and gets stuck at the beginning of the loading bar. After some waiting it will reboot again and present the initial setup screen for a new El Capitan installer.

After setup and successful boot the disk is moved to the iMac early 2009. The OS boots up but gets stuck at a blurred mountain desktop background with a spinning ball.

Creating Mountain Lion installer to a partition:

# Disk Utility fails to restore from the disk image
# Create Mountain Lion Installer
sudo /usr/sbin/asr restore --source /Path/to/mountain/Lion/installer.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg --target /Volumes/<USB Volume> --erase

Successful Procedure

This is what finally worked to get OS X onto an iMac early 2009

Prerequisites

One external disk with firewire and USB connectors. With the following partitions

  • USB Installer for OSX Yosemite
  • USB Installer for El Capitan
  • Empty partition as installation target

Another iMac with support for Yosemite, in this case an iMac 27 Late 2013

Procedure:

  1. Connect the external disk by USB to iMac 27 2013
  2. Boot and hold option key
  3. Choose Yosemite USB Installer partition as startup disk
  4. Choose option to Install OSX
  5. Complete installation on iMac 2013
  6. Shutdown iMac 2013
  7. Disconnect external disk and connect by firewire to iMac 2009
  8. Boot and hold option key
  9. Choose the installation target partition as startup disk
  10. Yosemite is now booting successfully on iMac 24 2009
  11. At the login screen provide your credentials and login
  12. Fix expired root certificates
  13. Move disk to iMac 27 2013
  14. Boot to El Capitan USB Installer
  15. Upgrade OSX to El Capitan
  16. Move disk to iMac 2009
  17. At this point it boots to black screen with cursor only
  18. Reset NVRAM, Boot with cmd + alt + p + r
  19. After this a login screen appears and OSX is functioning
  20. Create an El Capitan TimeMachine backup of the inital state. Use this in the future to avoid the installers with all possible problem due to unsupported hardware/software/date

Conclusion:

It seems as NVRAM had part in this issue. Potentially it might have worked to install El Capitan on iMac 2009 if just nvram was reset. During initial runs the El Capitan installer failed at the last step saying it could not bless the disk, nvram was not supported. We'll see if I try again...

However using App Store to upgrade to El Capitan seems not very straight forward due to the online nature and certificate issues with dates.

I created a partition on my disk with a proper El Capitan time machine backup for future use. If the disk breaks again I can use this unless that partition is broken too, fingers crossed.. (Backup to another place too..)

Future Procedure iMac 2009:

  1. Boot to El Capitan USB Installer
  2. Install OSX to external disk
  3. If issues with bless, reset NVRAM. cmd + alt + p + r
  4. Restart at 1.
  5. If successful, fix certificates, otherwise go to 9.
  6. Download the ISRG Root X1 (direct download) certificate file.
  7. Open the Keychain Access app and drag that file into the System folder of that app.
  8. Find the ISRG Root X1 certificate in System and double click on it, open the Trust menu and change "Use System Defaults" to "Always Trust", then close that and enter your password to confirm the change (if prompted).
  9. If still failing, use Time Machine backup