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OP asks:
"Since Apple made a promise to free upgrades the new os are free, so i was wondering if could make a bootable El Captain or Yosemite installer instead of paying for lion?"

The answer is "yes".
But you need another, working Mac on which to do it.
 
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OP asks:
"Since Apple made a promise to free upgrades the new os are free, so i was wondering if could make a bootable El Captain or Yosemite installer instead of paying for lion?"

The answer is "yes".
But you need another, working Mac on which to do it.

My friend has a macbook pro, so any instructions?
 
"My friend has a macbook pro, so any instructions?"

1. Download "Install Disk Creator".
2. Put the Mac OS installer app on the macbook pro, along with IDC.
3. Have USB flashdrive of 16gb (or larger) ready, initialized to HFS+ with journaling enabled.
4. Launch IDC. Select installer file and select target drive (USB flashdrive)
5. Let it run (will take a little while)
6. When done, take USB flashdrive to troubled Mac.
7. Connect flashdrive, press power on button
8. IMMEDIATELY hold down the option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN
9. Startup manager will appear.
10. Select USB drive with pointer and hit return
11. Mac should boot to installer app.
12 Install from there.

PRINT THIS OUT and keep it with you.
 
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I have
"My friend has a macbook pro, so any instructions?"

3. Have USB flashdrive of 16gb (or larger) ready, initialized to HFS+ with journaling enabled.

PRINT THIS OUT and keep it with you.
"My friend has a macbook pro, so any instructions?"

1. Download "Install Disk Creator".
2. Put the Mac OS installer app on the macbook pro, along with IDC.
3. Have USB flashdrive of 16gb (or larger) ready, initialized to HFS+ with journaling enabled.
4. Launch IDC. Select installer file and select target drive (USB flashdrive)
5. Let it run (will take a little while)
6. When done, take USB flashdrive to troubled Mac.
7. Connect flashdrive, press power on button
8. IMMEDIATELY hold down the option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN
9. Startup manager will appear.
10. Select USB drive with pointer and hit return
11. Mac should boot to installer app.
12 Install from there.

PRINT THIS OUT and keep it with you.


My friend has regular sierra and I'm trying to install El Captain its saying the mactonish hd is the newest version.
I don't want sierra or high sierra because they take to much ram. Any way to get el captain installer?
 
...
My friend has regular sierra and I'm trying to install El Captain its saying the mactonish hd is the newest version.
I don't want sierra or high sierra because they take to much ram. Any way to get el captain installer?
I think you are incorrect about RAM usage in Sierra, --- but you can get the El Capitan from the App Store, if that's what you want.
Here's a link...
 
Big thanks to everyone who helped. The only solution to this problem is to go to internet recovery mode and reinstall original OS (lion) and then upgrade from there. Looks like my data and final cut project data is gone, because if I was to recover this data it seems to be costly to recover the drive and the data isn't that valuable plus I got the footage.

The only solution for anyone who wants to recover their data and have no backup is (1) kick yourself for not having a backup, (2) stop touching your Mac and get professional help.

The solution for anyone who doesn't want to get into that situation is to use reliable backup, for example Time Machine. Then you can use Internet recovery mode. You might consider instead getting a new hard drive first, especially on a 2011 Mac. That hard drive is six years old. All hard drives _will_ fail eventually.
 
I think you are incorrect about RAM usage in Sierra, --- but you can get the El Capitan from the App Store, if that's what you want.
Here's a link...

I went to that link and can't install installer on macbook pro because its running regular sierra.
Its Saying mactonish hd is running the newest version.

My Plan: Create a El Captain bootable usb drive and use that to do clean install of el captain to the iMac
 
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I went to that link and can't install installer on macbook pro
"My friend has a macbook pro, so any instructions?"

1. Download "Install Disk Creator".
2. Put the Mac OS installer app on the macbook pro, along with IDC.
3. Have USB flashdrive of 16gb (or larger) ready, initialized to HFS+ with journaling enabled.
4. Launch IDC. Select installer file and select target drive (USB flashdrive)
5. Let it run (will take a little while)
6. When done, take USB flashdrive to troubled Mac.
7. Connect flashdrive, press power on button
8. IMMEDIATELY hold down the option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN
9. Startup manager will appear.
10. Select USB drive with pointer and hit return
11. Mac should boot to installer app.
12 Install from there.

PRINT THIS OUT and keep it with you.


Created a bootable usb high sierra and left for like 10 mins and came back and this is happenning
Any ideas on whats happenning?


Video:
 
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I went to that link and can't install installer on macbook pro because its running regular sierra.
Its Saying mactonish hd is running the newest version.

My Plan: Create a El Captain bootable usb drive and use that to do clean install of el captain to the iMac

That's because you don't run the installer. One way to create the USB was explained earlier and step #1 after downloading it was to quit the installer when it opens.

Here is Apple's official page on how to create the install media: Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
 
@Cybrax-etc it's REALLY hard to tell from that video, it doesn't really show much but the spinning color wheel (or "beachball"). Did you use the application previously suggested? That app may not support creating a High Sierra disk, or may not support that OS as the "host" for creating the drive. Apple's command line (which I posted above) may work more reliably.
 
@Cybrax-etc it's REALLY hard to tell from that video, it doesn't really show much but the spinning color wheel (or "beachball"). Did you use the application previously suggested? That app may not support creating a High Sierra disk, or may not support that OS as the "host" for creating the drive. Apple's command line (which I posted above) may work more reliably.

What you said is the only thing there on the mac. I followed a tutorial from 9to5mac on youtube.

This is what I watched:
 
PLEASE HELP! I HAVE NO BACKUPS OR ANYTHING!

If you have no backups the LAST thing you want to do is install any software or doing any writing to the disk.

Take the disk drive out of the computer and put it some place safe. Now is the time to upgrade the disk drive. A small SSD costs only about $100. Reinstall the OS on the new drive but do NOT write anything to the old drive as doing so will overwrite the data you deleted and make recovery impossible.

Once you have a working computer, ask here about data recovery.
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After I go to internet recovery it took me to a mac os 10.7 format mac os utilites to install lion or the other options. Do I have any chance of recovering my data if I install os x lion

I'd say "no", You wrote a copy of Max OS all over your data. There might be little bits of it left

What happens when you "delete data" is the data is not erased but it is but back on the "heap" if disk blocks that may be used for new data. It is not over written until those blocks are actually used by new files. Writing a new OS to the drive created literally a million files, many of them reusing blocks that contained your old data.
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The only solution for anyone who wants to recover their data and have no backup is (1) kick yourself for not having a backup, (2) stop touching your Mac and get professional help.

The solution for anyone who doesn't want to get into that situation is to use reliable backup, for example Time Machine. Then you can use Internet recovery mode. You might consider instead getting a new hard drive first, especially on a 2011 Mac. That hard drive is six years old. All hard drives _will_ fail eventually.

Yes exactly. After an error like that the best thing to do is turn the power off and remove the disk drive from the MacBook. At that point the data will be easy to recover. Get a brand spanking new SSD for the Mac and an empty USB disk drive enclosure for your old disk.

I recently replace an old hard drive with an SSD in a 2011 MBP and the performance difference is dramatic. Will worth the money.
 
Thanks everyone my iMac is fine and I have high sierra perfectly working
This Forums I guess ends. Thank you everyone :)
 
I have a imac from mid 2011 with 8 GB Memory & 3 TB Hard Drive running Mac OS X 10.10.5.

Since yesterday my mac will boot and then shut down. So I went to Mac OS utilities and went to disk and accidentally deleted my 3TB hard drive. Then I wanted to get a fresh copy of Yosemite and it is asking me to choose a disk, there is no disk to choose. Since I accidentally deleted it!

PLEASE HELP! I HAVE NO BACKUPS OR ANYTHING!
I think I did this too :( Can you tell me what you did to fix it? I took my computer to the Apple Store and they suggested a Hard Drive replacement, which didn't work. I deleted some important files on accident, but not sure exactly what. :(
 
Boot from the recovery partition. (Hold "Command R" while booting.) you will be given to option to restore from a Time Machine disk. It is simple but it will take some time to coy all the data back from the TM disk.

If you don't have a TM disk (why?) then all you can do is restore the basic operating system and yo will have to restore your data using whatever backup software you use.

No backup? There are data recovery service who can get the data off the disk. They are not inexpensive.
 
I think I did this too :( Can you tell me what you did to fix it? I took my computer to the Apple Store and they suggested a Hard Drive replacement, which didn't work. I deleted some important files on accident, but not sure exactly what. :(

Sorry for the late reply but the only way I could fix this was by getting making a bootable flash drive and reinstalling Mac OS via USB drive. This deletes all your data though! If you want I can send a good tutorial on how to do this.
 
Sorry for the late reply but the only way I could fix this was by getting making a bootable flash drive and reinstalling Mac OS via USB drive. This deletes all your data though! If you want I can send a good tutorial on how to do this.
Thought I would point out that a simple "Reinstall macOS" does NOT erase the drive, unless you choose to do that first. I assume that the tutorial that you made, includes doing that. Erasing the drive would not normally be needed, unless you are having OTHER problems with the drive.
 
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Thought I would point out that a simple "Reinstall macOS" does NOT erase the drive, unless you choose to do that first. I assume that the tutorial that you made, includes doing that. Erasing the drive would not normally be needed, unless you are having OTHER problems with the drive.

True but for the problem i had to perform a clean reinstall. Thanks for the links you provided when i encountered this issue. (The tutorial i was talking about was made by 9to5mac)
 
Disk Warrior sells a bootable disk that lets you recover "deleted" volumes, after which you can use Internet Recovery to reinstall OS X that retains your existing data.
 
This thread covers what you need to do.

Its weird because I just tried to delete everything and reinstall the OS. Upon the reinstall I realized I did not delete anything.
So actually deleted every single thing and then I am reinstalling MacOS again.
 
Its weird because I just tried to delete everything and reinstall the OS. Upon the reinstall I realized I did not delete anything.
So actually deleted every single thing and then I am reinstalling MacOS again.
That really depends on what you did to "delete everything"
If "delete everything" means that you erased the drive in Disk Utility, then reinstalled macOS, then everything would truly be gone. Even normal file recovery software would be unlikely to find anything, other than a few files - maybe. Your directory structure, folders, etc, would certainly be gone.
If you simply dragged files to the trash, then everything would still be in the trash - nothing would be gone.
Disk Utility is your main tool for "nuking" your drive. If you did not use Disk Utility (or some of the other good disk tools that are often used on Windows PCs) to erase your drive first, then you may want to try again.
 
View attachment 721164 I have a imac from mid 2011 with 8 GB Memory & 3 TB Hard Drive running Mac OS X 10.10.5.

My mac wasn't booting so I went to internet recovery mode and it went to Mac OS Lion based utilities and a while later it shows ? mark! Help

Previous thread : https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-mac-hard-drive-and-my-mac-wont-work.2071684/
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Mac OS Utilities image that pop upped after internet recovery
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That really depends on what you did to "delete everything"
If "delete everything" means that you erased the drive in Disk Utility, then reinstalled macOS, then everything would truly be gone. Even normal file recovery software would be unlikely to find anything, other than a few files - maybe. Your directory structure, folders, etc, would certainly be gone.
If you simply dragged files to the trash, then everything would still be in the trash - nothing would be gone.
Disk Utility is your main tool for "nuking" your drive. If you did not use Disk Utility (or some of the other good disk tools that are often used on Windows PCs) to erase your drive first, then you may want to try again.
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I erased the internal phy
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i erases the internal physical disk on my computer, and this is what popped up, please I am confused and need help
 

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