Resolved Upgrade to El Capitan via Mavericks?

[agent_skinner]

I've been running Yosemite but ran into a weird issue that forced me to replace the hard drive in my fusion drive setup (SSD in place of Superdrive on a late 2012 Macbook Pro).

I ran into the issues with a Yosemite clean install I've seen well documented, signature failures, sudden crashes out of the install, etc. Mavericks installed perfectly the first time.

I've pretty much decided to skip Yosemite completely if possible, does anyone know if I'll be able to upgrade to El Capitan directly from Mavericks?

 

[MacManiac76]

You should be able to update to El Capitan from any OS X version that has the App Store so you should be fine.

 

[iPhil]

I don't see why not ... Snow Leopard machine (10.6.8) the first that had access to MAS in theory could update to el capitan if the machine met OS spec.. And of coarse yours does met spec for El Capitan... Check MAS once El Capitan launches ....

 

[agent_skinner]

I'm relieved to hear it, also learned my lesson on maintaining a time machine backup from the experience. I'm on the Apple beta test list and could install it now but I've had enough fun for one year, going to wait until release and prob a patch or two this time.

It wasn't all bad, I finally got to install a 1TB drive I'd had waiting...

 

[dianeoforegon]

I'm relieved to hear it, also learned my lesson on maintaining a time machine backup from the experience.

I suggest you add a clone backup in addition to Time Machine. Just like a seat belt and an air bag protect you in different ways when driving, you need both Time Machine and a clone for full protection.

If your update to El Capitan fails, it's much easier to revert to your previous OS X. You can boot back into your clone and be back to your old version of OS X in about 10 min. You can run from the clone until you fix your update issues.

Create a Clone backup:

A clone is an exact bootable copy of your internal drive. Unlike standard copying of all files to another drive, the clone software copies hidden files along with other in-use files that are not available when you copy over files to another drive.

Time Machine is not bootable on older versions of OS X. You could only restore from Time Machine unless you have a newer Time Machine that is now includes a recovery drive that is bootable. .

Software used to Clone:

SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/ (beta version for El Capitan now available)
CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

 

[Erdbeertorte]

I had no problems to install the GM from the App Store on a 2007 MacBook Pro that was even running 10.6.8.