Where to Download Bootable El Capitan

[TennsDog]

My hard drive recently had some very serious issues. No problem, though, I have Time Machine. Problem is: I had to reformat my hard drive, and Time Machine doesn't seem to want to work on a blank hard drive. So I'm guessing I need to get Mac OS installed on there. However, my computer is from 2009, and so not compatible with Sierra, and El Capitan is no longer available on the app store.

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to get a hold of a copy of El Capitan to reinstall on my fresh hard drive? Or, if that's not the issue, any other help on restoring my backup onto my hard drive would be wonderful.

Thanks.

 

[jbarley]

My hard drive recently had some very serious issues. No problem, though, I have Time Machine. Problem is: I had to reformat my hard drive, and Time Machine doesn't seem to want to work on a blank hard drive. So I'm guessing I need to get Mac OS installed on there. However, my computer is from 2009, and so not compatible with Sierra, and El Capitan is no longer available on the app store.

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to get a hold of a copy of El Capitan to reinstall on my fresh hard drive? Or, if that's not the issue, any other help on restoring my backup onto my hard drive would be wonderful.

Thanks.

How did you reformat the HDD, by booting from your recovery partition or by some other less desirable means?

 

[Ternary]

The good news is that Apple kept OS X El Capitan available to download.

Link: https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434?mt=12

 

[simonsi]

You should be able to boot from your Time Machine drive and go from there...