Apple has made digital distribution and in-place upgrades of OS X incredibly easy thanks to the Mac App Store, but sometimes nothing can beat the convenience and flexibility of a physical OS X USB installer.
I recommend to use SanDisk USB 3.0 with 8GB or more capacity. If your Mac supports USB 3.0, a USB 3.0 drive, will make both the installer creation process and the actual OS X El Capitan installation much faster.
Here are the steps to create an OS X 10.11 El Capitan bootable USB installer.
Step 1. Download OS X 10.11 El Capitan from Mac App Store
Currently, this installer is only available to registered members of the Apple Developer Program, but it will soon be available to the public when the OS X El Capitan public beta program launches in July.
The OS X El Capitan installer app will download to your Mac’s Applications folder and automatically launch the installer app. Press Command-Q to quit app.
Step 2. Launch Disk Utility from the Applications:Utilities folder.
Step 3. Select your USB thumb drive from the list on the left and click the Partition tab.
Step 4. Set the Partition Layout to 1 Partition, set the Name to ‘Yosemite’, and set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Step 5. Click the Options button then choose GUID Partition Table from the popup window then click the OK button.
Step 6. Next click the Apply button to save your changes. When asked to confirm click the Partition button.
Step 7. Launch Terminal from the Applications:Utilities folder.
Step 8. Make sure your empty USB key is still inserted. Additionally, make sure you do not have any other volumes named ‘ELCAPITAN’ except for the one we just created in Step Five.
Execute the following command in the Terminal window to create your OS X El Capitan Install key.
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ 10.11\ Developer\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/ELCAPITAN --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ 10.11\ Developer\ Beta.app --nointeraction
You will be asked to enter your Administrative account password.
Step 9. After about 15 minutes the creation of your USB Install Key for OS X Yosemite will be complete.
You may now restart your Mac and hold down the Option key after hearing the boot sound. You’ll be presented with a list of bootable drives. Select the USB install key.
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