DiskMaker X (formerly Lion DiskMaker) is an application built with AppleScript that you can use with many versions of OS X to build a bootable drive from OS X installer program (the one you download from the App Store). As soon as you launch the application, it tries to find the OS X Install program with Spotlight. Then, it proposes to build a bootable install disk and make it look as nice as possible. It’s the easiest way to build an OS X Installer in a few clicks ! Then you can use the Install drive to fully re-install the OS on a freshly formated drive, or install it on your many Macs without re-downloading the full installer.
The target USB disk or flash drive will be erased first and then copy the files to it so that it will become a bootable OS X El Capitan installer. This can take a while to complete, so wait for the “Done” message before continuing. When you see “Done”, that’s it, your OS X El Capitan installer drive has been. To install El Capitan, make sure the USB drive is inserted into the computer, then restart the computer while holding the Option (alt) key on your keyboard. Wait until the Startup Manager pops up, then select the 'OS X Base System' volume. Alternatively, you can just hold down the C key while starting up to boot directly into the USB drive. Bootable USB Installers for OS X Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra First, review this introductory article: Create a bootable installer for macOS. Second, see this How To outline for creating a bootable El Capitan installer. Finally, I could boot up the Mac while holding 'option/alt' and my USB drive appeared as a bootable device! 17 minutes later I can startup OSX! I may go ahead and re-download the installer and create a new bootable USB using 'createinstallmedia', just in case there was a problem with the image I used, but at least now I can boot up the computer!
Jump over the break to learn how to use DiskMaker X…
1. Get an an empty flash drive with at least 8GB of storage
2. Download OS X El Capitan
3. Download DiskMaker X
4. Double-click on the .dmg file to open it and drag-and-drop the DiskMaker X app into the Applications folder
5. Now load DIskMaker X. When you load the app, it will ask you which version of OS X do you want to make a boot disk of. You can choose Mavericks, Yosemite and of course, El Capitan. We’ll choose El Capitan
6. Now, the app will search for a copy of OS X El Capitan. Once it found your El Capitan copy, it will ask you if you want to use the copy that it found or you want to use another copy. If you downloaded it from the app store ( step 2 ), choose ‘Use this copy’
7. Now the app will ask you about your thumb drive, and it will tell you that will be completely erased before copying OS X El Capitan onto it…
8. Now the app will format your flash drive and ask you for your admin password. Once you enter your admin password, DiskMaker X will start copying the necessary El Capitan files onto your flash drive.
El Capitan Bootable Usb
NOTE: this process will take a while. Be patient….
El Capitan Boot Disk Maker
9. When you’re done, the app will tell you that the boot disk is ready, you’ll see that your flash drive has been renamed as OS X 10.11 Install Disk and it will be opened. Now all you have to do is restart your Mac and and after you here the chime sound, press the Option ( Alt ) key until you see the option to choose the flash drive to boot from.