An open community 
of Macintosh users,
for Macintosh users.

FineTunedMac Dashboard widget now available! Download Here

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
#38226 01/12/16 10:43 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
jchuzi Online OP
OP Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
I will be helping a friend upgrade her MBP from Lion to El Capitan. She can, of course, download EC herself and keep it In /Applications until I get there, but I may be able to save some time by downloading it to my computer and transferring it to a USB Flash drive. I have read many articles about creating a bootable installation disk but that's not what I want to do. I merely want to bring the USB drive to her and then run the installer.

My question: If I download the EC installer and then copy it to the flash drive, will it work in upgrading her OS? Should I copy the installer to her hard drive before installation or will it run from the flash drive?


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38227 01/12/16 10:44 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Copy it to her hard drive.


iMac (19,1, 3.1 GHz i5, 12.7.4, 40 Gb RAM); MacBook Air (1.8 Ghz, 8 Gb RAM, 10.14.6, 256 Gb SSD) Vodafone router and Devolo Wi-Fi Extender, Canon TS8351 printer/scanner.
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38235 01/12/16 05:50 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
Moderator
Offline
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
What Freelance said.

Since she is moving from Lion that means virtually every third party app and utility will probably need to be upgraded or updated and that will likely take significantly more time than the OS upgrade. If she is capable of doing it, you might want to get her started on upgrading/updating her apps before you go.

Does she have backup capability? If not, I would encourage you to take along an external drive with a copy of CCC or SuperDuper and make a clone before upgrading her computer. (If something goes wrong in the upgrade you don't want to be in the position of explaining to her why she has lost everything.)

FWIW I use a bus powered 7200 rpm 1TB USB 3 external drive (total cost <$85) with a full El Capitan installation (including the Recovery drive), TTP 8, CCC, and the latest El Capitan install image. Usually that leaves enough room on the 1TB drive to hold a CCC clone in a Sparse Disk Image of the target drive. Then if anything goes wrong during the upgrade I can recover either from the install image or from the Recovery drive on my external drive and migrate all the apps and data from the cloned image. Its a belt and suspenders approach that so far has not been necessary, but just in case it is there. I could have used a 4500 RPM 2TB drive but the 7200 RPM drive is noticeably faster and so far has had sufficient capacity for the task and USB 3 holds my cost down.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
joemikeb #38237 01/12/16 06:51 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
jchuzi Online OP
OP Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
I'm giving her a hard drive dock and two 7200 rpm drives. Before upgrading, I plan to clone her entire system as a backup (I will bring a copy of CCC on the USB drive). I will also get her to set up a TM backup after the upgrade is complete. She has very few apps (uses the MBP just for web browsing and email) so compatibility should not be much of an issue. Still, I will check.

These processes will go somewhat slowly because her MBP uses USB 2. She does have FW 800 but the dock only has USB 3. I will encourage her to buy a FW dock. Apparently, her MBP is several years old.

I will take the same precautions with her upgrade as I would with mine. Any other advice is greatly appreciated.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
joemikeb #38242 01/12/16 08:18 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Since she is moving from Lion that means virtually every third party app and utility will probably need to be upgraded or updated....

When I upgraded from Snowy to El Cap I was more surprised by how many apps/utilities did NOT require either updating or upgrading than by the number that either did or went belly up. smile

Edit: And that includes PPC apps which won't be an issue for someone running Lion.

Last edited by artie505; 01/12/16 10:10 PM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38243 01/12/16 08:38 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 8
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 8
Nobody addressed the issue of the installer being drag and drop. Is there more to it than that?

There is a donation ware application, DiskMaker X, that can create an install disk (once you have downloaded the El Capitan installer) on a flash drive or SD card that can be used over and over again.


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
Ira L #38247 01/12/16 09:56 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
You can drag & drop the dmg, but you can't boot from it; DiskMaker X creates a bootable installer.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
artie505 #38514 01/29/16 06:11 PM
Banned
Offline
Banned

Joined: Nov 2015
Originally Posted By: artie505
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Since she is moving from Lion that means virtually every third party app and utility will probably need to be upgraded or updated....

When I upgraded from Snowy to El Cap I was more surprised by how many apps/utilities did NOT require either updating or upgrading than by the number that either did or went belly up. smile

Edit: And that includes PPC apps which won't be an issue for someone running Lion.


I suspect the number of apps which need updating or upgrading would be less and less for each succeeding Mac OS that one is upgrading from. For my situation, when I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan, there were 5 critical ones that I needed to update/upgrade:

1. 1Password

2. Onyx

3. TechTool Pro

4. Office 2011

5. SuperDuper!

The one for TechTool Pro was also "time delayed", in that its compatibility with OS 10.11 did not happen until after the release of OS 10.11. That was another reason why I decided to just upgrade from OS 10.10.5 to OS 10.11.1. Since then, I have upgraded twice, via Combo Updaters, to OS 10.11.2 and OS 10.11.3, and fortunately, all my apps have not needed any further upgrades/updates. A new version of Onyx did come out last Sunday, but it just had some more bug fixes/enhancements. And of course, Office 2011 has since been upgraded twice, but again, nothing tied to any specific El Capitan release.

Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
honestone #38516 01/29/16 07:15 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
jchuzi Online OP
OP Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
Quote:
Edit: And that includes PPC apps which won't be an issue for someone running Lion.
I don't think that that's correct. If memory serves, PPC apps require Rosetta, and Snow Leopard was the last OS to be able to use it.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38518 01/29/16 07:29 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
That was me whom you quoted, Jon, and I was a bit obscure.

What I meant was that with your friend having already upgraded past Snowy she had already dealt with the disappearance of Rosetta and resultant failure of any PPC apps she had been running.

Clarified... "And that includes PPC apps which won't be an issue for someone who is running Lion and has already lost their use."


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
artie505 #38521 01/30/16 12:08 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
jchuzi Online OP
OP Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
That's clear now, Artie. I intend to do the upgrade on Sunday. I'll post back after it's over, with the post mortem.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38631 02/04/16 12:33 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
jchuzi Online OP
OP Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 7
The upgrade was successful except for one thing: Internet connection was lost. I accessed the Network preference pane of System Preferences and ran a diagnostic. After entering the password for her Yahoo account (she connects via WiFi from Verizon), she was back in business.

Two days later, she told me that everything was working well. Presently, she's working her way through David Pogue's Missing Manual of EC. I advised her to go through every preference pane in System Preferences to customize her experience.

So far, so good.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: upgrade from Lion to El Capitan
jchuzi #38633 02/04/16 12:50 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Quote:
I advised her to go through every preference pane in System Preferences to customize her experience.

Good work and good advice! (I hope she doesn't find the excursion into System Prefs as taxing and frustrating as I did.)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

Moderated by  alternaut, dkmarsh, joemikeb 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4
(Release build 20200307)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.4.33 Page Time: 0.042s Queries: 40 (0.033s) Memory: 0.6382 MB (Peak: 0.7398 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-28 14:05:13 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS