MacOS – Download ‘El Capitan’, ‘Mavericks’ or ‘Yosemite’ from external link

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The HDD of my MacBook Pro (2012) dies and I bought a new one. The problem is that I don't have another Mac to download the OS from Apple Store…

Someone know from where can I download the OS El Capitan, Mavericks or Yosemite to install it and then download 'El Capitan' and from Apple Store and make a clean installation?

Best Answer

If you've updated your MacBook Pro with the newest firmware update you may start to Internet Recovery Mode and reinstall the original OS X (probably Lion).

  • Install your new HDD
  • Detach any external drive (especially any external Time Machine backup drive).

  • Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
    The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
    On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot to a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

    I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

  • In the opening window choose Disk Utility.
  • Partition your drive: 1 (or more) partition, GUID partition table, Journaled HFS+.
  • Quit Disk Utility and open Restore OS X
  • Choose your new volume to install OS X there.
  • After successfully installing and configuring OS X, open App Store and install the latest OS X (El Capitan).
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