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How do I reintsall the operating system from an external drive

I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro Core i5 that was completely wiped clean. I need to reinstall the operating system, but I can't get passed the "Transfer Information to This Mac".



I downloaded Big Sur onto an external hard drive from a newer mac and tried connecting that external drive to the 2015 macbook, but it is not recognizing the drive. The process i went through to do that was to 1) attached external drive to 2015 macbook, 2) turn on the macbook while holding down the option key.


Any suggestions on the best way to go about setting this up?


Thanks!!

Posted on Feb 5, 2021 11:14 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 5, 2021 11:43 AM

SuzB wrote:

I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro Core i5 that was completely wiped clean. I need to reinstall the operating system, but I can't get passed the "Transfer Information to This Mac".


https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/4b1f6d05-2695-48a1-b3ab-ab8eaf144e1e

I downloaded Big Sur onto an external hard drive from a newer mac and tried connecting that external drive to the 2015 macbook, but it is not recognizing the drive. The process i went through to do that was to 1) attached external drive to 2015 macbook, 2) turn on the macbook while holding down the option key.

Any suggestions on the best way to go about setting this up?

Thanks!!



Did you make that external drive bootable? as an installer.


Simply dragging and dropping the "install macOS Big Sur.app" to an external source is not enough.


How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support



Why not download Big Sur directly to the 2015 MBP to upgrade the macOS?


Big Sur macOS 11.2

https://support.apple.com/macos


or Boot to Recovery: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 5, 2021 11:43 AM in response to SuzB

SuzB wrote:

I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro Core i5 that was completely wiped clean. I need to reinstall the operating system, but I can't get passed the "Transfer Information to This Mac".


https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/4b1f6d05-2695-48a1-b3ab-ab8eaf144e1e

I downloaded Big Sur onto an external hard drive from a newer mac and tried connecting that external drive to the 2015 macbook, but it is not recognizing the drive. The process i went through to do that was to 1) attached external drive to 2015 macbook, 2) turn on the macbook while holding down the option key.

Any suggestions on the best way to go about setting this up?

Thanks!!



Did you make that external drive bootable? as an installer.


Simply dragging and dropping the "install macOS Big Sur.app" to an external source is not enough.


How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support



Why not download Big Sur directly to the 2015 MBP to upgrade the macOS?


Big Sur macOS 11.2

https://support.apple.com/macos


or Boot to Recovery: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


How do I reintsall the operating system from an external drive

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