How do I wipe and install 10.10 Yosemite on my 10.11 El Capitan Macbook Pro?

[Jaquavius]

So my Macbook Pro (early 2011) is running El Capitan right now. When I first upgraded to El Capitan I noticed a major drop in performance. The guys at Apple really warn about updating older Macbooks to an OS that is many versions newer. Either way, the laptop is totally crapping out on me so I want to wipe.

 

All the guides out there say "If you are using time machince... blah blah blah". I'M NOT USING TIME MACHINE.

 

So, if I restart and use recovery tool to wipe and reinstall, it will choose OS X 10.7 or OS X 10.8. I can't remember which one it came with. Then I will have to upgrade to Yosemite. But if I open the appstore, it will only off Sierra, the lastest OS, which is probably even slover than EL Capitan.

 

Can I make a OS X 10.10 Yosemite bootable USB drive and just use that? I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!

 

Which OS X version do you think would be fastest for my Macbook pro (early 2011)?

2.3 GHz Intel Core i5

8 GB 1333 MHz RAM

500 GB hard drive

 

Thanks in advance!

[knightslugger]

14 minutes ago, Jaquavius said:

Can I make a OS X 10.10 Yosemite bootable USB drive and just use that?

yes.

[Jaquavius]

1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

yes.

Thanks, and after I've set up the USB, how do I boot to it?

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, Jaquavius said:

Thanks, and after I've set up the USB, how do I boot to it?

hold the option key during reboot. select the install USB.

[Jaquavius]

Just now, knightslugger said:

hold the option key during reboot. select the install USB.

Thanks, and will I have access to disk utility so I can wipe first, like I would with the recovery tool?

[mrchow19910319]

23 hours ago, Jaquavius said:

Thanks, and will I have access to disk utility so I can wipe first, like I would with the recovery tool?

I think you can. 

 

Also I think you should try the latest OS 1st, if it is more laggy than Yosemite, then install Yosemite instead. Sometimes the latest OS is more smoother than the older version. 

 

And I suggest you swap out the 500GB HDD to a SSD. And I promise you your machine will feel like new. The only thing that is giving you all the performance dip is the 5400 rpm HDD. I used to use a 2012 non retina macbook pro with a SSD in it. It runs super fast and I even code on it. 

 

Buy a SSD and it will give your machine at least 2 years life span. If one day it dies on you, take out the SSD and use it elsewhere. You have nothing to lose. 

[mrchow19910319]

There are tools that can help you to make a bootable USB drive, you can also do it in command line. Google it yourself. 

[DnFx91]

if it shipped with yosemite originally, i would just nuke the drive with gparted, then run internet recovery, ittl download and install the version of OSX that the machine shipped with.