Novice trying to get El Capitan on his 10.6.8-running 2010 MacBook Pro

[tommyo777]

Hello All, I spent some time on related archived threads, hoping to honor 'those who've gone before'; couldn't find my exact situation so: I started an upgrade by replacing my early 2010 MBP's HD with an SSD, cloned via 'SuperDuper!'; 240G left of the 500G capacity on each, and the new drive is working fine thus far. The old drive is now in an ext. housing and works interchangeably albeit slowly via USB2. Both drives currently run 10.6.8.

Support says to sign on to AppStore from another mac running a newer OS to download El Cap. I'm unclear on how to direct the download file and the 'installer', into the external drive that I will be attaching to the host mac [as opposed to changing the OS of the host], and would like to have some confidence before I petition the boss to borrow the company unit. Anyone been through this before? Thanks in advance for any replies, cheers-

 

[Lufbrarunner]

At the start of the install procedure you will be asked which disk you require the OS to be installed on.

Useful information

 

[tommyo777]

At the start of the install procedure you will be asked which disk you require the OS to be installed on.

Useful information

Thanks, so the installer & the Capitan OS get downloaded to the host's drive from the app store, but the installer doesn't automatically install the OS on the host, and instead asks first 'which drive'...thanks again, cheers

 

[tommyo777]

The mac running sierra couldn't access from the download link; I got a 'mac OS too new' reason. Who's too new? Any help is appreciated...even finding the el capitan link is a hunt.