Can't Reinstall

[lonewolf_61]

The No Packages issue could be because the date on the Mac and the date of the media are in conflict.

You could drop to Terminal and set the date to one of these two. It is what I have had to do.

date 0101010116

date 0923020415

Also note that if you want to install Windows, it is better if you are using a separate hard drive. Then you can head to https://lowendmac.com/2015/run-windows-on-your-mac-without-bootcamp/ I wrote how to do it 7 years ago.

I shall give that a go. Although to be truthful, I'm not too proficient with Terminal...

 

[lonewolf_61]

I realise I'm about a month late here, but NTFS is readable on a Mac (but not writable), so is acceptable for getting files onto a Mac. The 'best' format is exFAT, which supports large files and can be read and written on both systems.

I did try to format a USB drive to exFAT, but it wasn't available as an option in the drop down...

 

[Procrastinus]

I shall give that a go. Although to be truthful, I'm not too proficient with Terminal...

Just type in (or copy/paste) one of these as torvan recommended:

date 0101010116

date 0923020415

 

[DenisK]

if any help, I did a clean install of ElCap recently no problem, but I had to do Yosemite off a USB stick first, after which I jumped to Apple website and found the link to ElCap there. Once it started and I got to the screen with Proceed with Installation I reformatted the ssd to the latest one via Disk Utility in pulldown menu, and then exited and clicked proceed with install. ElCap install took less than an hour.

 

[lonewolf_61]

Just type in (or copy/paste) one of these as torvan recommended:

date 0101010116

date 0923020415

Success! Resetting the date allowed me to run from the El Capitan install disk without the errors. It was a long haul for sure, but I finally got a working OS on that damned iMac. Many thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions.