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HELP PLEASE! iMac mid-2011 not booting

J

JRDad

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2021
6
2
Hello,

so my Mom had an iMac mid-2011 that she was gonna give to my sister. Problem is she tried to format it (after an update to Sierra as I understand it). She was following some websites instructions and now it only boots to disc recovery.

I tried internet recovery but from my understanding, that only works on 2012+ versions of iMacs.

I tried using restore from time machine backup and there’s nothing showing up as a backup source.

I tried “reinstall macOS” but the only disc available to install the macOS Sierra is recovery HD, which is locked.

Disk Utility has an internal drive as being full (at 500gigs), a restore on that drive (from Apple disk image media) returns failed. Erasing doesn’t seem to work either. It tries to Unmount the disk but fails every time.

Disk images (in Disk Utility) shows Applediskimage>OS X Base image. That uses 1.29 gigs with 719 mb available.

I’m adding an image that may help as well. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

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JRDad said:
Hello,

so my Mom had an iMac mid-2011 that she was gonna give to my sister. Problem is she tried to format it (after an update to Sierra as I understand it). She was following some websites instructions and now it only boots to disc recovery.

I tried internet recovery but from my understanding, that only works on 2012+ versions of iMacs.

I tried using restore from time machine backup and there’s nothing showing up as a backup source.

I tried “reinstall macOS” but the only disc available to install the macOS Sierra is recovery HD, which is locked.

Disk Utility has an internal drive as being full (at 500gigs), a restore on that drive (from Apple disk image media) returns failed. Erasing doesn’t seem to work either. It tries to Unmount the disk but fails every time.

Disk images (in Disk Utility) shows Applediskimage>OS X Base image. That uses 1.29 gigs with 719 mb available.

I’m adding an image that may help as well. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
If you have access to another mac make a high sierra bootable install USB.

Create a bootable installer for macOS – Apple Support (AU)

You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system. These steps are primarily for system administrators and other experienced users who are familiar with entering commands in Terminal.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
I do not have another Mac but I do have an iPhone or a pc available.
 
is there a USB drive near the iMac or in the box with a black CD sized folder that is white and has an apple logo?
that is a copy of Snow leopard, which runs the imac in early 2011.
install that and start the Imac, Hold down the option key and reinstall that OSX.
There is a chance the Imac will lose all the data, but in this scenario we just want the Imac to function.
 
Agreed, I just want it to boot into an OS. I don’t have the box though so the snow leopard disc is prob MIA. But I’m having my mom check her disks now.

Sounds like my best option now may be to just order a new OS and do a completely fresh install.
 
Just a suggestion, but from your photo it looks as if something has gone with the disk formatting. If you have a PC and a USB stick, I'd suggest making a Linux Mint bootable USB from your PC, and trying to:

a) boot into Linux
b) reformat your hard disk with Linux

I'll admit that this has got me out of trouble with Mac OS installers in the past. Might work for you?

Another thought: can you boot into Disk Utilities with Disk Recovery? If so, try to repartition the HDD, and then see if you can reformat it.

Good Luck!
 
So I’m certainly not against trying to download and install with a pc made snow leopard usb boot drive (or trying Linux) but if I just purchase mountain lion from the apple store, would that work too?

from what I’ve been reading, I’d want mountain lion (Sierra and High Sierra are not available)


OS X Mountain Lion

store.apple.com

Certified Refurbished Products

We test and certify all Apple refurbished products and include a one-year warranty.
store.apple.com
 

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It seems to me that internet recovery SHOULD work on a 2011 iMac.

Be sure that you're getting to INTERNET recovery (and NOT to "the recovery partition").

Do this:
1. Power down all the way off

2. Press the power on button and hold down:
Command-OPTION-R
If you're connecting via wifi, you'll need your wifi password (not needed if you connect via ethernet).
The utilities will take a while to load, be patient.

3. When the utilities are loaded, open disk utility

4. IMPORTANT STEP: does disk utility have a "view" menu?
If it does, choose "show all devices"
(if the version of disk utility you have DOES NOT have the view menu, don't worry about it, skip this step and go on to the next one)

5. Look in the disk utility window on the left. The "top line" should represent the PHYSICAL DRIVE inside the iMac. This is what you need to erase.

From the pic above, I'm wondering if this has a "fusion" drive in it.
A fusion drive is actually TWO drives inside:
- a small SSD
and
- a larger platter-based hard drive (HDD).

If the drives are split apart, you can either install a copy of the OS onto the smaller SSD (it should be 128gb, I think), or try to "re-fuse" the drives.

I don't know if disk utility can re-fuse them (if that's the case).
 
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Thank you so much. I’m making progress (I hope). I did exactly as fishrrman suggested (I had to use an Ethernet connection because the internet recovery was hanging without it). But after I used the Ethernet connection, the internet recovery loaded and I was able to erase the main drive. After that I did a reinstall (without restarting while still using the Ethernet connection). I had a few times where it timed out but on the third try it downloaded the High Sierra OS.

I’m adding a few other resources I found in case someone else comes across this thread and needs help.

apple.stackexchange.com

"Disk Locked" macOS reinstall!

I have just wiped my iMac, and something must have gone wrong in the process as i cant change the boot drive by holding down option key and when i go to install reinstall macOS through macOS utilit...
apple.stackexchange.com apple.stackexchange.com

forums.macrumors.com

HELP! HD locked on reinstall!

hi lovely peeps! So I'm stuck, I wanted to start my Mac from scratch with a fresh install of EI Capitan but now my hard drive is locked! Please see the attached images. https://www.dropbox.com/s/s023l3g3di72hhi/2016-01-17 13.00.51.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/fv3ffcyobuxp26j/2016-01-17...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
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OP:

If you got High Sierra installed and running, my recommendation is that you "accept it for what it is" and do not try to update further.

In fact, TURN OFF the options to "automatically keep computer up-to-date".
This is nothing but trouble.
 
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High Sierra 10.13 uses APFS (Apple File System) instead of the old HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) so maybe something went wrong there. Maybe the HDD wasn't formatted to APFS before installation. One downside to APFS is that it's more demanding and can make old iMacs slower. I would stick to 10.12.6 if I could.
 
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