Recovery hd is locked and cant download additional components for os lion.

[Chick-fil-ASauce]

So my fiancé had his windows pc break and i had an extra mac (imac) and ive been trying so hard to factory reset this thing for him. The previous owner forgot their password and gave me the mac as a gift. i bought a new mac for myself cause i could never get it to work. I factory restored it by doing command+r, but when i tried to download os lion it kept giving me the “additional components” error so i spent countless of time looking for a way to fix this. Ive tried the whole erasing the disk and i still get the error. Ive tried doing the command+options+R and it still comes up with all the same stuff. There is also no “spinning globe” that others have mentioned for the recovery mode. I also cannot use the recovery hd disk for installing Lion because it states “this disk is locked” when i tried to see if theres a way to unlock it i get nowhere. Im not really sure what else to do. All i wanted to do was completely whip the previous owners information and start with a fresh mac. will i need to find a os lion’s physical installation disk? Im not trying to upgrade the mac to a newer version im just trying to get it to its original state.

 

[DeltaMac]

Which Mac do you have?
There is no internet recovery on Macs before 2010, and it might not be available on some 2010 Macs. (That function was added for 2011 Macs)

If you really need to stay with Lion (OS X 10.7), then the best way is to use an external bootable installer for Lion.

Apple still sells the Lion installer download - https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
You would use that download to create a bootable installer. A USB thumb drive works very nicely for that.

 

[Chick-fil-ASauce]

Its a 2011 that had lion os on it before i even touched it.

 

[Chick-fil-ASauce]

the only thing i didnt try was doing it through an external bootable installer, so hopefully that will work!

 

[bobesch]

Is it an iMac or a MacBook?

Installing Sierra-, HighSierra- or Mojave-Patch (needs an SSD):
With a MacBook you can install up to Sierra-, HighSierra- or Mojave-Patch provided by @dosdude1 but you'll need an SSD to speed up the machine. On a MacBook swapping the harddrive for an ssd is quite easy and a step-by-step guide for every mac can be foud at iFixit. You'll need a USB3-case to prepare the SSD and later keep that internal harddrive as a backup-drive and use your current Macs DiskUtility to earase the SSD using the old HFS+ file-system and create a second small partion of 16GB at the end of the SSD to install the Patcher-Files.
Then download one of the Patchers from @dosdude1 's webpage and follow the instructions to install the patcher to the small second partition of the SSD.
Then swap the drives and boot your old Mac from the small second Partition of the SSD, that holds the Patcher-software, in order to install the patched macOS onto the first big partition of the SSD (It's important, that the small partition is at the end of the SSD-partitions, so that you may delete it after the installation of macOS, but I'd better keep it for further maintainance as a kind of "recovery").

Installing Yosemite or ElCapitan (for HDD and/or iMac):
With an iMac replacing the hardrive with is a more quirky - so it might be better to try Yosemite or ElCapitan.

It might be also possible to boot the 2011-Mac in TargetDiskMode in order to get access to the harddrive (e.g. wipe the disk and install OSX from the newer Mac)

 

[Chick-fil-ASauce]

Is it an iMac or a MacBook?

Installing Sierra-, HighSierra- or Mojave-Patch (needs an SSD):
With a MacBook you can install up to Sierra-, HighSierra- or Mojave-Patch provided by @dosdude1 but you'll need an SSD to speed up the machine. On a MacBook swapping the harddrive for an ssd is quite easy and a step-by-step guide for every mac can be foud at iFixit. You'll need a USB3-case to prepare the SSD and later keep that internal harddrive as a backup-drive and use your current Macs DiskUtility to earase the SSD using the old HFS+ file-system and create a second small partion of 16GB at the end of the SSD to install the Patcher-Files.
Then download one of the Patchers from @dosdude1 's webpage and follow the instructions to install the patcher to the small second partition of the SSD.
Then swap the drives and boot your old Mac from the small second Partition of the SSD, that holds the Patcher-software, in order to install the patched macOS onto the first big partition of the SSD (It's important, that the small partition is at the end of the SSD-partitions, so that you may delete it after the installation of macOS, but I'd better keep it for further maintainance as a kind of "recovery").

Installing Yosemite or ElCapitan (for HDD and/or iMac):
With an iMac replacing the hardrive with is a more quirky - so it might be better to try Yosemite or ElCapitan.

It might be also possible to boot the 2011-Mac in TargetDiskMode in order to get access to the harddrive (e.g. wipe the disk and install OSX from the newer Mac)

It’s an imac from 2011. im sorry i forgot to state that.

 

[bobesch]

It’s an imac from 2011. im sorry i forgot to state that.

Well, it's worth an SSD upgrade and 8-16GB (maybe up to 32GB) RAM, since it officially supports HighSierra and the HighSierra installer can be downloaded from Apple for free, since it will be a great machine and is even able to run a Virtual Machine with Windows 2k/XP/7/8/10.
You can find out more specs about Your iMac at everymac.com and iFixit provides a very good step-by-step guide, how to replace the drive.
If you just want to start with an installation onto the inbuilt drive, then start the 2011-iMac in TargetDiskMode (TDM) by pressing the T-key during booting and and it behaves like a FireWire-harddrive-enclosure.
Just connect the 2011-iMac in TDM with Your own Mac trough a FireWire-cable, download the macOS-Installer from Apple onto your own Mac, run the installation and choose the FireWire-connected 2011-iMac in TDM as the destination drive.
BTW: what macOS-version is installed on Your own Mac? If it's macOS 10.13.x or lower, you can just use CarbonCopyCloner for a clone Copy of your Mac to the 2011-iMac and then boot into the 2011 iMac (a clone of Your Mac then), create a new user account, make that new account the new administrator and delete your own cloned account from that 2011-iMac. You may use CCC to create a RecoveryPartion then and boot into the RecoveryPartition to make a new full installation.
Good luck!

 

[Chick-fil-ASauce]

Well, it's worth an SSD upgrade and 8-16GB (maybe up to 32GB) RAM, since it officially supports HighSierra and the HighSierra installer can be downloaded from Apple for free, since it will be a great machine and is even able to run a Virtual Machine with Windows 2k/XP/7/8/10.
You can find out more specs about Your iMac at everymac.com and iFixit provides a very good step-by-step guide, how to replace the drive.
If you just want to start with an installation onto the inbuilt drive, then start the 2011-iMac in TargetDiskMode (TDM) by pressing the T-key during booting and and it behaves like a FireWire-harddrive-enclosure.
Just connect the 2011-iMac in TDM with Your own Mac trough a FireWire-cable, download the macOS-Installer from Apple onto your own Mac, run the installation and choose the FireWire-connected 2011-iMac in TDM as the destination drive.
BTW: what macOS-version is installed on Your own Mac. If it's macOS 10.13.x or lower, you can just use CarbonCopyCloner for a clone Copy of your Mac to the 2011-iMac and then boot into the 2011 iMac (a clone of Your Mac then), create a new user account, make that new account the new administrator and delete your own cloned account from that 2011-iMac. You may use CCC to create a RecoveryPartion then and boot into the RecoveryPartition to make a new full installation.
Good luck!

Thank you so much, i will try once i get back home. You guys have been really helpful!