Restore

[borgward]

Mid 2011 27" Aluminum iMac Won't boot. How do I restore from the "Restore" button? What info do I need to supply. I do have owners Password. I can't boot so can not find what version it was upgraded to. Owner does not have install DVD. Did apple ever ship Install DVD's with this computer. Apple specs say they did but I don't think so. I am pretty sure they did not supply Install DVD's for mid 2006 IMacs and MacBooks. I ran tests on the HDD from a DVD utility and it checks out.

If I can and do restore over the Internet, how much bandwidth to I need?

There is no external backup drive.

Are Apple ID's specific to the machine or person?

 

[rpmurray]

The 2011 27 inch iMac came with a Snow Leopard install disc. You don't really need to worry about an Apple ID because it was before T2 chips were a thing. You can just wipe the drive and reinstall any OS up through High Sierra natively. The only possible problem would be if an EFI firmware password had been used, this was not common though.

IF you want to try OCLP it will let you install Monterey, but you can't upgrade to Ventura yet because they don't have that working yet.

 

[DeltaMac]

You should be able to reinstall whatever system is on the drive by booting to Internet Recovery, but be sure to try the Recovery system, which is a hidden partition on the hard drive. Boot to that while holding Command+r.
You should get the Apple icon, so wait for the recovery menu screen, which will give you 5 choices. You would want to try "Reinstall macOS", then follow the choices to continue with that. You will need to be connected to internet (wired ethernet will be a better choice than wireless, although wireless should work, too.)
If you can't boot to that (maybe the hard drive has been completely wiped), then try internet recovery, holding Option+Command+r
You again will need to be connected to internet. Internet recovery boots to Apple's remote servers, so you will see a spinning globe instead of the normal Apple icon. It can take several minutes to connect, and you will see a similar menu screen with some choices. Again, you would choose to reinstall macOS. Internet recovery, on your 2011 iMac, should offer you the newest version of the system that will run on your iMac, which should be High Sierra (macOS 10.13.6)

 

[Fishrrman]

2011?
First thought is a failed GPU inside.

Will it boot into "safe mode"?
Hold down the shift key CONTINUOUSLY after pressing the power-on button.

 

[borgward]

2011?
First thought is a failed GPU inside.

Will it boot into "safe mode"?
Hold down the shift key CONTINUOUSLY after pressing the power-on button.

I thought failed GPU, but it boots Linux Live session DVD from optical drive. Ran stress tests from there. everything seems fine. I understand that the so called stress tests are not really stress tests and that there are real stress tests are proprietary and unavailable to me.

Yes it does boot to safe mode.

How much bandwidth is required to reinstall over the Internet? This machine was given to me. I do have an Apple ID for another Mac.

Anyway to get an install DVD? The original owner does not have, can't find, or know what it is.

I want to reinstall Mac OS to see if that clears up the problem. Otherwise I will install Linux on it.

 

[DeltaMac]

Did you try booting to the recovery system? (Reboot, holding Command+r)
That should boot to a window allowing you to choose to reinstall OS X.
(Unless, your 2011 still has the original system installed, which would be 10.6.x (Snow Leopard) That original version does not have a recovery system, and requires you to boot to an installer of some kind, either a DVD, or a bootable installer in a Firewire external drive, or USB external.

So, did you try to boot to the recovery system? That's your best bet if you don't have any external disk to boot with.

 

[borgward]

I did the reinstall over the Internet. Am at Terms and Conditions. Read them The "Agree" button at the bottom is not enabled so I can not use it. Computer had 10.13.3 base system on it. Other partition was empty.

 

[DeltaMac]

You said that you could not choose the "Agree" button, yet you also said that you reinstalled over the internet.
Can I assume that you were not able to do the download and install, because the installer would not allow you to continue?
You do need an internet connection, which will download the installer files. It should work over a WiFi connection, but better with a wired ethernet connection. If you only have wireless, you then also need to enter the password for the wireless network. You can choose your wireless network from the Wifi icon in the menubar.

 

[borgward]

I did not do the installer route because I did not have another Mac new enough to get the installer and put it on USB stick. I am guessing I could have downloaded the installer, put it on a USB stick from my Linux machine. Instead of experimenting with that concept, I decided to install from the Internet. That's where I got stuck at the "Agree" button. I went back to the Apple ID/iCloud sign in and skipped that step and was able to progress to the end. The machine is now running 10.13.6