So, I just bought a 2011 iMac and need help restoring it to factory settings.

[Jacoblee23]

Hey,

if you have problems making a bootable drive with Disk Utility you could try doing it with an older version of DiskMaker (X), what is able to run on Snow Leopard.

Sadly there is no version for Snow Leopard that officially supports creating an installer for Mavericks or newer.

But you could try it with selecting Mountain Lion or Lion. Or find an installer for one of those. Apple also still sells both of them for $19.99. But it could take 1-2 business days or longer to get the redemption code.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion

There is DiskMaker 2.02 to install Lion and Mountain Lion and Lion DiskMaker 1.7 only to install Lion. I think both should run on Snow Leopard. You could try if selecting Mountain Lion works with the Mavericks installer too. Or try to find an installer for Mountain Lion or Lion.

Here you can download the older version of DiskMaker:

http://diskmakerx.com/whats-this/

I think I was able to create an El Capitan installer with selecting Yosemite in some older version of DiskMaker X last year when El Capitan was still in beta. So maybe you have luck with DiskMaker 2.02, selection Mountain Lion and choosing the Mavericks installer too.


Edit: I just saw you have a newer MacBook Pro. Then you could also try it there with a newer version.

I tried doing a boot with my el captain version on my Mac and it didn't work when I plugged it into my iMac. When I selected it it just went straight to the hard drive on the iMac. That other stuff you told me to do I don't understand. Do you know of any tutorials?
[doublepost=1466274950][/doublepost]

Hey,

if you have problems making a bootable drive with Disk Utility you could try doing it with an older version of DiskMaker (X), what is able to run on Snow Leopard.

Sadly there is no version for Snow Leopard that officially supports creating an installer for Mavericks or newer.

But you could try it with selecting Mountain Lion or Lion. Or find an installer for one of those. Apple also still sells both of them for $19.99. But it could take 1-2 business days or longer to get the redemption code.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion

There is DiskMaker 2.02 to install Lion and Mountain Lion and Lion DiskMaker 1.7 only to install Lion. I think both should run on Snow Leopard. You could try if selecting Mountain Lion works with the Mavericks installer too. Or try to find an installer for Mountain Lion or Lion.

Here you can download the older version of DiskMaker:

http://diskmakerx.com/whats-this/

I think I was able to create an El Capitan installer with selecting Yosemite in some older version of DiskMaker X last year when El Capitan was still in beta. So maybe you have luck with DiskMaker 2.02, selection Mountain Lion and choosing the Mavericks installer too.


Edit: I just saw you have a newer MacBook Pro. Then you could also try it there with a newer version.

If I did buy the lion or
Mountain lion installer am I still stuck on not being able to update to el captain from the App Store?

 

[eric89074]

One other thing you can try is to download the recovery disk assistant from apple and run it on your macbook to create a recovery partition on your external hard drive which you can boot from on the iMac. You only need a 2GB partition to create it. Try booting it on your iMac and format the iMac hard drive with disk utilities.

 

[Jacoblee23]

One other thing you can try is to download the recovery disk assistant from apple and run it on your macbook to create a recovery partition on your external hard drive which you can boot from on the iMac. You only need a 2GB partition to create it. Try booting it on your iMac and format the iMac hard drive with disk utilities.

I downloaded it. I'm not sure what to do now though.Do you mind it explaining it step by step?

 

[Jacoblee23]

I think I'm just gonna go ahead and buy the lion our mountain lion redemption code from Apple. Which one should I get? Do you think this may fix my problem my wiping it out? Once I upgrade should it allow me to download el captain from the store? My iMac is eligible but it says it isn't when I tRied to download it.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Normally there should be no problem to update from 10.6.8 directly to El Capitan. It worked without a problem on my Mid-2010 white MacBook.

Is Snow Leopard on your iMac really up to date?

In the Apple menu there is a software update function what installs updates from outside the App Store.

There was an App Store update in January this year for Snow Leopard, maybe it is not installed yet. You can also download it here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1860?locale=en_US


Edit: And Snow Leopard does not have a Recovery Partition, so the Recovery Disk Assistant will not work.

Here in the System Requirements you can see that it is for Lion and Mountain Lion:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433?locale=en_US

 

[Jacoblee23]

Normally there should be no problem to update from 10.6.8 directly to El Capitan. It worked without a problem on my Mid-2010 white MacBook.

Is Snow Leopard on your iMac really up to date?

In the Apple menu there is a software update function what installs updates from outside the App Store.

There was an App Store update in January this year for Snow Leopard, maybe it is not installed yet. You can also download it here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1860?locale=en_US


Edit: And Snow Leopard does not have a Recovery Partition, so the Recovery Disk Assistant will not work.

Here in the System Requirements you can see that it is for Lion and Mountain Lion:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433?locale=en_US

I clicked the software update when it was still working and it said the update was successful. If I buy the lion or mountain lions redemption code will it give me the option to wipe the computer clean or do I need the snow leopard version to do that ?

 

[Erdbeertorte]

I clicked the software update when it was still working and it said the update was successful. If I buy the lion or mountain lions redemption code will it give me the option to wipe the computer clean or do I need the snow leopard version to do that ?

If you install it successfully you will have a recovery partition from which you can wipe your boot drive and install it again. But El Capitan would do the same and is for free. I wonder why you can't download/install it. Did you try to install that App Store update? Maybe the App Store is not working properly anymore because that one is missing but I don't know.

Some Macs that came with Snow Leopard are even able to get Internet Recovery to install Lion. I think this only works if you buy Lion. I think a 2010 MacBook Air I have got this update. But I bought it used and never purchased Lion through the App Store. So I can only boot into the Recovery Partition from Lion but not install it. It asks for an Apple ID and because Lion is not in the list of my purchased apps I am not able to install it from there.

I don't know how to get this feature and if it works for your iMac. Maybe it comes automatically if you buy Lion in the App Store with that redemption code and upgrade to it. But I really don't know. That was all before my Apple time. My first Mac was from 2013 and already came with Mountain Lion and Internet Recovery. All older Macs I have I bought used through eBay and on all of them I installed El Capitan with a bootable USB drive.

But I also played around with older OS versions like Snow Leopard and upgrading to El Capitan directly through the App Store worked on my white Mid-2010 MacBook and my Late 2011 MacBook Pro and should work on your iMac too. At least I did not here anything that it changed for later versions of El Capitan. But I heard about that App Store update for Snow Leopard what is necessary for expiring certificates I think.

What about this external disk, from what you can't boot that already has an El Capitan installer on it? Can't you just launch it directly in Snow Leopard from that disk instead of doing the update through the App Store? And same for the Mavericks installer you got?

 

[eric89074]

I downloaded it. I'm not sure what to do now though.Do you mind it explaining it step by step?

It's simple. Make a partition using disk utility on your macbook. Open recovery disk assistant and select the partition you just made and create the recovery partion. After its created plug it in to your iMac and hold the option key at boot and select the recovery partition. It would still be best to restore the Mavericks image to your external or flash drive and install from it.

 

[Jacoblee23]

If you install it successfully you will have a recovery partition from which you can wipe your boot drive and install it again. But El Capitan would do the same and is for free. I wonder why you can't download/install it. Did you try to install that App Store update? Maybe the App Store is not working properly anymore because that one is missing but I don't know.

Some Macs that came with Snow Leopard are even able to get Internet Recovery to install Lion. I think this only works if you buy Lion. I think a 2010 MacBook Air I have got this update. But I bought it used and never purchased Lion through the App Store. So I can only boot into the Recovery Partition from Lion but not install it. It asks for an Apple ID and because Lion is not in the list of my purchased apps I am not able to install it from there.

I don't know how to get this feature and if it works for your iMac. Maybe it comes automatically if you buy Lion in the App Store with that redemption code and upgrade to it. But I really don't know. That was all before my Apple time. My first Mac was from 2013 and already came with Mountain Lion and Internet Recovery. All older Macs I have I bought used through eBay and on all of them I installed El Capitan with a bootable USB drive.

But I also played around with older OS versions like Snow Leopard and upgrading to El Capitan directly through the App Store worked on my white Mid-2010 MacBook and my Late 2011 MacBook Pro and should work on your iMac too. At least I did not here anything that it changed for later versions of El Capitan. But I heard about that App Store update for Snow Leopard what is necessary for expiring certificates I think.

What about this external disk, from what you can't boot that already has an El Capitan installer on it? Can't you just launch it directly in Snow Leopard from that disk instead of doing the update through the App Store? And same for the Mavericks installer you got?

I tried doing that and it loaded up the regular hard drive with snow leopard.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

It's simple. Make a partition using disk utility on your macbook. Open recovery disk assistant and select the partition you just made and create the recovery partion. After its created plug it in to your iMac and hold the option key at boot and select the recovery partition. It would still be best to restore the Mavericks image to your external or flash drive and install from it.

But don't you have to login with an Apple ID that already purchased Mavericks to install it from a recovery partition if the Mac did not come with that OS when first purchased? Normally there is not the full OS on it, just the utilities and the rest gets downloaded someway through the App Store.

I'm pretty sure it will only work with the complete installer on an external drive or a second partition if booting from USB does not work.
[doublepost=1466370212][/doublepost]

I tried doing that and it loaded up the regular hard drive with snow leopard.

What did you try? Just launching the installer in Snow Leopard instead of booting from that drive?

 

[Jacoblee23]

But don't you have to login with an Apple ID that already purchased Mavericks to install it from a recovery partition if the Mac did not come with that OS when first purchased? Normally there is not the full OS on it, just the utilities and the rest gets downloaded someway through the App Store.

I'm pretty sure it will only work with the complete installer on an external drive or a second partition if booting from USB does not work.
[doublepost=1466370212][/doublepost]

What did you try? Just launching the installer in Snow Leopard instead of booting from that drive?

I created a boot drive of el captain from my MacBook Pro and it loaded up regular instead. My computer free within two minutes of it being started so I don't know how I'm going to get it uprated anyway. It even freezes in safe mode.

 

[Jacoblee23]

I double checked and everything is up to date and it tells me this: we could not complete your purchase. This version of is x 10.12 cannot be installed on this computer. I don't understand why I cannot download el captain.

 

[hfg]

You might try reseating your RAM sticks.

 

[Jacoblee23]

Okay guys I have an update. I just got off the phone with apple support. He took down my serial number and informed me that it's actually a 2006 iMac. The guy selling it lied to me. It's weird though because this Mac is actually pretty fast when it works. The processor is a 2.1. The highest I can go is lion. I'm disappointed. No work around to run el captain at all? Thinking about selling it because I can't use pages, evernote, and most apps. Some webpages I can't even view because I can't update it.

 

[tubeexperience]

Okay guys I have an update. I just got off the phone with apple support. He took down my serial number and informed me that it's actually a 2006 iMac. The guy selling it lied to me. It's weird though because this Mac is actually pretty fast when it works. The processor is a 2.1. The highest I can go is lion. I'm disappointed. No work around to run el captain at all? Thinking about selling it because I can't use pages, evernote, and most apps. Some webpages I can't even view because I can't update it.

Put your serial number here and tell me what it said.

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

 

[Jacoblee23]

Put your serial number here and tell me what it said.

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

Put your serial number here and tell me what it said.

http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php

iMac 20inch late 2006 model. 2.16ghz Intel core duo 2 cores. 64 but. Installed ram 1gb can have up to 3 ( my model has 3 because when I look at it under get info on my Mac it says 3). Maximum os- 10.74 lion. 667mhz.
It says 250gb for hard drive but this one has a 500gb one in it. Looks like I barely missed the cutoff to not get any further upgrades. 2007 iMacs get them. This is so frustrating. I can't use Spotify, pages, ever note or hardly anything. If anyone knows of a good work around to get el captain pm me or let me know please.

 

[tubeexperience]

Is this the polycarbonate iMac or the

iMac 20inch late 2006 model. 2.16ghz Intel core duo 2 cores. 64 but. Installed ram 1gb can have up to 3 ( my model has 3 because when I look at it under get info on my Mac it says 3). Maximum os- 10.74 lion. 667mhz.
It says 250gb for hard drive but this one has a 500gb one in it. Looks like I barely missed the cutoff to not get any further upgrades. 2007 iMacs get them. This is so frustrating. I can't use Spotify, pages, ever note or hardly anything. If anyone knows of a good work around to get el captain pm me or let me know please.

When something seems too good to be true... (well, you know the rest)

There are hacks to install El Captain on unsupported Macs, but it will take a lot of work.

 

[Jacoblee23]

Is this the polycarbonate iMac or the


When something seems too good to be true... (well, you know the rest)

There are hacks to install El Captain on unsupported Macs, but it will take a lot of work.

Yep I got fooled. The guy boldface lied to me. At least I only paid $40. He had it marked up st $75 originally and I talked him down. Are the hacks a one time thing I have to do or is it more complicated than that ?