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Hey guys,
So i tried to reset my macbook pro and installing El Capitan. It gets to the installer portion and then doesn't work all of a sudden. I've tried all of the tips of erasing the hard drive, holding command R, etc but nothing works. I try rebooting my computer and it immediately begins showing the status bar like its doing something but then goes back to this:
Any suggestions or tips on what to do?
Are you erasing the physical drive before attempting to reinstall macOS?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
What happens when you begin the installer? Does it complete the copying of files and restart normally on its own?
Try holding the Option key just after the startup chime. What options are shown on the boot picker menu? Does it show just your internal boot drive or does it show one about the installer?
It is possible you have a failing hard drive in this laptop.
Are you erasing the physical drive before attempting to reinstall macOS?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
What happens when you begin the installer? Does it complete the copying of files and restart normally on its own?
Try holding the Option key just after the startup chime. What options are shown on the boot picker menu? Does it show just your internal boot drive or does it show one about the installer?
It is possible you have a failing hard drive in this laptop.
In order to make this used computer yours you need to erase the whole physical drive. What is the error message when you try to erase the physical drive? Take a picture showing the drive selected and the complete error message.
With more recent versions of macOS you may need to click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Erase the physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled).
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
Here is what the previous owner should have done before selling the computer:
So some backstory... when I got the laptop just a few weeks ago, it was running fine. But on snowleopard 10.6 (i believe) so i looked up how to upgrade it to El Capitan and followed instructions. Now when I turn the computer on, it shows the apple logo, and a progress bar underneath. When the progress finishes loading, it goes to my utilities menu (pictured in original post) It goes through the installation process but then at the very end it says something like "could not find files to install"
I have tried holding the option key down and it does nothing. Just goes straight to the progress bar and apple logo.
I have tried erasing the physical drive as well and it changed nothing.
I have also tried booting it from a flash drive but when I try to choose what to boot from it doesn't give me any options to select any sort of drive.
I wouldn't think its a bad hard drive because it was working just fine before. So I'm assuming that I messed something up along the way somewhere. I'm at a complete loss of what to try now.
***UPDATE***
From the installer/utilities menu (pictured in original post) now when i choose to reinstall OS it brings up a menu I havent seen before. Asking me to choose OS X Base System or Recovery HD. The weird thing is that it says the Recovery HD disk is locked so i can only choose the base system
So some backstory... when I got the laptop just a few weeks ago, it was running fine. But on snowleopard 10.6 (i believe) so i looked up how to upgrade it to El Capitan and followed instructions. Now when I turn the computer on, it shows the apple logo, and a progress bar underneath. When the progress finishes loading, it goes to my utilities menu (pictured in original post) It goes through the installation process but then at the very end it says something like "could not find files to install"
I have tried holding the option key down and it does nothing. Just goes straight to the progress bar and apple logo.
I have tried erasing the physical drive as well and it changed nothing.
I have also tried booting it from a flash drive but when I try to choose what to boot from it doesn't give me any options to select any sort of drive.
I wouldn't think its a bad hard drive because it was working just fine before. So I'm assuming that I messed something up along the way somewhere. I'm at a complete loss of what to try now.
***UPDATE***
From the installer/utilities menu (pictured in original post) now when i choose to reinstall OS it brings up a menu I havent seen before. Asking me to choose OS X Base System or Recovery HD. The weird thing is that it says the Recovery HD disk is locked so i can only choose the base system
If you press & hold the Option key too long after the startup chime, then you miss activating the Apple boot picker menu. If you press the Option key before the startup chime, then it may either prevent the laptop from booting or it may end up ignoring the keypress and go to the default boot option. You usually want to press & hold the Option key within a second of hearing the startup chime.
It would be best to boot from your USB installer if at all possible.
When you received the laptop did you perform a clean install of macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard before starting to use the laptop?
Do you have a backup of your data on this laptop?
Is Filevault enabled on this laptop?
Before selecting "Reinstall macOS", try running Disk Utility First Aid on your internal boot drive. It's possible if Filevault is enabled, that the installer hasn't unlocked the volume yet so it doesn't show up as a destination. Try using Disk Utility to mount the laptop's internal drive, then quit Disk Utility and select "Reinstall macOS".
I did not do a clean instal of 10.6
it was signed in under someone else (no iCloud account though). So I was just going to factory reset it.
I’ve ran first aid but to no avail. It says it “worked” but nothing has changed.
Not sure on firevault and don’t know how to check now that it’s stuck in this mode.
When I try to erase the physical hard drive it says fail every time. I also notice that’s it’s a hitachi hard drive? Is that normal or would that be something that somebody installed second hand?
I’ve made a bootable USB Drive but trying to get to the screen to where I can select the drive to boot from is the problem now.
I will try again with the option key because I didn’t realize the timing was that important with it.
Sorry just saw your reply..i will turn it on and check
MACBOOK PRO 2008 - Stuck in recovery mode
