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The installer information on the recovery server is damaged - 2017 iMac

This topic has been touched on before but none of it applies to my situation.

I am trying to reset a Mac OS Sierra Retina 5K 27 inch 2017 to sell it. I was following video instructions to reboot with Cmd-R use the Disk Utility to erase the Mac HD with MacOS Extended Journaled selected. This cleared the HD.

Then, when I went to reinstall the OS I get the error message "The installer information on the recovery server is damaged" so I can't do anything else. Thousands of people have had this problem. There are no options to proceed.

The support I've reviewed mentions that Sierra is old so file format may have changed, but I can't reformat the HD in the erasing menu to check. I can't restart in Safe Mode as all I get is a Flashing file folder with a question mark. I can restart in CMD-R mode, but face the same questions all over again with no apparent options.

What am I supposed to do?

Posted on Oct 17, 2020 4:14 PM

Top-ranking reply

aperplexedbutexperienceduser Author

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Oct 17, 2020 8:20 PM

OK, this was extremely subtle and maybe rkaufmann87 was onto

something. If he/she meant to say

"hold down OPTION + CMD+R" key, then one can get this to work.

Let's review:

1. CMD - Rreboot gave "server damaged" error

2. Option reboot gave "server damaged" error

3. Shift - Option - CMD - R reboot gave "server damaged" error

4. Option - CMD - R reboot allowed me to install "Catalina" instead of "Sierra"

Now, the casual user has no idea whether "sheep" or "cow" OS installs are more current, but further research suggests

Catalina is indeed newer than Sierra, so my problem seems to be solved. No thanks to Apple, but a nod to rkaufmann87

for keeping me going.

btw, why do I want to sell my iMac 2017? Exactly because of this sort of thing. Zip for documentation. Zero useful help from support and way too dependent on kind individuals to help out. My 3 years of call-up help has expired. Sayonara Apple.

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The installer information on the recovery server is damaged - 2017 iMac

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