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Flavell7 Author

Level 1

4 points

cant install MacOS no matter what!!

Hello there!

For Christmas, my Uncle gifted me his old Mac as he’d bought himself a new one!

It’s not by any means new, but still better than the one I currently have!

Upon turning on, it had all of his stuff on there, I checked he didn’t need them, and then looked into reinstalling the OS (having used windows my entire life, I figured this would be the best way to wipe the Mac).

So, I erased the disk and then went to recovery mode and pressed reinstall OS.

Here, I followed along and logged in with my Apple ID, but keep getting the notification “this item is currently unavailable”.

After some digging, I found that was due to my iCloud ID not being linked to an iMac, and to use the ‘get help online’ button and load iCloud.

Only issue is, if I attempt to load iCloud, I just get the page:

“Safari can’t open the page “~~icloud~~” because Safari can’t establish a secure connection to the server “~~icloud~~”

I couldn’t figure out a way around this. Suggestions online say to reset certain settings - but I can’t do any of this as I’ve now erased the Mac and can’t boot into it.

I kept restarting and trying to load icloud, to the same issue - so I decided to use google and try manually search for icloud;

Google works as it should, but before I can press the iCloud site (in search engine results page), I get asked for “safari wants to use the ‘login’ keychain”

I have absolutely no idea what this is, and after pestering my uncle for days for ideas, he has no idea either…

So, now I’m stuck.

I checked into all the settings and information, it’s an IMac early 2009.

I looked into trying to boot from a usb… however, no matter what I do, the usb doesn’t show up a start up option. Can see it in disk utility, the most compatible OS is installed on the usb (El Capitan 10.11.6) and all partitions are correct, but it just doesn’t show up.

I’ve tried resetting the PRam holding shift+cmd+option+P+R and that was no use.

I literally don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve gone through every Apple support page and forum to no avail :/

Any help would be great!

iMac

Posted on Dec 27, 2022 8:22 PM

Top-ranking reply

steve626

Level 6

11,069 points

Posted on Dec 27, 2022 8:42 PM

Flavell7 wrote:

So, I erased the disk and then went to recovery mode and pressed reinstall OS.

Here, I followed along and logged in with my Apple ID, but keep getting the notification “this item is currently unavailable”.

Have you tried using his Apple ID instead of yours?

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support explains what to do but since you did not dissociate the old Apple ID as instructed in that link, try using his old Apple ID first to get it set up again, then follow the instructions in the above link.

You can also have him log in with his Apple ID on another device (or the iCloud web site) to disassociate this Mac from his Apple ID.

Not sure if these will work but they are worth a try.

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cant install MacOS no matter what!!

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