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User profile for user: MPar440
MPar440 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

2010 MacBook Air Internet Recovery

Hi, so I'm attempting to reset my MacBook after installing a new drive and I have to go the route of Internet recovery. Strangely it won't download the newest OS, High Sierra, but Lion instead. Oh well, I'll just update it later after the install is complete.


So I'm able to get to the Lion installer and then after about 20 minutes of downloading components it gets to a minute left. After that minute is up, it just restarts at 20 minutes again.


It's been about 2 hours now and it's continuing to restart the timer over and over again. Is this normal or what? It just gets down to a minute and then starts over.


I've PRAM reset and tried other options on booting into internet recovery, even changing it to the correct time in the terminal from the Lion installer.


What is going on?

Posted on Oct 4, 2023 4:19 PM

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User profile for user: John Galt
John Galt
User level: Level 10
146,516 points

Posted on Oct 4, 2023 6:32 PM

A number of experienced Apple Support Communities contributors have come to the conclusion that Apple silently discontinued the ability to reinstall certain older versions macOS from Recovery a few months ago. That particularly affects those who replaced their Mac's startup disk, since a replacement will lack a Recovery partition, and the ability to create one from Internet Recovery is no longer available.


Changing the Mac's time and date won't help. Neither will a NVRAM reset, or anything else we have been able to determine.


Contact Apple if you are motivated to do so: Official Apple Support


That's all we know.

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User profile for user: John Galt
John Galt
User level: Level 10
146,516 points

Oct 4, 2023 6:32 PM in response to MPar440

A number of experienced Apple Support Communities contributors have come to the conclusion that Apple silently discontinued the ability to reinstall certain older versions macOS from Recovery a few months ago. That particularly affects those who replaced their Mac's startup disk, since a replacement will lack a Recovery partition, and the ability to create one from Internet Recovery is no longer available.


Changing the Mac's time and date won't help. Neither will a NVRAM reset, or anything else we have been able to determine.


Contact Apple if you are motivated to do so: Official Apple Support


That's all we know.

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2010 MacBook Air Internet Recovery

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