Erase and Restore 2011 Macbook

Have you tried booting into Internet Recovery?

Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support

• Option-Command-R: Start up from macOS Recovery over the internet. Use this key combination to reinstall macOS and upgrade to the latest version of macOS that’s compatible with your Mac.

The way Disk Utility is showing the internal Hard Drive is messed up. From time to time I see this occur for some unknown reason. Plus you are installing a very early version of macOS there so that could be part of the problem as well. Unfortunately I cannot tell which item is the real physical drive & which is just a volume or container.

If you are trying to perform a clean install by first erasing the drive, then you should instead use the Partition tab instead. See the instructions in the following article:

https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf

Better yet, try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the online macOS 10.13 High Sierra installer. Unfortunately some Macs may only boot to the online installer for the version of macOS which originally shipped with a Mac from the factory. If you can access the online High Sierra installer, then you will want to erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). However, the physical drive is hidden by default with later versions of Disk Utility so you will need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. You will also likely need to use Fix #3 in the following article:

https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-fix-the-recovery-server-could-not-be-contacted-error-high-sierra-recovery-is-still-online-but-broken/

I'm not sure which of those two items is actually the physical drive. The physical drive should have a device identifier of "disk0". Typically the physical drive will be the top most item, but I'm not so sure here since the "Hitachi HT....." item is typically the physical drive.

If none of this works, then you would need to write zeroes to the beginning of the drive to destroy the existing partition table. I can provide instructions if you wish.

FYI, like @leroydouglas, I would suspect that original Apple Hard Drive is either worn out or even failing. I can provide a method for checking the health of the Hard Drive which involves creating a bootable Linux USB stick....just let me know.

in that case, you might want to source a bootable USB stick for High Sierra.

I found this one on eBay: 10.13 High Sierra Bootable USB 3.0 Flash Drive OS Installer Restore Recovery

droman1 wrote:

I'm trying to erase HD and reinstall OS on my 2011 MacBook Pro but getting error message "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again". I've tried many times but still same message. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

[Edited by Moderator]

And why erase and reinstall(?) was there some issues to begin with...

maybe you can say more, whats the end game here.

ref: What to do before you sell, give away, trade in, or recycle your Mac - Apple Support

OS X 10.7.x Lion Lion was the first Apple operating system distributed exclusively through the App Store.

macOS 10.3.6 High Sierra is no longer available for some unknown reason. It is listed however

You can try the High Sierra link and report back

See "Use a web browser for older versions" simply click the links

ref: How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

droman1 wrote:

I was going to give it to my daughter

well good luck—

you can call your nearest Apple store and see if they can help further if needed.

Local USA—

Store List - Apple Store - Apple

Around the World—

Choose your country or region - Apple

see vintage and obsolete:

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired ...

droman1 wrote:

I was going to give it to my daughter

did you already erase the Mac? if you haven't erased it yet and it's going to your daughter anyways, why not just erase your data and leave the OS X on it that is already there?