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Catalina will not install from USB

I had Catalina running fine on this 2013 MacBook pro until a MacOS Update tried to install to only tell me that it could not install on my Macbook. Back to square one. Trying MacOS from the internet installed MacOs Lion....which when installed does work, but I need Catalina which was working just fine. So a nice new copy of "Install macOS Catalina" was put on my new Sandisk USB stick, plugged into the USB port to boot.......and the progress bar goes all the way to the end and hangs....never completing. No shortage of space on the 750g SSD which is empty. Anyone have a clue about why I have this failure?

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Apr 21, 2022 2:46 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 21, 2022 3:09 PM

Shubus23 wrote:

I had Catalina running fine on this 2013 MacBook pro until a MacOS Update tried to install to only tell me that it could not install on my Macbook. Back to square one. Trying MacOS from the internet installed MacOs Lion....which when installed does work,
but I need Catalina which was working just fine. So a nice new copy of "Install macOS Catalina" was put on my new Sandisk USB stick, plugged into the USB port to boot.......and the progress bar goes all the way to the end and hangs....never completing. No shortage of space on the 750g SSD which is empty. Anyone have a clue about why I have this failure?


OS X Lion is too far back—


Get to at least macOS El Capitan if not macOS High Sierra (apfs), then try your macOS Catalina


I suspect Catalina is looking for GUID/APFS



verify you are using the Safari browser to download/initiate the macOS links.

The older macOS installer backups on this server:

How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support


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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 21, 2022 3:09 PM in response to Shubus23

Shubus23 wrote:

I had Catalina running fine on this 2013 MacBook pro until a MacOS Update tried to install to only tell me that it could not install on my Macbook. Back to square one. Trying MacOS from the internet installed MacOs Lion....which when installed does work,
but I need Catalina which was working just fine. So a nice new copy of "Install macOS Catalina" was put on my new Sandisk USB stick, plugged into the USB port to boot.......and the progress bar goes all the way to the end and hangs....never completing. No shortage of space on the 750g SSD which is empty. Anyone have a clue about why I have this failure?


OS X Lion is too far back—


Get to at least macOS El Capitan if not macOS High Sierra (apfs), then try your macOS Catalina


I suspect Catalina is looking for GUID/APFS



verify you are using the Safari browser to download/initiate the macOS links.

The older macOS installer backups on this server:

How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support


Catalina will not install from USB

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