Stuck in MacOS Utilities trying to reinstall (factory reset) MacOS High Sierra 10.16.3

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Level 1

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Stuck in MacOS Utilities trying to reinstall (factory reset) MacOS High Sierra 10.16.3

Hey,

So I've got this iMac 2010 (21.5 inch) from a family member. They said I should factory reset it, because it has private photos and documents. It has MacOS High Sierra 10.16.3 by the way. Anyway, while booting, I hit Command+option+R. It loaded, asked for the Wi-Fi, and then froze, so I had no choice but to shut it down by holding down the power button. I tried holding down Command+R, which led me to MacOS utilities. There by connecting to the internet, and clicking reinstall macOS didn't help me, because it said "The recovery server could not be reached." So i tried then deleting the OS X (sometimes Macintosh) partititon. It didn't work, but rebooting, nothing really happened. And when i rebooted, i was stuck in macOS utilities. I simply couldn't boot back into MacOS. Next, I tried copying the Mac OS Base System partition, thinking that was the OS, and copying that to the OS X partititon. But, nothing happend. So what should I do?! In the Time Machine, it is stuck in an endless loop cycle, and the Online Support doesn't help (it's an html file by the way).

(also it's not 3 AM, it's just timezones)

Posted on Nov 23, 2025 2:58 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

426,677 points

Nov 23, 2025 5:21 AM in response to kaz-k

kaz-k wrote:

Hi,

If you or your family member have another Mac, you could create bootable macOS installer on USB memory.

Create a bootable installer for macOS – Apple Support (AU)

Good suggestion but: "In most cases, you must download from a Mac that is compatible with the macOS you’re downloading." That can be a real issue unless you have another computer that works and is running High Sierra..

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