A required download is missing (can't reinstall Mavericks)

[golfgirlgolf]

I went to clear out a 2011 27" iMac and seem to have really messed up thinking the Macintosh HD part was OK to erase in Disk Utility - (since there was an OS X Base System as well.)

It needs noting this iMac has been modded with an internal 500GB SSD. I didn't do it - but it was running great - booting in seconds!

I can get to the (internet) recovery and DiskUtil screens - but when I attempt to reinstall OS X I get the cryptic message.

Without this I think I might have to create a bootable USB drive with Mavericks on it - boot from it and then start from scratch to erase and reinstall OS X on the SSD.... unless this is familiar to anyone?

 

[DeltaMac]

It may be much simpler to do a clean install with the macOS version that you actually are going to use... (booting and installing from a bootable external drive, such as a flash drive.)
What version of macOS were you using before you erased the drive?

(Note: that OS X Base System is NOT on your iMac, it is simply the system that you are using with Internet Recovery. and the Base System is on Apple's remote server.

 

[golfgirlgolf]

Thanks - I was trying for Mavericks since that's the one it was running before, but I had quite a few different versions of OS X on bootable thumb drives and was able to install Sierra and get it back to the new Mac startup screen. Solved!