MBA 1,1-6,2 2010 MacBook Air refuses to restore or boot from USB

[awshucks]

I just got a MacBook Air 11" 2010. May be one of my more unlucky untested eBay purchases.

I have reset the PRAM.

Pressing Command R for restore mode will not work, as it will try to boot up straight to a login screen.
Internet Recovery will not work either.

I have tried using a 32GB SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 dual USB-A/USB-C as well as a 64GB Lexar USB 2.0 flash drive with a copy of Mountain Lion to boot from and neither will show up after holding down option while starting up.

Plus, it is finicky when trying to turn it on.


Also, the login screen is a black screen with this dialog, which I haven't seen before.

Have only seen the normal Snow Leopard startup screen once when booting up this thing.

There is no battery in this thing and I'm using a 65W L-shaped MagSafe charger.


Is the SSD failing? Is there anything I'm missing?

 

[Boppi]

Internet Recovery will not work either.

Are you attempting that over Wi-Fi?

I know nothing about this particular model but in general, it's always best to be connected via ethernet if possible. You can find decent ethernet to USB adapters for around $20 and up.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Plus, it is finicky when trying to turn it on.

There is no battery in this thing

Is the SSD failing? Is there anything I'm missing?

The battery is a necessity and you'll have to purchase one if you want the MacBook Air to run at the correct speed (the CPU is throttled in the event of a flat or absent battery) and for the power management functions to work properly. This is the source of the finickiness when you attempt to turn it on. It will also fail to resume from sleep and struggle to reboot correctly.

I know nothing about this particular model but in general, it's always best to be connected via ethernet if possible. You can find decent ethernet to USB adapters for around $20 and up.

I've purchased three 11" MBA's and I never required an Ethernet adapter to install macOS. Of the trio, one machine wouldn't reinstall via Wi-Fi and the USB route succeeded. On that note…

I have reset the PRAM.

The absence of the battery is a factor here as it's used to store the MBA's PRAM data.

Pressing Command R for restore mode will not work, as it will try to boot up straight to a login screen.

Is there any chance that the seller can provide the password?

I have tried using a 32GB SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 dual USB-A/USB-C as well as a 64GB Lexar USB 2.0 flash drive with a copy of Mountain Lion to boot from and neither will show up after holding down option while starting up.

What was the process that you used to create the installers and do those USB sticks boot on other Macs? It's worth eliminating the possibility of an issue with how they were created. I have to reiterate that you really do need to replace the battery if you want the MBA to work properly.

 

[awshucks]

Are you attempting that over Wi-Fi?

I know nothing about this particular model but in general, it's always best to be connected via ethernet if possible. You can find decent ethernet to USB adapters for around $20 and up.

It will not even boot into internet recovery. I have held the key combo necessary and it goes straight to login screen.

It was able to connect to WiFi on the boot select screen, so I know that's not the problem.

The battery is a necessity

Did not know this. This is a cool little machine so I may end up getting a battery.
I have learned that pressing the power makes the fan spins and I have to wait at least 5 sec for it to then chime. If I press the power button again before that, it will cancel the power on process. Now I am used to that more.

There was a battery in this machine but it was a spicy pillow, so before I powered the machine I removed the battery so it wouldn't expand more and damage the chassis.

What was the process that you used to create the installers and do those USB sticks boot on other Macs?

I used Disk Utility to format the drives in Mac OS Extended Journaled but it would repeatedly fail to restore using Disk Utility, and I tried this on both my M1 Mac mini and my 2017 MBP. Converting the DMG to ISO wouldn't help.

I ended up using Terminal and ran these commands:

diskutil list
(Drives showed and the USB was disk4)

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4

/sudo asr restore \
--source "/Users/(the name of my computer, I'd like to my name private)/Downloads/Mac OS X 10-12 Mountain Lion.dmg" \
--target /dev/disk4 \
--erase
--noverify

Asked for a password and proceeded to restore, and afterwards I ejected it.


I tried seeing if it would show up when pressing option when booting from my 2017 MBP. It would not, which makes sense because it is a Mountain Lion installer on a computer that originally ran High Sierra that now runs Monterrey. I do not have any other machine from the 2010-2012 era to test it on.

Strangely enough that same USB when I had before formatted it in APFS (as a bootable ChromeOS Flex drive) it showed up on the MacBook Air but froze when I tried to boot from it, understandably because of it being in APFS. But none of my Mountain Lion drives would even show up.

Is there any chance that the seller can provide the password?

I asked the seller and he didn't know. I held Command S when booting to enter single use mode. Then I ran these commands:

fsck -fy

mount -uw /

passwd Apple (the name of the user account was Apple)

(Entered new password.)

exit (Proceeded to login screen, it asked me to create a new password keychain, which I did, typed in 12345, my new password, and it proceeded to desktop!)

I doubt I'll try to restore the machine now that I have access to the desktop.


Thanks @TheShortTimer for the info!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Thanks @TheShortTimer for the info!

You're very welcome and thanks for letting us know that you managed to gain access to the OS.

 

[MBAir2010]

It will not even boot into internet recovery. I have held the key combo necessary and it goes straight to login screen.

how far have you gotten on installing any OSX the MBA since Wednesday?

 

[awshucks]

how far have you gotten on installing any OSX the MBA since Wednesday?

Been sick so haven't been able to try it out yet until now. My USBs still won't show up on the boot select screen, and it won't go into recovery mode. Guess it does not have the recovery partition. Guess I would have had to have one of those recovery USBs Apple included with this model. But I won't worry about it since I have access to the desktop. Thanks for your message!

 

[Intell]

I don't think Macs from 2010 got Internet Recovery. I know some 2011 Macs did, but unsure about the 2010 ones. If it does support it, it won't be able to because it is likely running an older firmware since it is also running Snow Leopard. It not having a Recovery partition is also due to it running Snow Leopard (10.6). This feature did not come out until Lion (10.7).

To get it all running again, I suggest following Apple's instructions on creating a macOS 10.13 High Sierra USB drive and installing that version of macOS onto it as outlined here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/101578

 

[Slix]

Try an SMC reset: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102605

Sometimes this messes with things like booting up normally. But as others have said, if you can get a new battery, you'll likely run into less issues booting this MacBook up too.