I know it's a little unorthodox for me to post about a Mac that's not mine, but I figured I'd come here for help relating to something at my workplace. As part of the big lot of Mac laptops we got from a school district last month, there's a late-2018 Retina MacBook Air. It can boot up to the startup/login screen fine, but we've got problems; we want to completely wipe the SSD and re-install a version of the Mac OS onto it. Currently it has Mac OS 10.14 Mojave installed, and we plan to put Mac OS 12 Monterey on it.
But the thing is, this MacBook Air will NOT boot into any form of Recovery Mode or to an external USB installer! I know the T2 chip isn't preventing booting from an external drive, because it does indeed show up when I plug it in (via a USB-C hub) and turn on the Air holding down the "Option" key. But when I select to boot from that, it takes nearly an hour for the loading bar to be completely filled white, and after that it's just stuck on the loading screen as long as it's powered on. I actually let it run overnight at one point and it stayed that way.
I tried both the on-board Recovery Mode and the Internet Recovery Mode (hooked up to an Ethernet line via the USB-C hub, mind you), and the same thing happened; almost an hour to load and then stuck on the loading screen for as long as it's powered on. I also tried resetting the NVRAM and SMC as described by MacWorld, and that didn't help.
I also can't wipe the onboard SSD via Target Disk Mode, as the drive is encrypted by a password when I try to erase it via Disk Utility, and it also reads "A writable disk is required."
Anyone have any advice/recommendations? I'm just sure this MacBook Air would sell for a good amount on my company's online store.
But the thing is, this MacBook Air will NOT boot into any form of Recovery Mode or to an external USB installer! I know the T2 chip isn't preventing booting from an external drive, because it does indeed show up when I plug it in (via a USB-C hub) and turn on the Air holding down the "Option" key. But when I select to boot from that, it takes nearly an hour for the loading bar to be completely filled white, and after that it's just stuck on the loading screen as long as it's powered on. I actually let it run overnight at one point and it stayed that way.
I tried both the on-board Recovery Mode and the Internet Recovery Mode (hooked up to an Ethernet line via the USB-C hub, mind you), and the same thing happened; almost an hour to load and then stuck on the loading screen for as long as it's powered on. I also tried resetting the NVRAM and SMC as described by MacWorld, and that didn't help.
I also can't wipe the onboard SSD via Target Disk Mode, as the drive is encrypted by a password when I try to erase it via Disk Utility, and it also reads "A writable disk is required."
Anyone have any advice/recommendations? I'm just sure this MacBook Air would sell for a good amount on my company's online store.