Activate Mac - could not connect to the server - college daughter's macbook air

[ddublu]

My daughter has a MacBook Air that's probably 2-3 years old max. She woke up a couple of weeks ago to this error on a black screen.

Activate Mac

Could not connect to the server.

I have researched this and most of my findings suggest hitting previous a number of times, restarting a number of times...trying a different network..none of these resulted in resolution but I also wasnt there to see if she did this many times or just once or twice.

She has since dropped it by her school's IT department who told her that the hard drive in the macbook was no longer usable. While that may be the case, I dont want to just throw the towel in as their IT dept isnt exactly top-tier.

I will be with her this weekend and will try my own things but curious if anyone has any other suggestions at this point?

 

[MayflyMaven]

I had a similar problem with a 2020 MacBook Air (actually I think it is very different, but maybe still helpful ). In my case I couldn't get on WiFi at all, the WiFi menu was missing entirely from the menubar. I reported it via Feedback Assistant and eventually got a notification that a "potential fix was identified - In iOS 16.5". Obviously very puzzling because it was a Mac, not an iPhone.

Anyway, I worked around the issue by using a USB ethernet adapter. If the IT department has a spare USB ethernet adapter, it's worth a shot to see if the Mac can connect to Apple's server over the ethernet connection instead of WiFi.