Cannot install Mavericks...

[Killerbob]

I just got my MacBook Air back from AppleCare. They replaced the Logicboard and when I booted it up it was fine.

However, in the meanwhile I have purchased a new MacBook Pro, and I just want to replace everything on the MacBook Air, and so I booted up of a USB stick with Mavericks (which has worked fine in other Apple laptops), and reformatted the SSD. I then selected to install OSX, but all that happened was that I got a message that "OS X Mavericks cannot be installed on this computer"???

We are talking a MacBook Air from 2012 here, the 13", i7 version. It was running Mavericks 10.9.3 before, so there really is something wrong.

What should I do?

 

[Killerbob]

I tried installing OSX from a DVD (albeit a Snow Leopard DVD), using the external Apple DVD drive I have, and it "grey screen" errors with a bunch of "panic(cpu 0 caller 0x7a552459): "Unsupported CPU: family = 0x6, model 0x3a" lines at the top, and a "You need to restart your computer" message.

Do I have a dud logic board, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[chrfr]

I tried installing OSX from a DVD (albeit a Snow Leopard DVD), using the external Apple DVD drive I have, and it "grey screen" errors with a bunch of "panic(cpu 0 caller 0x7a552459): "Unsupported CPU: family = 0x6, model 0x3a" lines at the top, and a "You need to restart your computer" message.

Do I have a dud logic board, or am I doing something wrong?

You can't use Snow Leopard on 2012 Macbook Airs. Try using internet recovery on the Air to start fresh. (Hold command-option-R at startup.)

 

[Killerbob]

I am doing this as we speak - thanks for the suggestion.

It is really slow, and I wonder if it means anything that I did reformat the SSD? Or is it simply downloading the entire OSX installation package and then attempting an fresh install? In which case I am in for a wait... I live in Greenland and we only have 8Mbps internet...

 

[Killerbob]

Didn't work The globe ended up having an exclamation point through it, along with a message "apple.com/support -2002F".

So, I then tried with a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, and this time I got the message "apple.com/support -4403F".