Can't boot '11 MBP from USB

[mf44]

I hope some folks here could offer me some help troubleshooting. I am having trouble booting from a USB on my early 2011 MBP. Laptop originally had Lion, I ultimately had it upgraded to High Sierra. I am selling the laptop and want to send it off with a fresh install of High Sierra. However, after I erased the HDD it had trouble installing High Sierra. Now it will only boot to internet recovery mode and, even when trying to install in Lion, it gives me an error about unable to install a backup volume. I think this has to do with the formatting of the HDD.

Regardless, I'd like to do a clean install from a bootable USB. I created a High Sierra bootable USB installer but when I start the MBP and hold option, it only shows me Internet Recovery Mode. What else can I be doing here? Right now I'm unable to install any OS, let alone High Sierra.

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

What did you do to actually create the USB drive?

Have you tried to create ANOTHER bootable flashdrive (use a different drive)?

 

[mf44]

I followed the steps on the Apple website (download High Sierra installer to Applications, run the command in terminal, etc). It created the USB without error at that point, and when I plug it back into the Mac I created it on, I can see it mounted there. I'm not sure I have another USB drive large enough to try, but I will look for one to try a second one to see if that's the problem. Anything else I can be doing to troubleshoot?

Thannks

 

[Fishrrman]

I would download the appropriate version of DiskMaker X, and try to use THAT to create the bootable flashdrive. It's free.

Downloads

diskmakerx.com

 

[mf44]

So I've tried it with a new USB (actually an SD card), and with DiskMaker X, and both still don't work. Holding alt/option doesn't change anything at boot up; it still only goes to internet recovery. What can I be doing wrong here?
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As an addendum, when I am in the internet recovery and enter the disk utility I can see the flash drive I'd like to boot from, so it's clearly mounting properly. However, if I go to "Startup Disk" while in internet recovery, it does not list anything at all.

 

[mf44]

Final update, in case anyone else has this problem in the future: SUCCESS! The issue was, for some reason, the flash drive was not being formatted correctly. When I got the SD card formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the Scheme to GUID Partition Map, THEN created the installer via terminal, it finally was recognized and worked. For some reason, it was not creating a GUID partition. And, here I am, with a fresh, clean High Sierra installation. Thanks for the help Fishrrman