Can't reinstall OS to sell iMac

[Dilby]

Hi all-

I'm preparing my iMac to sell, and have followed apple's own list of things to do before selling. I have reformatted the hard drive in disk utility while in recovery mode, and am now trying to reinstall the OS. However when I try to do this it shows that it wants to try to install Sierra, which isn't the OS the machine came with which is what I thought this stage did. It then says it will need to contact apply to verify the machine - so i press ok - and nothing at all happens.

Any ideas?! (Tried posting this direct to the mac forums but they are having issues apparently!)

Thanks

 

[GrievingFob606]

You posted the wrong thread in this iOS 10 subforum.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-correct-forum-check-here-to-be-sure.2021945/

[Mod note: Moved]

 

[BrianBaughn]

You posted the wrong thread in this iOS 10 subforum.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-correct-forum-check-here-to-be-sure.2021945/

Yeah he mentioned that in his post.

OP: take a look at How to reinstall macOS and see the note in step 3.

 

[Nermal]

However when I try to do this it shows that it wants to try to install Sierra, which isn't the OS the machine came with

Make sure that you boot into Internet Recovery (Cmd-Opt-R) and not just regular recovery.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Command Option R as shown in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT204904 will fix it - If the iMac is a Late 2011 or newer. If it's a Mid-2011 or older, that won't work; you'll want to get a Snow Leopard DVD disc.

 

[Nermal]

If it's a Mid-2011 or older, that won't work

Unless it's a model that was sold with 10.7 at some point (even if your specific machine came with 10.6), in which case a firmware update will add the functionality.

Confused yet?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP didn't tell us what YEAR his iMac is…?