Failed Factory Reset

[jordynpaige]

I bought a new Macbook Pro and needed to erase my old Mac (2017 Macbook Pro with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5) to give away. I followed instructions online to do so, and erased the Macintosh HD disk. When restarted, a flashing folder with a question mark appears.

I rebooted to get to the MacOS utilities window to reinstall MacOS. When prompted it is giving me the MacOS Mojave install. I tried once and it was about 75% done when a prompt came up stating “The recovery process timed out”.

Now, when I try to reinstall the OS, a pop up window is saying “The recovery server could not be contacted”. Please help!!

Things I’ve tried that have not worked:

•Running first aid on all the drives

•Disconnecting and Reconnecting Wifi

•Shutting down and restating

•Syncing time/date in terminal (however it said command not found)

 

[rm5]

Maybe try a USB stick with a macOS installer—I have not had good luck with internet recovery, either. Do you know how to create a macOS usb drive? You’ll need a second Mac to do this. If you can’t because you don’t have a second Mac, try Option Cmd R to get the latest recovery version.

 

[bogdanw]

I bought a new Macbook Pro and needed to erase my old Mac (2017 Macbook Pro with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5) to give away.

I would download Monterey on the new MacBook, create a bootable installer and use it to install Monterey on the 2017 Macbook Pro.
How to download macOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Create a bootable installer for macOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

 

[jordynpaige]

Maybe try a USB stick with a macOS installer—I have not had good luck with internet recovery, either. Do you know how to create a macOS usb drive? You’ll need a second Mac to do this. If you can’t because you don’t have a second Mac, try Option Cmd R to get the latest recovery version.

Thank you! Did not even think of that. I will try this! Hopefully it will work!

 

[jordynpaige]

I would download Monterey on the new MacBook, create a bootable installer and use it to install Monterey on the 2017 Macbook Pro.
How to download macOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Create a bootable installer for macOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Will Try! Thank you!

 

[Fishrrman]

If you "erased" ONLY the "Macintosh HD" disk, I don't think you did it right.

Try the following, exactly as I present it:
1. Power down, all the way off
2. Boot to INTERNET recovery. Hold down:
Command-OPTION-R
at boot
3. If you're connecting via wifi, you'll need your wifi password
4. The internet utilities take a while to load, so be patient "as the globe spins".
5. When the utilities are loaded, open Disk Utility.
6. VERY IMPORTANT STEP!!!! Go to the "view" menu and choose "show all devices". DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!!!
7. Look at "the list on the left". The topmost item is the internal hard drive. This is what needs to be erased (the ENTIRE drive)
8. Click on the hard drive, then click the erase button.
9. Erase to "APFS, GUID partition format"
10. When the erase is done, quit disk utility and open the OS installer.
11. Start "clicking through". The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen will go dark for a minute or more with no other indication of activity. Just be patient.
12. When done, you should see the initial setup screen "choose your language".

At this point, you can either connect a backup drive and use setup assistant when prompted,
OR
You can create a brand-new account, and go on from there.

Good luck.