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Help, Erased iMac HDD volume drive trying reset my iMac to factory conditions

shariarkuasa said:
Yes, tried both option but no luck. Somehow I was able to erase the HDD and now it just booting with a question mark on folder and I can't enter into any recovery
Click to expand...
Yes.
If you were able to erase the HDD, that means that everything is gone. If you erased the drive from Internet Recovery, then the Recovery partition should ALSO be gone.
The flashing folder simply means that there is NO system on the drive, which would be correct.
If you have a macOS installer on a USB drive, then boot to that, and reinstall that system.
If you don't have an external drive, or thumb drive with a bootable installer, then boot back up to Internet Recovery.
That's a restart while holding Option-Command-r. You will see a spinning globe, instead of the normal Apple icon.
Get to the menu, then choose Reinstall macOS (Reinstall OS X on an older system), and - let that complete. That will download the installer files, then restart to complete an install. It will probably take nearly an hour, maybe longer.
Internet Recovery may install a system that is older than what you had installed. No problem with that, you will be able to update to High Sierra, if that is not the system that is installed through Internet Recovery.
 
DeltaMac said:
Yes.
If you were able to erase the HDD, that means that everything is gone. If you erased the drive from Internet Recovery, then the Recovery partition should ALSO be gone.
The flashing folder simply means that there is NO system on the drive, which would be correct.
If you have a macOS installer on a USB drive, then boot to that, and reinstall that system.
If you don't have an external drive, or thumb drive with a bootable installer, then boot back up to Internet Recovery.
That's a restart while holding Option-Command-r. You will see a spinning globe, instead of the normal Apple icon.
Get to the menu, then choose Reinstall macOS (Reinstall OS X on an older system), and - let that complete. That will download the installer files, then restart to complete an install. It will probably take nearly an hour, maybe longer.
Internet Recovery may install a system that is older than what you had installed. No problem with that, you will be able to update to High Sierra, if that is not the system that is installed through Internet Recovery.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately the machine won't boot into internet recovery, I've tried all combination I found online. Is there any physical way to do something?
 
"Unfortunately the machine won't boot into internet recovery, I've tried all combination I found online. Is there any physical way to do something?"

You need a USB flashdrive with a bootable copy of the installer on it.
You can make one on another Mac (this can't be done on a PC).

If you don't have the ability to make one yourself, you can go on ebay and buy one "pre-made" for about $20 or so. This might be your best option.

Then...
1. Boot from the flashdrive installer
2. Go to Disk Utility and ERASE the internal drive again -- NUKE IT back to HFS+ with journaling enabled
3. Then... reinstall a fresh copy of the OS.
 
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Help!
Accidentally erased my Macintosh HD drive too. Well, not so much accidentally as the internet said it was ok to do .

I've read this whole thread, and tried some of the stuff you guys have suggested (I'm very much not a tech-savvy person). I ended up having to buy os lion from Apple to be able to reinstall it via internet recovery. However, it installs about 90% of the way and then gets stuck on "downloading additional components, about 1 hour 20 minutes remaining." It said this for 2 hours, so I turned it off and tried to reinstall. Same thing.

Macbook air, late 2010 model (i think).

Bought it used on Ebay, it was working fine but was slow. It was already "factory reset?" when it came, so I just set it up and started using it. But it was really slow and I thought wiping it and starting over would help.
 
daney21 said:
But it was really slow and I thought wiping it and starting over would help.
Click to expand...
Can you describe exactly what you mean by really slow.... describe symptoms. For example, it you clicked Safari to launch, did it just sit there for a long time with the spinning beachball?
 
Everything was slow. I don't know how to specifically explain.

Anyhow, it's fixed now. I was able to download lion to a USB drive and then restore the hard drive from it. It's fine
 
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I have same issue as in this thread.
I have purchased a mbp mid 2015 model from my friend. And tried to clean install the os so i erased the disk in recovery mode.

Later at the time installing the os through Internet recovery I found that my drive is not showing me.

Even I can't see my drive in disk utility.

Please help.

Note : not mucg friendly with mac, please provide solutions in little detail. Thank you
 

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pjhalani said:
I have same issue as in this thread.
Click to expand...
Get back in Internet recovery (make sure it is command-option-r at boot) then in the Utilities menu open Terminal and run these two commands and tell us the output of each.

Code: 
diskutil list

diskutil cs list
 
Weaselboy said:
Get back in Internet recovery (make sure it is command-option-r at boot) then in the Utilities menu open Terminal and run these two commands and tell us the output of each.

Code: 
diskutil list

diskutil cs list
Click to expand...
 

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I've followed all the steps posted in this forum and sadly nothing has worked. I can get into the disk utility but once there I have 3 different partitions but no OS X Base system..I have run the diskutil commands and nothing. I am really trying not to just give up on this desktop..It is an A1224 El Capitain was on it when I got it..all I did or tried to do was a system format..This is my last resort because as of now this is nothing but a huge 20" paper weight in my office. Can anyone help?
 
I bought the desktop from a pawnshop, was trying to factory reset it due to not being able to use it..Couldn't log in as an admin etc..When I went to do so I called tech support due to never having used a Mac before. Followed all the steps as instructed then when I restarted it, it loaded slow (almost 45mins)..The bar was a dark gray under the apple but after that nothing. This was back in March. I haven't done anything to it since. Today I booted it up with the same results. I did go to the TM screen and follow all the instructions. When I tried to see the Mac Core it says CoreSystem not available? Not sure why or what that means but in disk utility I can't find the base system all it has is 2 backup and one untitled file under the Internal tab..I do have the disk images but I did see where it was commented that nothing can be done with those. I really would like to fix this without spending 1000$ or more..It's a nice desktop but if nothing can be done I'll have to trash it, can't sell it as it is.

I have tried to run first aid which says the system is fine but when I go to erase it, I get a messae saying it failed. The details say the disk could not be unmounted but it was never mounted.
 
Weaselboy said:
If you hold command-r when booting, will it boot to recovery?
Click to expand...

I can get into the command menu OS X Utilities and have all 4 options but it will not reinstall OS X there is no back up due to this not being my desktop, again I bought it from a pawnshop :( and the disk utility shows no OS.
 
The recovery system is the one you are booted to.
There are three active partitions on your iMac: Untitled, back up, and BACK UP
None have any files, and no system installed.
The "OS X Base System" is on the recovery system, but that won't help you. It's just the minimal system that the Recovery HD uses to boot. You can't do anything with that system to help you get OS X installed again.
Best way forward is to download the El Capitan installer, and make a USB bootable installer from that.
Boot to THAT, and open Disk Utility. Choose the line starting with Hitachi, and erase the hard drive. That will remove the extra back up partitions, and leave you with just the one. Then, just continue with a reinstall of OS X. And, you're done :cool:

But, you also said that you tried an erase of the hard drive, which failed.
If so, it's very likely that the 11 or 12 year old hard drive is on the edge of failure (or already failed).
That would also explain why the install process was very slow.
Your iMac is probably either a 2007 or 2008 model, so a failed hard drive would not be a surprise.

Replacing the hard drive is not particularly difficult, and you can find instructions for doing that at iFixit.com:
www.ifixit.com

iMac Intel 20" EMC 2133 and 2210 Hard Drive Replacement

Upgrade your hard drive for more storage capacity.
www.ifixit.com www.ifixit.com
You can even purchase a replacement drive, along with all the tools you need on that same page.
(Is it worth about $100 to get that 12 year old iMac working again? Only you can answer that question)
 
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