I screwed up... A2179

[Bornloser]

I screwed up.... I bought a used MacBook Air A2179 (intel based) and it was password locked AT THE USER LEVEL (not icloud). I didnt know the password so I did an erase so I could just reload the OSx. I guess it erased more than I thought (and I HAVE done this before with much better results). NOW, it appears EVERYTHING on the hard drive is gone. At turn on, it goes into recovery, but only to connect to wifi and download, and it just keeps cycling. It wont enter recovery mode, it wont boot to USB recovery (I have a known good USB install stick). I hook up to apple configurator 2 (and it connects), goes thru its recovery steps, and on step 4 it goes half way thru and hangs.
I am stuck....did I totally trash it?????
Thanks

 

[chabig]

Configurator should fix it. Be patient. Don’t rely on your subjective assessment that it is hung. Let it run overnight while you sleep. You might be surprised in the morning.

 

[Bornloser]

Configurator runs until halfway thru step 4, then it hangs for awhile, then a lock appears. I read that means it completed, but no fix....

 

[chabig]

You are probably right. I just am off the opinion that the progress indicators cannot be trusted and that many people are led to the assumption that things are frozen when they are not.

I have a Mac mini that is stuck in the upgrade to Sonoma 14.1. It has been stuck since the day the update was released. I can’t fix it because I’m away from home and need to be physically present to reboot it. I can see that it’s stuck because screen sharing is working. Weird.

 

[chabig]

You want to boot it to Internet Recovery. Try Shift-Option-Command-R at startup.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.

support.apple.com

 

[Bornloser]

I have tried that. It wont go into recovery, it wont go into boot from usb, it wont do diagnostics.....

 

[Bornloser]

its like all the data for recovery or diagnostics or anything that a multi-keystroke sequence uses is gone...

 

[chabig]

I wonder what Configurator is doing in step 4. Maybe the hard drive is shot.

 

[Bornloser]

I did erase it differently than normal...I selected to erase everything from a drop down. I kind of think thats why my restore doesnt work, its missing. But I THOUGHT configurator would write to the drive and restore it....