IMac stuck in disk-utilities. Please help!

[michael3993]

So first and foremost, I am running a late-2013 27-inch Imac. I can't access any further specs due to the aforementioned issue.

I have been trying to play Civ V and began running into memory issues, so I thought that a clean install of the mac would be nice to blow out the proverbial cobwebs. So I restarted and booted up disk utilities. I erased the hard drive (all was going grand) then I tried to use the second option in disk utilities to reinstall the OS. After about 85% of the install an alert came up saying that it couldnt be downloaded. So I reset and tried again but to no avail.

Then I made things worse. Trying to search the forums for help I tried using some techniques that may have made my situation worse. I partitioned the hard drive (i cant unpartion it). Now when I try and reinstall the OS still the same error occurs.

Please help! It will be greatly appreciated. I just want to play Civ...

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hold CMD+ALT/Option+R on startup to boot into Internet Recovery. From there you can erase the entire hard-drive (not just the Macintosh HD partition) and that should get you on a clean slate when you reinstall the OS from there. Please be aware it will reinstall the original OS that came with your machine, not the one you last left it on.

A third option if you can't partition or format the internal drive: hold CMD+R on startup to boot into macOS Utilities. (If this doesn't work or boot into anything, again hold CMD+ALT+R on startup for Internet Recovery instead). Get a fairly quick external USB stick (for instance, SanDisk Extreme: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00DZPUOUI), then format that USB stick through Disk Utility and then install macOS directly to that.

Based on the age of the machine and the problems you described that led you to reformatting in the first place, there's a strong possibility your hard-drive may also be failing. If the install to an external drive works, but the internal HDD doesn't, that would further confirm the drive is dying. We can easily run diagnostics to verify that once we've got an operating system.

Don't mind me though, I'm just running through the worst case scenario; the drive is failing and you can't install an operating system to it. macOS is pretty forgiving with installing and you can easily install it to any external drive without a problem, so just reassuring in advance that you're not completely out of luck if you can't install to your internal drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I have been trying to play Civ V and began running into memory issues, so I thought that a clean install of the mac would be nice to blow out the proverbial cobwebs."

Generally, re-installs can't fix "memory issues" due to low RAM.
You "fix" that by adding more RAM.

"I erased the hard drive (all was going grand) then I tried to use the second option in disk utilities to reinstall the OS."

Um... this is why one makes a backup BEFORE wiping the drive.
If you had created a bootable cloned backup (using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), you -might- have a way to boot and run the Mac "externally", while you rebuild the internal drive.

If you can't get internet recovery to work, and if you don't have access to another Mac, you might consider going to ebay and buying a USB flash drive that has a copy of the Mac OS installer on it.
I'd suggest OS 10.11 "El Capitan".