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Gwendolini

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 5, 2015
589
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Hi,

a friend of mine has been using a 2010/2011 11" MBA for some years (bought used) and since yesterday, it cannot boot into macOS (probably El Capitan???). This is the model number: A1370

These are the steps I have taken. Apple Support

ReactionNo Reaction
T - Thunderbolt symbol shown, but I do not have a TB2 cable handy, as I am using TB 3CMD+R/CMD+OPT+R/CMD+SHIFT+OPT+R
CMD+V - see photos belowD
CMD+OPT+R+P - did the startup sound twice or thrice
OPT (no mourse or keyboard) - Choose Network,
no boot volumes are shown, even with external USB Installer connected - ha. needed to wait for a minute or two.
Installer is shown, double click makes the mouse pointer halt


As for the booting from another volume, an installer on a USB SSD (no USB flash drives handy in the correct size), it takes a long time to boot from that. It is still not showing any progress. The mouse pointer is not movable. No progress in the last 4 minutes.

As for Thunderbolt TDM, can I use a TB2 <> TB 3 cable to connect that MBA to a M1 Mac?

The photos of the Verbose Mode:
IMG_1875.jpgIMG_1874.jpg


Has anyone any extra clues?
 
I have the exact macbook air and typing on this now.

my advice is to restore the original OS X or from a time machine backup.

(ignore this if you know how to restore a macbook)
Since these MacBooks included a USB thumb drive of Snow Leopard of Lion your friend should have.
If not then a simple pressing of the "command" key and "R" for internet recovery can save this macbook air
if they time machined the macbook, they can restore that
if the drive need repair, there is a disk utility option they can select.
there is also an option to install High Sierra as well.

Recently i downgraded to El Cappitan from Mojave and that was a small chore.
I also faced spared sad drives when the red circle of death appeared while starting up.

I hoped this helped!
 
I have the exact macbook air and typing on this now.

my advice is to restore the original OS X or from a time machine backup.

(ignore this if you know how to restore a macbook)
Since these MacBooks included a USB thumb drive of Snow Leopard of Lion your friend should have.
If not then a simple pressing of the "command" key and "R" for internet recovery can save this macbook air
if they time machined the macbook, they can restore that
if the drive need repair, there is a disk utility option they can select.
there is also an option to install High Sierra as well.

Recently i downgraded to El Cappitan from Mojave and that was a small chore.
I also faced spared sad drives when the red circle of death appeared while starting up.

I hoped this helped!
As far as I know, no Time Machine backups have been made.

CMD+R does not work.

I have an external SSD to install Mac OS onto, but creating an installer is complicated now compared to ten years ago.

I cannot download anything from the App Store, that would run on that system, as I have an M1 Mac and a 2019 Mac. Downloading El Capitan gives me a PKG file, which DiskMaker X cannot use.

I guess I have to go the pirate way somehow. ********.
 
i have a copy or a link to El Capitan that i installed on a usb drive just last week
i need to research my source.

(edit) this is if they can still use a USB drive.
 
Last edited:
i have a copy or a link to El Capitan that i installed on a usb drive just last week
i need to research my source.

(edit) this is if they can still use a USB drive.
Well, I used the official El Capitan installer for the GM version I could download from the App Store and some other sources, to create an installer on a USB connected SSD partition. No USB flash drive big enough in my home right now.
Here is the link to install ElCapitan

this is from apple and has instructions as well

I hope this helped

I downloaded that, but I cannot execute that PKG since I have a 2019 Mac and that is not old enough. I will try my 2009 Mac if I can make it run again.


As for why it doesn't boot, the internal SSD is not recognized anymore.
 
the link source is for that MacBook Air after restoring to Lion Or Snow Leopard
which did not work on my MacBook Air 2021 as well.
that will work on a later than 2014 Mac.

I need to perform this on my MacBook Pro 2012 to restore Mojave
Catalina is great, but too boring!

you they might have to swap the drive, they do go sour after a while.
even if they boot to
I have 3 and recommend OWC or Fledging for replacement drives.

I hope they appreciate the efforts you are going through.

/cheers!
 
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