No Drive Option On Recovery

[Nitruc]

My MacBook Air has the flashing gray folder of death on startup and when going to the internet recovery option by holding down Option during bootup, I'm able to see a list of local WiFi networks and login to my own. But that's as far as I can get... once logging into my wireless network nothing happens and the screen just shows a dropdown with my network's name selected and the WiFi icon on the left of the dropdown connected with full bars. There's no folder or internet globe icons for me to select above the dropdown option.

How do I get to the next step in this recovery process?

I thought this might be because of my hard drive, so I replaced it with a brand new hard drive and I'm still getting the same issue.

Update w/ fix: So I finally got it working. Needed to get a free copy of 10.7 Lion on a USB, boot from that, then format the new harddrive. Good as new.

 

[S.B.G]

If you've put a new hard drive in, when you get to the recovery screen, go to the menu and get into Disk Utility and format the drive, then reboot again to the recovery screen and you should see the disk.

 

[Nitruc]

If you've put a new hard drive in, when you get to the recovery screen, go to the menu and get into Disk Utility and format the drive, then reboot again to the recovery screen and you should see the disk.

I don't think I can get to the Disk Utility option... when I hold down Command+R at boot it takes me to the flashing folder. The only thing that works is holding down Option at boot.

 

[S.B.G]

I don't think I can get to the Disk Utility option... when I hold down Command+R at boot it takes me to the flashing folder. The only thing that works is holding down Option at boot.

Hold down Option during reboot instead.

 

[Nitruc]

Hold down Option during reboot instead.

That's what I've been doing. Holding down Option and it just takes me to a wireless dropdown screen, there's no drive shown above the dropdown option. :/

 

[S.B.G]

That's what I've been doing. Holding down Option and it just takes me to a wireless dropdown screen, there's no drive shown above the dropdown option. :/

You should have the OS X menu bar at the very top of the screen, no? That's where you'll find the Utilities menu and Disk Utility.

 

[Nitruc]

You should have the OS X menu bar at the very top of the screen, no? That's where you'll find the Utilities menu and Disk Utility.

View attachment 519487

No, I never get to a screen with a menu bar. Believe this is due to the original MacBook Air not having the recovery drive option and needing to be booted from a USB device. Think I need to make a Yosemite boot USB on another Mac to get this to work... but not sure if that will do the trick. When trying to run other downloaded versions of OSX, the USB drive does display over the network dropdown, so hopefully this might work.

 

[S.B.G]

No, I never get to a screen with a menu bar. Believe this is due to the original MacBook Air not having the recovery drive option and needing to be booted from a USB device. Think I need to make a Yosemite boot USB on another Mac to get this to work... but not sure if that will do the trick. When trying to run other downloaded versions of OSX, the USB drive does display over the network dropdown, so hopefully this might work.

When you get to the screen you do get, can you take a photo with your camera and post it? I'm curious to see what you're seeing.

 

[niteflyr]

Try Command+Option+R boot to force internet recovery.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

 

[Weaselboy]

No, I never get to a screen with a menu bar. Believe this is due to the original MacBook Air not having the recovery drive option and needing to be booted from a USB device. Think I need to make a Yosemite boot USB on another Mac to get this to work... but not sure if that will do the trick. When trying to run other downloaded versions of OSX, the USB drive does display over the network dropdown, so hopefully this might work.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313

yes, if yours is pre-late 2010 it won't have Internet recovery and you will need a USB recovery or installer key to boot.

 

[Nitruc]

Replaced the battery which didn't fix anything...

Also made a Yosemite boot USB which shows up as a drive when holding Option on restart, but whether connected to wifi or not, it just goes to the gray screen showing a prohibition sign circle with a line through it and then automatically shuts off.

Looking at Wikipedia it says the latest supported iOS for the a1237 MacBook Air is OS X 10.7 Lion. Does that mean it can only run Lion? Can I make a Lion USB now that I have Yosemite running on my desktop Mac?

 

[Weaselboy]

Looking at Wikipedia it says the latest supported iOS for the a1237 MacBook Air is OS X 10.7 Lion. Does that mean it can only run Lion? Can I make a Lion USB now that I have Yosemite running on my desktop Mac?

Yes, that is correct. Lion is the latest that will run.

You may have problem downloading Lion though. If you rcurrent Mac is too new for Lion, the app store will detect that and not let you download it.

 

[DmbShn41]

If you're able to get your hands on a CD of Snow Leopard (10.6), that would work also. I believe this model will support 10.6. Once that is loaded and you are up and running again, you can update to 10.6.8 (installing Mac App Store), then update to 10.7. It's very easy to create a bootable USB of 10.6 from the CD. Can generally get them for $10-15 on eBay or Amazon. I believe that would be the best route given the generation gap of your two Macs. Ask questions.

 

[Nitruc]

Yeah, I can't get older versions of OS X for free from the App Store now that I'm on Yosemite. And I also can't just get a disc because the Air doesn't have a disc drive. So it looks like I'm stuck with four options:

1) Get the $50-80 official Apple USB boot stick
2) Download Lion on the App Store for $20 and try to make my own boot USB from that
3) Download a "free" copy of Lion elsewhere and create a cheaper USB boot alternative
4) Buy an external disc drive to run the boot disc, but don't see how that's much better than a USB

Option 1 is ridiculously overpriced. And after trying Option 3 already and it always going to the prohibited screen, I'm scared to even try Option 2 and waste even more money since they don't offer returns.

Going to try to boot from a OS X 10.7 Lion USB I just made now... if that doesn't work, maybe I'll try 10.6 Snow Leopard... and if that doesn't... I might just give up. Way too much work for an outdated laptop.

 

[Nitruc]

So I finally got it working. Needed to get a free copy of 10.7 Lion on a USB, boot from that, then format the new hard drive. Good as new.

 

[gnasher729]

4) Buy an external disc drive to run the boot disc, but don't see how that's much better than a USB

USB memory sticks with very few exceptions are notoriously slow. They will boot (eventually) but you'll have to be very, very, very patient.

An external USB hard drive costs about the same as a good memory stick. And you could then use it as a Time Machine backup drive, which would have saved you the whole mess if you had done that in the first place.