Trying to reinstall OS, says Try again later

[Novakingway]

I held down COMMAND + R, went to Disk Utilities and unmounted then erased the harddrive. Then I went to reinstall mac os. It was on El Capitan. It asks me to connect to WiFi, I do. Then after a few clicks it asks to login Apple ID. After I try to do that, it says This Item is Temporarily Unavailable. Please try later. I tried later, a few hours later, even a few days later. Gives me same message. How can I reinstall MacOS?


I have a USB flash drive with Lion installed. When I try to boot from USB by holding Option during a power on, it comes up with a message my computer must be restarted. Hold the power button til it turns off, then immediately press the power button again. I've tried doing it a few times. It gives the same error message. I know the flash drive works because after that I used it on a different one to reinstall.

 

[BrianBaughn]

What model Mac?

 

[Novakingway]

What model Mac?

Bottom says A1278
I think the system said Macbook Pro 7,1

 

[BrianBaughn]

I believe that if it's an A1278 then it would be a Macbook Pro 8,1 (Apple MacBook Pro "Core i5" 2.3 13" Early 2011).

That model shipped with Snow Leopard and "Internet Recovery" won't work on it. Do you have the Snow Leopard disks that shipped with it?

I don't know why your Lion system USB won't start...and it would surely help if it could. Is it an "installer" USB or does it actually have the OS on it?

 

[casperes1996]

I have a USB flash drive with Lion installed. When I try to boot from USB by holding Option during a power on, it comes up with a message my computer must be restarted. Hold the power button til it turns off, then immediately press the power button again. I've tried doing it a few times. It gives the same error message. I know the flash drive works because after that I used it on a different one to reinstall.

Are you sure all hardware is functional, including USB ports? Try running hardware diagnostics, cause it sounds like a hardware with the USB thing. If you have another Mac, you could boot the Mac you want to install OS X/macOS on in Target Disk mode, and install from another machine/copy the disk from another machine

 

[Novakingway]

I believe that if it's an A1278 then it would be a Macbook Pro 8,1 (Apple MacBook Pro "Core i5" 2.3 13" Early 2011).

That model shipped with Snow Leopard and "Internet Recovery" won't work on it. Do you have the Snow Leopard disks that shipped with it?

I don't know why your Lion system USB won't start...and it would surely help if it could. Is it an "installer" USB or does it actually have the OS on it?

I was incorrect. The USB has 10.6, which I believe is Snow leapord. It is a DVD intsaller that has been converted to USB. I do not have any original DVD discs.

 

[bcave098]

Not sure why you're getting a kernel panic when using the USB, but this message in recovery usually means that the Apple ID you're using did not "purchase" the version of macOS that it's trying to install.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I was incorrect. The USB has 10.6, which I believe is Snow leapord. It is a DVD intsaller that has been converted to USB. I do not have any original DVD discs.

I'm thinking the A1278 model shipped with 10.6.6 and the "retail" SL installer won't work on it nor will any USB installer created with one.

To get Sierra on it you're going to have to:

• Find copies of the original disk for the install, do the 10.6.8 update, then install Sierra via the App Store, or
• Create a USB Sierra installer using another Mac.

You could also install El Capitan if you have access to a Mac with the El Capitan installer downloaded on it from which you could make an installer.

 

[Nermal]

If I recall correctly, Internet Recovery will only work on that machine if you bought 10.7 (you'll also need to have installed the necessary firmware update). As BrianBaughn says above, the easiest solution would probably be to use "createinstallmedia" to build a USB drive with 10.11/10.12. Otherwise you'll need to hunt for the specific restore DVDs.