Can't download the additional components needed to install MacBook Pro

Hi, fegsdc, maybe I can help you.....

Lion is not available any more, from the App store anyways. The best you could do is probably el Capitan. that is available here:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT206886

you might want to make sure an Ethernet cable is plugged into the Macbook Pro beforehand, unless you have already made a bootable usb stick with the OS you want on it.

rebooting while holding down Option-Cloverleaf (Apple)-R will get you an upgrade to the latest mac os that is compatible with your MacBook Pro. rebooting while holding down Shift-Option-Cloverleaf (Apple)-R will get you a reinstall of the Mac OS that came with your mac or the closest version still available. The options I have maybe given you are free, and they are no secrets.

I don't think you care a lot about Lion, or the OS, as long as it works, yes ??

If you want info on how to make a bootable USB stick and how to boot up from that and re-install Mac OS X, stay tuned, I'm sure someone will help you out

anyways, hope whatever info I have given you has been helpful

john b

fegsdc wrote:

I didn't manage to upload the newest or a newer version of MacOS because I do not have another Mac available. So I loaded the old version MacOS X Lion on the Macbook Pro.. but the thing is my daughter can't play Roblox on it. Also many apps don't work on it and I get some errors.

Does this mean that you have Lion running on the laptop?

If the laptop is booting Lion make sure all updates have been download so Lion is at version 10.7.5, then download the macOS 10.13 High Sierra installer using these instructions:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208969

I would suggest creating a bootable macOS USB installer while you can still boot into macOS Lion. Using the macOS USB installer will most likely work out better anyway. Here are the instructions for creating a bootable macOS USB installer:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

What happened to my external hard drive is that I formatted it on my windows PC first and then a second time on that Macbooc Pro OS when the loading error occured.....know what I mean? The same error that appears on the link i sent previously regarding loading an OS.

Should I try "fixing"/recuperating my external hard drive using that Macbook Pro since formatting was the last thing I did on it? If yes, how to do it?

Like i said before I am unable to recuperate/re-format my Seagate external hard drive now (on windows 7) and I don't know what to do to fix it....It is almost 2TB. Hope you guys understand what i'm trying to say...

If the laptop is booting to macOS, then you should be able to properly erase the external drive for use on the Mac. You just need to make sure to select the physical drive to erase and not a volume/partition. If you can select the physical drive erase it as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled).

If you are booted to Lion, then instead of using the "Erase" tab you need to select the "Partition" tab instead after selecting the physical external drive in the left pane of Disk Utility. Then click on the drop down list box and select "1 Partition". Click on the "Options" or "Advanced" button and make sure that "GUID Partition" is selected and click "OK". Now back at the partitioning tab again make sure the file system selected is "MacOS Extended (Journaled)". Give the external drive a name as the default name will most likely be "Untitled". Once everything is ready click on "Apply". The external drive now should contain one properly erased volume suitable for use with macOS.

NOTE: erasing the drive will destroy all data on the drive.

Sometimes macOS does have problems seeing and erasing drives if they are in an unexpected configuration. It is also possible a 2TB drive may not be compatible with Lion. The technology on hard drives changed beginning with the 2TB drives so Lion may not be able to see or access a 2TB or larger drive.

As for using Windows I've heard people using the paid app TransMac to create a bootable USB installer, but I've also seen people have issues being unable to boot their Macs with the USB installer created with TransMac. I have no personal experience with TransMac.

fegsdc wrote:

I can now load either OSes and have not tried the Mac OS X Lion but the El Captain instead and it gets stuck at 2/10 of the loading. Yesterday it stayed on and it didn't move a single bit.

Is the El Capitan installer getting stuck booting at 2/10 or is it happening after El Capitan has been installed to the drive? If the installer gets stuck did you use recovery mode or a USB installer? Was the USB installer created using these Apple instructions?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

How to properly erase the physical drive for use with macOS:

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac

I also don't quite understand everything you are posting as that YouTube video doesn't seem to have any bearing to your problem.

You also haven't provided the exact model of your laptop as we requested so we can make sure macOS 10.11 El Capitan is compatible. I provided a third party website for you to use in a previous post if the Apple website is unable to provide the information because the laptop is unsupported.

Perhaps your hard drive in the laptop is failing which could be the source of your problem.

fegsdc wrote:

Hey. It got stuck in the middle of the download. I am not sure I understood the steps from th site you sent me, it is a bit confusing. I downloaded the OS El Captain from the link johnb-one sent me (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT206886) and it downloads as a .dmg format and it is called InstallMacOS X.

I did not know there were other OSes available I thought only El Captain was available....

I cannot access the MacOS and do all this things or do things with a Mac and i do not have another Mac I can use at the moment, the only Mac I can use is that one (Macbook Pro) and its main OS X Lion is erased. All I can access is its Installation/Repair window by pressing Option while it is restarting.

Is there an option called "Recovery"? If so, select it and boot the "Recovery" option.

I did not make my external hard drive a USB flash using apple's steps, I just formatted it first, and then i pasted the InstallMac OS X file and then I burned the file to the hard drive as a Flash USB.

This won't do anything. You need access to a Mac so that you can "install" or extract the contents of the "InstallOSX.pkg" file to the "Applications" folder where you can then use the instructions in the Apple article I linked previously to create a bootable USB installer.

I am not sure i understand Apple's steps, but the thing is I cannot access the Mac OS because I erased it, I am using a windows 7 at the moment.

You need access to another Mac in order to create a bootable macOS USB installer.

Model:

MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)

This is all the information we needed to know the exact model of your laptop.

This laptop can use up to macOS 10.13 High Sierra. It also means this computer shipped with a 10.6.6 Snow Leopard installation DVD so you could use your original DVDs to reinstall macOS to the computer. I'm not sure a retail copy of a Snow Leopard DVD will work since your laptop requires version 10.6.6 as a minimum.

well, you can look at the serial number on the bottom and feed that into Apple database and can hopefully find the model and year. We need to know that info. And you need to boot from an external source. If you cannot afford to buy a 10 - 20 GB stick, then you also cannot afford to check ebay if they have an appropriate retail version install disk for sale - first you need to know what version you need though.

www.checkcoverage.apple.com

You do not burn an OS installer to a DVD, you need to follow instructions on how to create a bootable USB stick.

And, something that would help us help you - exactly what year and model is the Mac? That determines what OS version can be installed and how.

I did not make my external hard drive a USB flash using apple's steps, I just formatted it first, and then i pasted the InstallMac OS X file and then I burned the file to the hard drive as a Flash USB

You need to use Apple's steps using a Mac. Pasting a Mac OS installer and burning won't work, especially if it was done with a Windows machine.

These are the specs for an MBP 8,3:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.2-17-early-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html

shows that 10.13.x is the latest it can handle.

If you are going to want to run 10.13, you will also want to upgrade the RAM if yours is the default 4 GB as that will not be enough to run the newer versions. 8 GB would be the minimum, 16 GB would be better.

For hardware Apple no longer supports the Apple website won't provide the model information. You can try using this website to get the exact model of your laptop:

https://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/

If you don't have a USB stick large enough for the macOS installer, then you will need to purchase one. This assumes your laptop is able to use macOS 10.11 El Capitan.

Did your laptop come with any OSX DVDs?

i am confused - you keep talking about a PC . is this a Windows machine? Macs are generally referred to as a Mac rather than a PC. So if you are downloading, formatting, or trying anything on your PC, it won't work. You need to have a USB stick formatted on a Mac. You cannot use a DVD or CD unless you have an original install DVD. You need to have a bootable clone on an external drive, just a copied installer will not work either as it would need to be in your Applications folder to work.

At this point, I am confused as to what you are trying to do and the linked video is about a formatting error which may or may not be the underlying problem here.