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Mac OS X Mavericks installer getting stuck writing a receipt

I have been having an issue with installing Mac OS X Mavericks on my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. I formatted the hard drive, which previously had Sierra installed on it. I wanted to go back to Mavericks to run some old programs and get better performance out of the computer (I know there are newer versions that can install, but I want to use Mavericks if possible).


First, I used recovery mode to erase the hard drive. I formatted it with Mac OS Extended. (Journaled) and named it "Macintosh HD".


Then, I made a Mavericks USB installer (I have actually attempted to redo it multiple times after running into issues)


When I boot to the installer and go through the install process, it takes about 3 hours and finally gets to less than a minute remaining. When I look at the log, it has gotten stuck at this point:

OSInstaller[376]: PackageKit: Writing Recepit for com.apple.pkg.BaseSystemResources to /Volumes/Macintosh HD/private/var/db/receipts

After waiting multiple hours for it to get past this point, it just stays here. I am now getting stuck here for the second time. After the first time, I attempted to force shut down the laptop and remove the USB. It turned on to the blinking folder with the question mark. The drive was still detected in disk utility and it would boot into a Mavericks recovery mode when I held down Command+R. I erased the hard drive again and attempted to install Mavericks again with the USB, and still got to this point.



Is there anything else that I should try to fix this issue? Any help would be appreciated, I have pretty much tried everything that I can think of so far, including attempting to make the install USB with an Early 2008 MacBook (I don't know, it was worth a shot).


I can upload the full log later on if needed.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Nov 19, 2020 5:52 PM

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Posted on Nov 25, 2020 10:25 AM

command-option-shift-R lets you restore the original OS that came with the computer. You need to use Disk Utility to format that partition HFS Journalled. APFS won't work for Mavericks. Make sure your computer is hard wired to your modem when you run the installer.

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Mac OS X Mavericks installer getting stuck writing a receipt

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