Mid 2011 MacBook Problem

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Level 1

4 points

Mid 2011 MacBook Problem

Hi there! I have a 2011 MacBook Air model number a1369 and it is having some issues. This is probably going to be a long post so be warned.

So... I recently bought a 2011 MacBook Air from a friend of mine for $50. It was that cheap because it was essentially freezing up then dying even when it was on the charger, so I don't think that it is a battery issue. The first thing I did was boot the Mac into safe mode and it was running fine. What I did next was I went into the Boot Recovery menu thing to clear the hard drive so that I could just reinstall a new version of Mac OS and also delete all the files and stuff, I did this with the hopes that the Mac OS that was installed was just broken in one way or another. So after deleting all the files the Mac defaulted to opening up in the Mac OS X Lion Base System menu. From there I tried to download from the internet system recovery but that didn't work, for reasons I now understand. After that, I loaded Mac OS X Lion onto a USB drive and used Transmac to format it correctly. I followed this video exactly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyYV0appyDE and it seemed to be working. The version of Mac OS I was trying to install was installing and everything was going smoothly for around 5 minutes. After that my screen froze on the OS install bar, and my whole computer was frozen. That is about all I can remember as of right now, but I am essentially just stuck with a completely wiped 2011 MacBook Air that I want any form of Mac OS on. I'm thinking that there might be something wrong with the physical hard rive but let me know what you think. If anyone could help that would be absolutely lovely. Thanks for reading!

Posted on Jan 26, 2021 3:34 PM

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Answer 1

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HWTech

Level 9

68,708 points

Jan 26, 2021 4:42 PM in response to yayitsbenji

Did you try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the macOS 10.13 online installer? Unfortunately some Macs will only boot into the oldest version of the online installer for your Mac.

You can try running the Apple Diagnostics (should be able to access the online version is macOS 10.12.6+ was previously installed at some point).

I can provide instructions for checking the health of the SSD using a bootable Linux USB stick. I can also provide instructions for performing a hardware reset of the SSD (resetting it to factory defaults) although not Apple Apple SSDs support this feature. Let me know if you are interested in having these instructions.

You can try running a memory test using Memtest86. You can use the downloaded Memtest86 .iso or .img as a source for Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux) which can create a bootable Memtest86 USB stick. Option Boot the Memtest86 USB stick and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". Booting a Linux USB drive can be a good way of testing the laptop as well.

I've seen a lot of recent posts on these forums where a TransMac macOS USB installer doesn't work. Do you have access to another Mac that can run macOS 10.11 or 10.13? If so, then you can create a bootable macOS USB installer using the official Apple methods and instructions:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

68,708 points

Jan 27, 2021 6:31 PM in response to yayitsbenji

Your 2011 laptop can only run up to macOS 10.13 High Sierra. If your Catalina laptop from 2012 to about 2017 (maybe even some 2018 models), then it is probably compatible with High Sierra so you should be able to download the macOS 10.13 installer and make a bootable macOS 10.13 USB installer.

You can use the downloaded Knoppix .iso file as a source for Etcher which will create a bootable Knoppix USB drive. Option Boot the Knoppix USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". While Knoppix is booting the Mac will appear to be frozen on the boot picker menu so make sure to give Knoppix lots of time to finish booting.

Once Knoppix boots to the desktop click on the "Start" menu icon on the lower left corner of the taskbar and navigate the menus to "System Tools ---> GSmartControl". Within the GSmartControl app double-click on the drive icon for your laptop to access the drive's health report. Post the complete health report here.

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Answer 3

yayitsbenji Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 26, 2021 8:20 PM in response to yayitsbenji

I did try booting into internet recovery mode but that didn't work, from internet recovery mode I would try to just reinstall MacOS lion but from what I have found online, Lion doesn't typically install from internet recovery mode because apple doesn't like downgrading OS.

I just ran the apple diagnostics tool, and it didn't detect any hardware flaws. My main computer is another Macbook running Catalina, so Im gonna try to use a time machine backup to boot it. I don't know if that will work but Im hoping that it will also backup the OS version? I'll try the Linux stick tool.

And yes, I do have another Mac running Catalina. Ill try an apple method.

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Mid 2011 MacBook Problem

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