M1 iMac clean install not possible
Hello Apple Community,
I am out of hope right now. My new M1 iMac (16GB Ram, 256GB storage, middle version) has recently started to get many bugs and crashes. These include random restarts (a purple light flashes and the iMac restarts, the following messages say kernel panic), not possible to open/close programs, impossible to install/delete programs, safari constantly reloading pages etc. The list is long.
So I thought it would be a good idea to reinstall MacOs in case of this being a software problem. Using the recoverymode by holding the on/off button, I reinstalled BigSur without wiping the SSD. After reinstalling, the probems persisted. So the next step was wiping the SSD and then reinstall MacOS (did it with this method https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983). This is were the problems got worse. Since then, the iMac can't download the BigSur and every solution I tried have failed me. Most of the times it gives me the errormessage "PKDownloadError error 8".
Doing some research, this seems a problem with the internet connection, especially with WiFi. So thanks to the middle version I have the ethernet connector in the powerbrick - giving me the same error right off the start. I can't change the DNS-settings of my router so that solution falls short for me. Turning off the firewall of the router may have led to finishing the download, only ending in the error message "An error has occured loading the update" without further explanation.
My next step was loading the installer on an external USB drive and install BigSur from there. Only to realise that this leads to the error message saying, that the "Installation cannot proceed because the installer is damaged". I did a new setup of the external drive several times, every time leading to this error.
I have an appointment with the Apple Support but judging by the experience of some other users i doubt, that they will know any solution.
Has anybody experienced the same problems and found a solution? Is this a warranty case and shall i just return it? The machine is unusable at this point.
iMac 24″, 11.4