BxxxFR wrote:
I tried CMD OPTN R with both Ethernet (spelled correctly) and wifi--neither works. The globe keeps spinning and I cannot access my wifi - which I am now using in Safari. Ethernet works here as well.
Internet Recovery Mode does not really tolerate as many types of networking issues as when access the network with a browser. It doesn't take much to get Internet Recovery Mode to fail.
• Also tried PRAM reset a few times--maybe will try with a few more chimes
Two or three chimes is enough. Many times the first chime is either the Startup chime or if the first chime is really the chime for the PRAM Reset, then it does not always trigger the reset. Three chimes is more than enough assuming the Mac's firmware allows it (newer Macs only allow a single chime for the reset -- two if you count the Startup chime).
• Diganostics (Dkey) won't run - it doesn't get far enough along. I had, however, run it before with Sierra (which came with the machine). Safe mode doesn't work now either.
Try Option + D just in case. The online Apple Diagnostics use the same framework as Internet Recovery Mode, but the diagnostics only need to load a small amount of data to work so it is more likely to work than Internet Recovery Mode.
• The CMD R approach only wants to reinstall big sur- which I did once. I was reading CMD OPTN R allows an older OS to be installed - "In Theory"
Command + Option + R is supposed to access the most recent version of the online macOS installer that is compatible with a particular Mac as long as macOS 10.12.6+ was installed at some point.
If you want to access the original OS installer which shipped from the factory try using Command + Option + Shift + R. If this works, then you will need to erase the whole physical drive (or even partition & format the drive depending on the OS being installed) since the older versions of macOS will not recognize the partition & file system used by Big Sur.
You may need to get access to another Mac so that you can create a bootable macOS USB installer:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Perhaps an Apple Store or a local Apple Authorized Service Provider could assist you in this.
• I believe the computer is a 2015 model and is supposed to be compatible with bigsur. It was downloaded from the update site. Surely they would not install an incompatible update???
Please enter your serial number on this linked page to get the exact model of your laptop since the previous owner may have somehow forced an incompatible version of macOS onto the laptop. If the previous owner did that, then it may affect your Internet Recovery Mode options as well. We need to be sure Big Sur is really compatible with your Mac.
https://checkcoverage.apple.com/
I was given this computer used. This all started after I installed AVG free antivirus, and they said I needed to update to a later OS in order for it to run properly.
This is my first experience with Apple.............
You do not need to use any anti-virus software, cleaning apps, or third party security software on a Mac. These types of apps usually cause more problems than they solve plus they impact system performance. I don't even recommend anyone using a third party anti-virus app on Windows these days since Microsoft provides their own solution within Windows which is sufficient these days since I now consider most of the anti-virus companies as scam artists these days who are collecting personal information to sell to others which Avast (the owner of AVG -- both were at one time respected AV solutions) has been caught doing several times recently.
