We got MacOS/X installed and working. Promised I would post the info here on how to do it.
You *can* upgrade a Macbook with a failed SSD drive. But you must build an OS/X installable bootable volume to do this.
It is not possible to install the original Apple Mac OS/X operating system onto a repaired Macbook Air, from the Apple "Internet Recovery" system, despite Apple's instructions saying this should work. Apple technicians at the Apple Store confirmed that the facility to make this work, is disabled in Canada, and possible everywhere.
We wasted *days* trying to do this using the "Internet Recovery" approach.
If you put a new SSD drive into your Macbook, to replace a defective SSD "disk", then you MUST create - using a different Apple Macbook - a "Bootable Mac OS/X Install Drive" - typically on a little USB stick. The USB stick has to be at least 16GB (8 gb is too small!), and you must follow the instructions on this Apple Instruction Page, very carefully. You will have to use "Internet Recovery" on the dead machine to connect to the internet, AND you must set the system date to the current date. (Some early advice had indicated that system date had to be set back to the date of the original machine setup. This is not the case now.) You might also have to use the Safari version on the "Internet Recovery" stub, to make a connection to Apple Support, and press enter when asked for the password for the "login" keychain.
We successfully did the whole procedure - but initial attempts failed with Apple OS/X install process saying "The copy
of the install OS X <your OS version, ie, Yosemite, Sierra, etc.)> application can't be verified." We think the message
resulted from the system date being set back to Nov. of 2012. the date of the Macbook purchase, as per a site suggestion), but we are not sure.
What did happen, is that once we updated the system date to the current date on the target Macbook Air (with the new OWC SSD drive card installed and formatted), we were finally able to get the Install of Yosemite to run - which took over a hour to complete. Note: to set the system day, you go to "terminal" (an option in the top title bar), and at the command line you enter a standard Unix-style date. Example: for date of Nov. 23, 2021 with time of 13:41, you enter "date 112313412021" at the terminal command-line prompt. We chose old Yosemite Mac OS/X, because it was the earliest .DMG file version of MacOS/X offered by the Apple download. Once the system was set to the current date, the install finally ran, which means the OS/X was successfully verified, as the first step. Note we had already formatted the OWC SSD drive, to use the Mac journaling file system.
Here is critical link to the Apple Support Note, which describes the procedure that must be followed, to put a new copy of Mac OS/X onto a new, blank, virgin SSD drive:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
This method is the *only* way that an original version of OS/X can be installed on a new MacBook SSD drive, at least in Canada. Apple does not offer CD-ROM versions of the Mac OS/X Installer, nor on any other kind of media. You have to build a complete Application (on a different Macbook machine) to build the "Bootable Install Volume for Mac OS/X". You first download the .DMG file for the Build Installable Bootable MacOS for the version you want, and then click on it to turn it into a .PKG file, then run the .PKG file (click on it), to create the "Build Installable MacOS Bootable Volume" Application, in your Applications directory, on this other Macbook. You plug in the USB stick, and run the newly built Application, to create the OS/X Installable Bootable Volume on the USB stick. Note: it is a good idea to rename your USB DISK to something like "MyVolume" or some such name without the stupid embedded space, which will cause grief when you try to run the "createinstallmedia" command.
The .dmg files to build the Application to make the bootable install OSX images, can be found here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
We used Yosemite, because it is confirmed to work, based on the technical specs for Yosemite and the older Macbook. These are documented here:
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP711?locale=en_US
We were finally able to complete this process, and we have repaired the MacBook Air, which now has a new, OWC
250mb SSD drive, and uses the FIrefox 78.x ESR web-browser, which we have confirmed works with all the sites we need to access.
Hope this info helps someone repairing and restoring their Macbook with a new SSD drive. We found the new OWC 250gb Aura SSD works fine, on our 2012 11-inch Macbook Air, Model A1465. The wifi works good, it links correctly to our Starlink router, and Firefox 78 ESR gives no-interuption video access to internet services. The older Apple hardware is well engineered, and is very worth repairing.
-Mark Langdon.
