Hi. My son-in-law gave me his iMac running OS X Yosemite. He didn't remember his login info so he suggested that I erase the hard drive and reinstall the OS. I erased the hard drive but when I try to download the OS, I'm told that the OS is temporarily unavailable. Google searches of this error suggest that since my Apple ID isn't associated with the purchase of Yosemite, that I am unable to download and install it. How do I replace the OS on my iMac?
Turn off the Mac entirely. Then turn it on while holding down the Command + R keys on the keyboard. It should boot up to Recovery and let you install macOS. It should not require anybody's Apple ID at that point.
Link-> How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support
Turn off the Mac entirely. Then turn it on while holding down the Command + R keys on the keyboard. It should boot up to Recovery and let you install macOS. It should not require anybody's Apple ID at that point.
Link-> How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support
Thanks very much for the help, but it looks like I will have to take this to the Apple Store. I tried rebooting with Command+R. It boots to a screen to pick English or another language. From there, it goes to OS X Utilities. There are four options;
Restore From Time Machine Backup
Reinstall OS X
Get Help Online
Disk Utility.
Reinstall OS X tells me my computer will be checked for permission to download and install and after clicking Continue, it asks for my Apple ID and password.
The other option, Disk Utility let me pick a source image and a target drive which I did. The recovery image was on the recovery disk. I made that the source and made the Hitachi 640 GB drive the target. The erase worked but the install failed with an "err 63", something about being unable to verify the source. I ran Verify Disk and that came back good, no errors. The target drive is partitioned. But when I reboot, I'm asked to select a start up disk with the image being the only option but that fails with another error, again something about being unable to verify the image.
There is an Apple Store in town. I can probably take it there and see what they suggest. Thanks again for the assistance. Greatly appreciated.
mj
Unable to download OS
