Reinstalling iOS on mac - app store login not accepted

Hi T.

So I logged in to my Mac developer account this morning and sure enough Yosemite support was dropped in 2019, the stand-alone installer was expunged from all Apple download sources that I have access to in 2019.

I was only able to find a couple of Yosemite update patch installers still available under developer downloads, not the full package.

Provided that your hardware meets the minimum requirements then yes, install Sierra instead, the full 5GB installer for 10.12.6 is downloadable on one of your working machines from the Apple App Store.

This Apple doc lists the hardware requirements for each of the currently available OS installers:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211683

If you kept/found an old copy of the Yosemite installer the Terminal command string for creating the bootable drive was recently posted in this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251201913

A brief Google search this morning did find a couple of obscure websites claiming to provide Yosemite .dmg installer packages but with no way to confirm they hadn't been tampered with I wouldn't risk even downloading from them.

Sorry I could not find anything more helpful.

Will.

The only time I had something similar was caused by the keyboard layout mapping at boot in the Recovery Mode (US English) being different to my physical keyboard (British English).

When typing in the password, which had “special symbols” characters, the keys I pressed did not correspond to the characters that were being entered in the password field, and which were replaced by dots as you entered them, so you had no idea they were wrong.

It was years ago now and I can’t remember if there was an option to show the characters as you typed into the password field or if I used the un-hidden user name field first to find which keys the “special symbols” characters had moved to before typing the password correctly using those remapped keys.

You mention you have other devices, if so and the above does not help and your other devices include a different Mac or MacBook then the easiest and most straightforward solution is to create a bootable Yosemite installer on an external hard drive using one of those other devices, then connect that drive to your old iMac, boot from that drive to carry out the reinstall.

HTH

Will.

Hi,

Mac App Store ask for Apple ID password, not login password.

T.

Good to hear that you solved the problem and you are more than welcome!

Thank you too for posting back with the outcome, it may be helpful to another user in the future.

Regards.

Will.