"The installer information on the recovery server is damaged"

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Level 1

4 points

"The installer information on the recovery server is damaged"

Hi there,

I am about to sell my 2017 iMac and have been trying to reset it to factory settings. Everything in the process has gone fine except for the very last part - trying to

install MacOS. I erased the Hardrive in Disk Utility as per YouTube instructions but when I got to the 'Install MacOS Sierra', it won't let me download it and just comes up with the error "The Installer information recovery server is damaged". How do I fix this and continue on?

These are the iMac specs:

iMac (retina 4k, 21.5" 2017)
processor: 3.4Ghz quad core intel core i5
memory: 8GB 2400 MHz DDR4
graphics: Radeon pro 560 4GB

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 13, 2022 12:44 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

60,254 points

Mar 14, 2022 7:37 AM in response to Fielkdog

Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the macOS 12.x Monterey online installer instead of the Sierra installer which appears to be an outdated version from your local recovery partition. It is possible that using these keys for Internet Recovery Mode will not boot to the Monterey installer, but instead will boot to the Sierra online installer which should be the recent version of Sierra with the correct security certificates.

If, however, you still have to install Sierra and still receive the message, then you can try changing the iMac's date & time to an earlier date by starting with 2017 and working backwards by a year. To set the date & time while booted into recovery mode, you need to launch the Terminal app from the "Utilities" menu and issue the following command to set the date & time to Jan. 2, 2017 @ 11:33am:

date  -u  0102113317

If there are no errors setting the date & time, quit the Terminal app and select the "Reinstall macOS" option.

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Answer 2

Fielkdog Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 13, 2022 4:44 AM in response to ku4hx

Thanks but I can’t just simply start over because I have already done the start of step 7 which is erase your Mac. So when I turn off my Mac, it just goes back to a blank screen and I have to press ‘command’ ‘R’ to go the install MacOS part - I can’t just go back to the original desktop of my Mac. That is the exact link I already used to reset my Mac and I followed the steps to a tee, with it now being stuck on step 7. Will doing step 8 (“erasing NVRAM”) do anything to help?

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Answer 3

Mar 13, 2022 8:51 AM in response to Fielkdog

Hi Fielkdog.

Try to boot into recovery mode again and wipe the drive a second time, format the wiped drive again, "I think" that MacOS Extended (Journaled) is the right format for Sierra and earlier and APFS is for High Sierra and above, then try to begin the Sierra OS install anew.

If possible, do not use WiFi to download the Sierra OS but use a network patch cable directly between the Mac and your router.

If this still fails it might be an issue with Apples recovery server and not your computer and an alternative approach would be to find an empty external hard drive and create on it a bootable Sierra installer using another computer. I believe this can be created on both Apple and Windows machines although I have only ever used this method to create a bootable macOS installer disk from another Mac. Once your bootable installer disk is created you can start your Mac from that disk and install the Sierra OS directly from that and not have to use the Apple recovery server at all.

Plenty of help on the web that shows how to create a bootable installer disk and download Sierra on to it.

HTH

Will.

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