How to recover a Deleted Hard Drive during macOS reinstallation

Like many others, I ran into the dreaded “The recovery server could not be contacted” message when trying to do a restore of Mac OS High Sierra for a 2010 13 inch MBP that I was selling (yes I know it’s worth almost nothing, but someone wanted to buy it from me).

I tried all of the recommended fixes:

Check Internet / WiFi connection: They are fine

Check date to make sure it is current: It’s fine

Check to see if Apple’s OS Update Server is up: It’s fine

In the end the only way I was able to get around the “recovery server could not be contacted” issue was to install a bootable version of High Sierra on a flashdrive, then boot the 2010 MBP holding down the Option key to get the installation started.  It was necessary to use Terminal to make it work.

The first step is to get a High Sierra Installer through the App Store.  I downloaded it on another 13 inch MBP that runs Mojave, and after the download was complete there was a message that High Sierra was too old for this computer and will not be installed.  Obviously I didn’t want to install it on that computer anyway.  I never could figure out where the Installer file went; it wasn’t in Downloads. 

Here are some other problems that had to be overcome.

The 2010 MBP had a 500 GB SSD.  It was formatted as APFS, and everything I read seemed to indicate that it needed to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).  Disk Utility would not give me the option of formatting in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), so that had to be done using Terminal:  

In Terminal type:

diskutil list

to get a list of all drives.  Identify the disk you want to format.  For example, assume it is disk0.

Type this command in Terminal to format the SSD in Mac OS Extended (Journaled):

         diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ <your drive name> /dev/disk0

where <your drive name> is what you want to call the disk.

The flashdrive I was using also had to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).   This could be done in Disk Utility.

The procedure for transferring the Installer file to the flashdrive is described here:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

The process will appear to stop after the flashdrive is erased and the High Sierra Installer begins installation, but give it time (about 15 minutes).  Eventually the installation to the flashdrive will be completed and Terminal will advise it is complete.

Installation onto the 2010 MBP was straightforward: Insert the flashdrive into a USB port, boot with the Option key held down and follow the prompts.