If you can still boot this Mac normally, then I highly recommend creating a bootable macOS 11.x Big Sur USB installer using the instructions in this Apple article:
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
If you cannot boot normally or into Safe Mode on this Mac to make the USB installer, then see if you can try accessing Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R instead which should have it boot to the Big Sur online installer (theoretically, since some Macs will just boot to the online installer for the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory).
Right now the older online macOS installers seem to have an issue connecting to the Apple server when selecting the "Reinstall macOS" option, so I would not recommend erasing the internal drive especially if accessing the online 10.13 or earlier online installers until Apple fixes the issue. Several of us have tried reporting the server issue to Apple about a week ago, but we have not heard anything about whether anyone is even looking into the issue. They did acknowledge our initial submission.
Mattg90 wrote:
What's even worse, in the old disk utility section there's no 'Macintosh HD' drive visible, only 'OS X base system'. I've never encountered something like that and I think someone was doing some weird stuff to that system.
Is this laptop using a third party internal SSD? If so, then you would need to be booting into macOS 10.13+ in order to see the physical SSD since older versions of macOS don't have the necessary driver to communicate with an NVMe SSD which most third party SSDs utilize.
Do you have access to another Mac compatible with an OS this MBAir supports? If so, then you can use that other Mac to make a bootable macOS USB installer even if it is an older installer like 10.13.
Hi, my girlfriend got an old MacBook Air from her friend (probably 2014, doesn't say the year in 'about this Mac', which is weird).
I have seen this with some of our organization's Macs. You can get the exact model of the Mac by entering the system serial number here:
Check Your Service and Support Coverage - Apple Support
