imac high Sierra 10.13.6

I believe you are encountering a common problem, confirmed on multiple Macs of similar age.

Complaints began a few weeks ago are becoming increasingly frequent and increasingly desperate:

Re: macOS Sierra Recovery

Re: Error Recovery server can't be contacted

Re: iMac A1312 goes straight to macOS Utilities and can’t get it to do anything else

We are eagerly awaiting an answer from Apple. Contact Apple Support you wish, but be prepared for the "your Mac is no longer supported" brush-off: Official Apple Support

Until then, your options are described below.

That Mac shipped with optical installation media (DVDs) that must accompany it from cradle to grave. Boot from the one labeled "System Install DVD" to reinstall its shipping software, which from what you described appears to have been OS X 10.7.x "Lion". Those Macs shipped somewhere around the first half of 2011.

Assuming you no longer have those two grey discs, the next best option is to obtain a retail, white, Mac OS X Snow Leopard DVD. Apple no longer sells them but they can be found from aftermarket sources.

Do not purchase a "USB installer" since there can be no guarantee they don't contain malware. Besides, selling them would be violating Apple's licensing restrictions.

For reference: If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support

Hi, Jeffwillcreg, yes, I agree, you're in a very tuff situation right now, as you don't have the time (and money) to get your iMac fixed. Hopefully, Me (and US, all of us Mac users here) can help you do that...

first off, that flashing question mark thing means your iMac and Mac OS can't find a valid system folder to boot up from.... secondly, you are trying to (I believe) try to do Internet Recovery--Command+Option+R, and your iMac may be too old to do that....no worries, I have a Classic Mac Pro 5,1 and I can't do that either...so that leaves either using the built in Recovery Partition which you can get to by rebooting and holding down the Apple (Command)+R keys together on startup... before you try to access the built in Recovery partition, you should reset the smc/ PMU and zap pram 4 times on startup, as per this link, it couldn't hurt, anyways...::->https://www.macworld.com/article/224955/how-to-reset-a-macs-nvram-pram-and-smc.html

THEN

after doing that, then try to access the built in Recovery Partition by restarting and holding down Apple+R keys together on startup....if you see a language selection screen, it worked....pick one and continue...to get to Mac OS X tools, which you may need, move your cursor to the top center (centre) of your screen and click, Mac OS X Tools should now show up.. .Run Disk Utility.... see if you can re-install the Mac OS from the Recovery Partition.... if so, great, make sure your built in drive (hard drive or SSD) is set as the Startup/Boot Drive just as you finish. It doesn't pick that automatically, it isn't the default, so you have to do that, because if you don't, you'll boot up to the Recovery Partition or whatever which is not really what you want, is it??? Otherwise, you'd have to make a Mac OS X Bootable USB stick/Flash drive/thumb drive with a copy of the High Sierra Installer on it, or at least Sierra....maybe Snow Leopard would do in an emergency.... anyways, you'll need a copy of the installer (MacOS) plus a properly Mac formatted USB stick of at least 8 gigs capacity/size but 16 gigs is better, and you'd probably need to borrow/use someone else's Mac to do this on.... it is, I suppose, technically possible to do it all in Windows, but I have no idea how right now... anyways, here's a link to High Sierra installer:->How to download and install macOS - Apple Support (CA)

that link covers from Lion (Mac OS 10.7 ) to Ventura, Mac OS 13) which is pretty much all of 'em....

good luck

John B

Sorry, Jeffwillcreg… I don’t know what Apple says as I don’t work for Apple and Apple doesn’t reply/post here-we’re just Mac users here same as you… I’d suggest you see if you can boot up from the built in Recovery Partition… then get to Mac OS X tools and run Disk Utility… verify that your built in hard drive/SSD is good and healthy, not too many bad blocks… check on its S.M.A.R.T. Status.., hard drives ( and SSD’s ) can and do fail suddenly and without much warning, if at all… so, if you can, obtain an external hard drive/ssd of the same size/capacity as the one in your iMac, USB, and assuming you can get your iMac working halfway decently, set it up as a Time Machine backup drive, it’s not hard to set up and use Time Machine, and then back that puppy up !! If disk utility finds some problems it can’t fix, then you may have to go buy a backup/recovery application, eg DataRescue 3?? ( or some such)

fingers crossed

John B

You're welcome but I don't know when or even if Apple will address this concern. There is nothing to compel them to do anything.