2011 Macbook Air i5 1.7 13" (Mid-2011) - macOS High Sierra

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2011 Macbook Air i5 1.7 13" (Mid-2011) - macOS High Sierra

I have a 2011 Macbook Air i5 1.7 13" (Mid-2011) that had macOS High Sierra on it. I have wiped the mac and as it was shipped with Lion it installed macOS Lion. I made a bootable USB for macOS Mountain Lion so it's now on macOS Mountain Lion 10.8.

I'm trying to install macOS High Sierra from bootable USB but I get "The recovery server could not be contacted." I checked the network and date/time and that is all OK and tried formatting USB with BaseSystem.DMG files and the macOS.High.Sierra.10.13.6.DMG file but it fails to install the macOS. When formatted with macOS.High.Sierra.10.13.6.DMG it only found macOS high sierra when booted into internet recovery but then I still get the "The recovery server could not be contacted." error.

Anyone know how I can get High Sierra on this mac? Anyone know where I can get a good installer? I tried from the official apple documentation:- macappstores://apps.apple.com/gb/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?mt=12

(How to download and install macOS – Apple Support (UK)) but these installers don't seem to work anymore.

The Yosemite and above internet ones give me this error:-

Not Found on Accelerator

Description: Your request on the host was not found. Check the location and try again.

When I try the one from the mac apple store (High Sierra one for example) it takes me to the mac apple store to get but either crashes or fails to install.

Posted on Dec 9, 2023 12:44 AM

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Answer 1

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WirelessFreak Author

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5 points

Dec 9, 2023 5:46 AM in response to WirelessFreak

UPDATE:- I actually found the installers on Apple documentation didn't work on machine running macOS Ventura. However, I found a machine running macOS Catalina and it installed High Sierra OK... I was then able to create bootable USB following the cmd on apple documentation.

This appears to be progressing further than my previous attempt at bootable High Sierra using dmg file I found online. This is installing and says 30+ mins to install macOS High Sierra. Fingers crossed. Will take it from there... hopefully with Legacy Patchers I may be able to push to a higher OS when on High Sierra.

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Answer 2

Dec 9, 2023 1:21 AM in response to WirelessFreak

Apple ignored me on chat when I asked them about this issue (didn't respond and chat timed out 3 times). I get the impression they don't want to help someone with old hardware... immediately looked to blame that on one chat "so you're having issues installing macOS on 2012 macbook air, is that right?"

I didn't even say I had a macbook air and was on the chat on my windows machine so I wonder if they got that from this post??? I told them the installer didn't work on a newer Mac I had tried on too and they just blanked me from there.

I get that Apple want you to have the newest hardware so that could be a potential motivation behind all installers other than a useless macOS mountain lion one working (that's unusual isn't it? It's like they purposely broke the useful ones so older hardware can't upgrade to it).

Worst case scenario is I'll install Linux on this mac but if anyone knows of a patching tool or a known working macOS high sierra installer to create a bootable USB that would be great.

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2011 Macbook Air i5 1.7 13" (Mid-2011) - macOS High Sierra

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