Problem with reinstalling MacOS - (For experts)

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Level 1

4 points

Problem with reinstalling MacOS - (For experts)

I have an iMac late 2009 model 11,1. It was running well with high Sierra for years. then recently opera, the last functioning browser for that operating that I could find was freezing also after I restart. So I thought why not making a PRAM reset which I haven't done for a long time. It was the beginning of a huge problem.

I had a conversation with Apple support and they went through all the steps with me like resetting with all the combination of keys on the keyboard that we all know. At the end, they told me to erase all internal discs, which I did. Including my recovery partition.

Reinstalling an operating system from the Internet via the App Store, did not work. Error: 403.

Reinstalling from a Time Machine back up did then also not work.

I fed the drives (there is a 2 TB SATA drive inside, which was delivered with a Mac and a 500GB SSD drive which I built into the space where the DVD drive was. when I did this like five years ago, I used the small drive as my main drive with the operating system because of its higher speed.

So at the moment, nothing seems to work anymore.

According to apples advice, I used OpenCore Legacy patcher. I created installers with all the 4 available operating systems (From Sonama to Big Sur) using the latest version of the patcher 1.4.2.

Nothing worked.

I installed it to a micro SD card Drive which I connected via Bluetooth to the iMac and started the installation from there.

I also started the iMac in hard drive mode and installed the patcher from another Mac directly to the big hard drive and then started it with alt key from there trying to install the operating system to the small drive and vice versa.

I formated the drives one time with APFS and other times with MacOS journaled.

At one point, I managed to install Monterey and migrating the data from the time machine back up. The system was quite slow, but it worked. But not everything. I could not connect it to the Internet. Not through Wi-Fi and not cable.

At another time I managed to install Monterey from one of the internal hard drives and it also worked.

And this Time the patcher asked me to install the past installation files (I think it was the past install root patch) also to fix the wifi. After that, the reboard process did not function anymore.

Also, I always went through EFI normally.

I also downloaded Sierra and High Sierra and other operating systems, and tried to install them from my Mac Pro to the iMac, when it was in HDD Mode. It didn't let me do because it said it's connected to a Mac in HDD mode or in other cases it did not let me choose the internal hard drives on the iMac saying that there is no operating system on those hard drives and therefore the operating system cannot be installed.

So for a week, I tried everything that came up to my mind (as described above) and now I'm running out of ideas.

Is anyone of you capable of helping in this case?

It would be more than awesome.

Thank you very much!

Best regards, Mario Krsek

iMac 27″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Apr 2, 2024 3:29 AM

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Answer 1

MartinR

Level 7

25,480 points

Apr 2, 2024 6:34 AM in response to Mar_Rio

High Sierra (10.13.6) was the final version of macOS that your 2009 iMac is compatible with.

OpenCoreLegacyPatcher is an unauthorized (some would say hack) app used to install non-compatible versions of macOS. You should have no expectation of full performance, or even acceptable performance, if you have used it. It's hard to believe that anyone from Apple would have even suggested using it.

Best recommendation is to build a bootable installer for High Sierra on a flash drive and use that to reinstall High Sierra on your old 2009 iMac. And because you have done a bunch of things with the drive in the 2009 iMac, I suggest doing a complete wipe & reformat before attempting another install. And I believe that because you have SSDs in the 2009 iMac, you will need to refomat them to APFS.

BTW, Firefox is still supported on High Sierra. It's in "Extended Support" status at this point which means that it is still being updated. The final Firefox ESR release for High Sierra will occur in October 2024 but it will still be usable long after that date. I have 2 older Macs running Firefox on High Sierra and they both function perfectly.

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Answer 2

MartinR

Level 7

25,480 points

Apr 3, 2024 12:34 PM in response to Mar_Rio

Mar_Rio wrote:

What are you suggesting?

I don't understand what you are asking for here. My original post indicated what I suggested to do.

Some of the problems you have described may indicate longstanding hardware problems with your 2009 iMac, which may be the SATA drive. But because you have been doing things repeatedly with OpenCoreLegacyPatcher, macOS & Linux it's difficult to say if the problems are hardware vs. software related.

At this point I would suggest doing a fresh install of High Sierra on an external drive. Then do a PRAM reset & an SMC reset and then boot the 2009 iMac from the external drive.

If it does not boot from the external drive, then the 2009 iMac may be dead
If it boots & runs from the external drive then the iMac is probably ok.
If it boots & runs from the external drive you could then try installing High Sierra on the internal drive. You would need to put a copy of the High Sierra installer on the external drive and run it from there.
If there remains any problem installing High Sierra on the internal drive then I would suspect the internal drive is bad.

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

85,382 points

Apr 2, 2024 11:58 AM in response to Mar_Rio

Agreed with MartinR.

Browsers by Mac operating system - Apple Community

has all the compatible browsers on one page for each OS.

APFS is only visible to High Sierra and higher OSes. So unless your boot system on your Mac Pro is High Sierra, it won't see APFS on other Macs.

Startup Manager should detect other Macs over Firewire if the other Mac has Firewire. But as the Mac Pro does not have built-in Thunderbolt, and Target Disk mode doesn't support USB, you will be very limited with newer Macs.

Thunderbolt/Firewire adapters do not support booting either.

You can boot directly off an external hard drive.

And OpenCore again really should be removed to avoid further issues. To do so you need to wipe and restore the OS after uninstalling it with the OpenCore directions.

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Answer 4

MartinR

Level 7

25,480 points

Apr 3, 2024 12:14 PM in response to Mar_Rio

Mar_Rio wrote:

Thank you very much, will first try this. But I am a bit confused about wether to format with APFS (which you say) or MacOS Extended (which Apple says on their page: Create a bootable installer - Apple Support).

I will try APFS first, as you say.

The flash drive that you use for the bootable installer should be formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled as indicated in the Apple instructions.

My earlier comment about APFS was that the SSDs in your 2009 iMac would need to be formatted as APFS. It had nothing to do with the flash drive.

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Answer 5

Apr 2, 2024 6:33 PM in response to Mar_Rio

You will need to perform a PRAM Reset since Open Core will customize some NVRAM settings....I have no idea what it may do when installing an older OS.

Depending on how you use this older Mac, you may want to consider installing Linux Mint on this iMac. Linux is a great way of extending the useful life of older computers by giving them a current up to date non-Apple OS which is able to use the current versions of most popular web browsers (Firefox, Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and others). It also has access to lots of free open source software for a variety of things including the LibreOffice suite. Linux is not for everyone and it does require you to learn a new OS. You can easily test Linux Mint by selecting the "Live" option when booting the Linux Mint USB installer. However, performance will be very slow when booted from a USB stick, but it will give you an idea of what to expect without touching your current macOS installation.....performance will be much better when installed to an internal drive. Just make sure to have a good bootable macOS 10.13 High Sierra USB installer before erasing the system so you can easily reinstall macOS if you dislike Linux Mint.

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Answer 6

Mar_Rio Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 3, 2024 12:10 AM in response to MartinR

Thank you very much, will first try this. But I am a bit confused about wether to format with APFS (which you say) or MacOS Extended (which Apple says on their page: Create a bootable installer - Apple Support).

I will try APFS first, as you say.

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Answer 7

Mar_Rio Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 3, 2024 2:01 AM in response to a brody

I wiped the 2 internal drives of the iMac11,1 with the MacPro5,1 via Thunderbolt/Firewire and Target Disk mode (if that's the one which shows the big firewire symbol on the iMac Screen after starting with T) which they have both. But now install process freezes..

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Answer 8

Apr 3, 2024 6:18 AM in response to Mar_Rio

Did you try a PRAM Reset? Make sure to hold the PRAM Reset for at least two chimes if possible. Open Core from what I understand places some customized settings into the PRAM and those settings may not be compatible with a normal macOS setup. Otherwise, it would appear you may have a hardware issue of some sort.

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Answer 9

Mar_Rio Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 3, 2024 7:23 AM in response to HWTech

Yes I did the PRAM Reset for 3 chimes as always. Nothing changed. Now i installed Linux mint. From the usb drive it ran well, but after installing it to the ssd internal drive, it did not boot afterwards. Now i repaired the boot sector with the boot repair from linux and i am installing it again. This time to the SATA internal drive (which some time before could not be activated with the disk utility from Apple from my Mac pro after formatting it.) Linux showed it is in read-only mode. I now formatted the SATA drive with the default settings under Linux. Same with the SSD.

At the moment I'm running an installation on the SATA Drive... (by the way I checked several times the drives on several Macs with the first aid from the disk utility program and it never showed any issue. Always green at the end.)

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Answer 10

Mar_Rio Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 3, 2024 7:42 AM in response to Mar_Rio

And since 1-2 years I always hat to start with the option key and then choose the drive with the MacOS. By just turning on with the power button it just went to a screen with this grey crossed circle, I think.

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Answer 11

Mar_Rio Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 3, 2024 7:47 AM in response to HWTech

And since 1-2 years I always hat to start with the option key and then choose the drive with the MacOS. By just turning on with the power button it just went to a screen with this grey crossed circle, I think.

And now after having installed Lenox on the SATA Drive I restarted the computer and it just went to Black and stayed there. I could hear the Linux welcome sound though.

So the moment the only thing that works is if I start Linux mint from a USB drive and when i choose the compatibility mode.

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