High Sierra Fail - MacBook Pro 2011

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High Sierra Fail - MacBook Pro 2011

Hi! I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of and from searching. Reaching out to see if anyone has any other ideas.

I had (have?) High Sierra installed and was doing the update that was showing as an alert.

Computer went black during install. If it was sleeping, it wouldn't wake up. Not really sure if it was sleeping or just shut down.

Restarted and it was stuck on progress bar for about thirty minutes. Shutdown.
Started in safe mode and it was stuck on the progress bar for two hours. Shutdown.
Started to internet recovery and it keeps restarting every time I enter my login, which comes up every time. Also get the message that "your computer shut down because of and error....". Shutdown.
Started to Diagnostics (option-D), and get 3403D apple.com/support message.
Started with Option key. Entered internet password. Chose the only volume available. Entered login. Keeps restarting every time I enter my login, which comes up every time. Also get the message that "your computer shut down because of and error....". Shutdown.
Started holding down power button and continued to hold it until apple appeared. Logged in and occasionally tapped space bar to keep computer awake. It logged in to a dialogue box asking how I wanted to reset my password. No other options. Shutdown.
Started using Command - S. Stuck on progress bar.

When looking at my devices in settings, this computer shows it is running the update (10.13.6). Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 2:59 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

245,501 points

Sep 19, 2024 1:14 PM in response to ccochran

• error code -3403D simply means your computer won't run the internet-based AHT or the Command+D one because it's too old.

Apple Hardware Test (AHT)

Description

Apple computers ship with a pre-installed suite of hardware diagnostic tools, known as Apple Hardware Test (AHT). In principle you can start them by holding the d key while booting. Newer models support holding option d to load AHT over the internet. Refer to the official Apple documentation for details: Using AHT on Intel-based Macs, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite. Apple redesigned the AHT, now called Apple Diagnostics, for Macs introduced after June 2013. Consult the reference codes to interpret the results.

If however, you reinstalled an older computer from scratch, the diagnostic tools might no longer be available. Unless you have the original disks that came with your computer, there seems to be no way to restore the AHT.

It happens that Apple provides disk images with AHT for most computers, but does not make the links publicly available. Various blogs and forums, mostly Riven by Five and MacForum.ro have gathered a list of download links. The rest were obtained by scraping http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Hardware_Test/ for all the links of the form 0(18|22)-\d{4}-A.dmg.

Even though there's no guarantee that this list is correct or complete, some links can come in very handy to whoever is trying to debug hardware problems.

You can use the following terminal commands to determine the model and board ID of your computer:

sysctl hw.model | awk '{ print $2 }'

ioreg -l | awk -F\" '/board-id/ { print $4 }'

Download the AHT for your computer model and use the contents to restore the /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics folder, then reboot while holding d to start the diagnostic tools. Alternatively you may try

with a bootable USB stick, as described below. This is also the preferred way on OS X 10.11 or later, where the System Integrity Protection (SIP) no longer allows writing to system folders.

When trying to open an old dmg you may get the error 'legacy image should be converted'. To convert it to a newer format, open Disk Utility, in the menu Images click on Convert and select the dmg to convert and save it under a new name.

Note that there is no one-to-one correspondence between hardware model and AHT. For some models no hardware test could be found, while others seem to have multiple AHT. As the differences are not clear, feel free to try them out, to see which one works best for your hardware.

https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

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Answer 2

ccochran Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2024 3:12 PM in response to BDAqua

Thank you for your reply!

Do you have any ideas how I can get High Sierra reloaded? I am unable to get through the progress bar no matter what I try. It was working fine but then I did the upgrade that was listed in the App Store. That's when everything went to sh**. :)

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

245,501 points

Sep 19, 2024 3:25 PM in response to ccochran

1. Start up from macOS Recovery

Option-⌘-R

Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.

Look at top of screen for Utilities menu...

In Disk Utility>View, select Show all Devices, highlight the top left entry.

Run Disk First Aid on all items in the left panel, from top down.

APFS won't work for Sierra or earlier, Sierra or earlier needs MacOS Extended Journaled. High Sierra won't work for APFS on earlier Macs.

More details...

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)…

How to recover a Deleted Hard Drive durin… - Apple Community

If all else fails...

https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-fix-the-recovery-server-could-not-be-contacted-error-high-sierra-recovery-is-still-online-but-broken/

High Sierra “The Recovery Server Could No… - Apple Community

Use http:// instead of https://

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouNQS36dIBw&t=95s

The formula for caos: APFS+macOS High+EFI… - Apple Community

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