trying to reinstall the OS on a MacBook Air.

Question

trying to reinstall the OS on a MacBook Air.

I'm trying to reinstall the OS on a MacBook Air. I got it from my former company, and they didn't keep the OS install disc, in fact they wiped it and put Windows 7 on it. I have quite a few macs, and have always used an external USB disc and can install but this machine is so fickle and throws up the multilingual failure message upon boot. I was, however, able to boot into a recovery volume that was on my external hard drive, and I burned Snow Leopard to the machine's OWN hard drive, and when it booted up, it failed again.

MacBook Air, model A1465

Posted on Apr 27, 2013 11:51 PM

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Answer 1

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Apr 27, 2013 11:54 PM in response to ChizaCreative

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities

You have a Mid 2012 MacBook Air. This MacBook Air isn't compatible with Snow Leopard, and that's the reason why you are getting a kernel panic when you try to start up Snow Leopard.

In order to reinstall OS X, you can use that recovery volume or Internet Recovery (hold Command, Option and R keys while your computer is starting). Then, open Disk Utility, choose your hard disk at the top of the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the drive. Finally, close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2013 12:10 AM in response to mende1

my inernet is too slow, but i have a backup from my Macbook pro runing 10.8.3 but its not working what can i do

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Answer 3

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Apr 28, 2013 12:11 AM in response to ChizaCreative

You said that you have a backup from a MacBook Pro. Did you make it with Time Machine or another app? You can use it in your MacBook Air, if you want. What happens when you try to use it?

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Answer 4

Apr 28, 2013 1:15 AM in response to mende1

i make it with a time machine but it does not work when i put it on my air, when i restart it shows but it does not continue.

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Answer 5

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Apr 28, 2013 1:56 AM in response to ChizaCreative

So you see the backup as a bootable volume when you start your computer, right? You have to restore the backup, not start from it. One of the Time Machine disadvantages is that the backup you make with Time Machine aren't bootable.

To restore the backup, start in Internet Recovery holding Command, Option and R keys while your computer is starting. Then, you will see an option to restore backups, so press it and follow the steps

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Answer 6

JimN

Level 2

275 points

Nov 12, 2013 7:50 AM in response to mende1

Mende1,

Is there any chance of forcing a load of Snow Leopard onto a Mid-2012 MBA?

Thanks!

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