Q: 2009 iMac only showing Disk Utility
Just picked up a new to me iMac, my first off of CraigsList and well... some time between checking out the machine and picking it up he formatted the hard drive and a) wiped out the recovery partition and b) wiped out the OS. I am only able to boot into the OSX Utilities and need some assistance for how to proceed.
When I was there the guy showed me that it was ready to be upgraded to Yosemite.
As this is my only Mac I am in a rough spot in terms of getting the old OS on there.
OS X: About Recovery Disk Assistant - Apple Support
I grabbed the Recovery Disk Assistant and got it onto a Mac formatted USB Drive and I have copied it over to the drive on the machine in question. In running it there is a notice saying:
"The Recovery HD on this computer is damaged or not present. Recovery Disk Assistant requires a functioning Lion Recovery HD to create an external Lion Recovery"
I also nosed around a bit and there is another app in the root to install OS X Mavericks.
When running this, it checks my machine for whether it is a valid upgrade and I am able to sign into my apple account. Before long though, it bounces out saying that the item is temporarily unavailable. As I understand it, this requires that I run the recovery disk, which brings us full circle.
Any assistance would be very appreciated. I have used mac's previously @work this is supposed to be a machine for the wifey and I'd like to get this taken care of so she can get into her new gift and start Mac'n it up! =)
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 2009 Model iMac
Posted on Sep 20, 2015 11:24 PM
The seller should have restored the machine to it's original state and provided you with the original OS X discs. Your best course of action at this time is to purchase a Snow Leopard install disc http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard Once you have installed 10.6 you can use Software Update to get to 10.6.8 and access the Mac App Store and upgrade to Yosemite for free. It's hignly recommended to have at least 8GB of ram if you want to run Yosemite. Mavericks is no longer available.
Posted on Sep 21, 2015 12:32 PM