Downgrade new mac from High Sierra to Sierra

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Level 1

8 points

Downgrade new mac from High Sierra to Sierra

I recently received a new macbook pro. It came with High Sierra. In order to use it for work it HAS to have sierra on it. I spoke to someone at apple and they told me to create a boot drive and re-image the machine. I downloaded sierra and created a boot drive (32 gb usb-c drive)

Launched into boot option selected the boot disk. Went into disk utility and erased the SSD. Installed from the boot drive and when it was done it had a circle with the line through it. I have been forced into online recovery where my only option is High Sierra.

Any options?

Posted on Apr 10, 2018 5:42 PM

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Answer 1

Brimdavis Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 10, 2018 7:50 PM in response to etresoft

The boot disk was created from a MacBook pro that already came with Sierra, that I did get rght. And there dis was erased and all of its volumes. I did get it to work after multiple tries. The only thing I changed was having it attached via Ethernet. Funny how that made it successful.

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Answer 2

Apr 10, 2018 5:48 PM in response to Brimdavis

Due the fact that your Mac shipped with macOS High Sierra, you will not be able to downgrade past High Sierra. You are only able to downgrade your Mac to the version of macOS it shipped with, or the closest version available to that. You can read more here: How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

56,656 points

Apr 10, 2018 7:50 PM in response to Brimdavis

Hello Brimdavis,

Even if that is possible, there are many ways to do that incorrectly, and only a few to do it right. There is no way to know if you erased the disk itself or just the volume. Was your boot drive Sierra? If so, then Sierra will boot the machine. If you are required to have Sierra, then you should already have a Sierra machine somewhere. Use that machine to make a boot disk and copy the Sierra installer onto it. You may need to go down the command line to erase the disk. Disk Utility is noticeably less powerful than it was years ago.

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Answer 4

Brimdavis Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 10, 2018 7:52 PM in response to William725

I was able to get it downgraded. I just needed an Ethernet cable attached.

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Downgrade new mac from High Sierra to Sierra

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